dave moffat

Ooh just had a quick little noodle and worked out a bassline to Mustang Sally, simple but so COOL. Duly added to play list 😜

Yeah everyone has to start somewhere and it wouldn't be hard to find musicians better than me, my missus is seriously good at keyboards with all the theoretical stuff as well so she can more or less play anything, I threatened to cut off her fingers at the weekend cos she just picked up a uke and nailed something straight off, she picks up a uke/mandolin/guitar maybe once a month FFS. One of my granddaughters started learning bass at school so I got her a Gypsy Rose for an early Christmas present last year, which gave me the kick up the arris to dig the Ibanez I'd treated myself to about 7 yrs ago out of a cupboard, dust of the cobwebs and start learning seriously. I now have 3 basses with very different characters and plans for adding another next year. I've always loved music, think I was 6 when I started in a choir as a boy soprano soloist (now baritone), have a facility with recorders/whistles, just treated myself to a Howard, low D which will take a bit of getting up to speed with, learning baritone uke as well. We've converted a spare bedroom to a music room but instruments tend to migrate to the living room. I'll try and play pretty much anything but punk and reggae don't really do a lot for me but then I'm getting on a bit. I can sympathise with the comments on jams, I spent Tuesday's jam trying to work out what the chords were and playing the roots by ear which was bloody hard work but I'm sure will have helped me develop especially as I didn't know a lot of the songs, hence my writing down what we played and spending yesterday making up and printing off lyric/chord sheets. As I go to more jams I expect my playlist will expand and I'll get to learn the basslines, meantime I'll just keep the amp turned down real low. For now it's a very steep learning curve but at least I've made a start into inflicting my playing on others. Looking back I'm quite pleased with how far I've come in my first year but know I've still got a way to go and I don't think I'll ever be content with where I've got to, always more techniques, riffs, sounds to work out and learn.

Some Jazz is OKish, uncle had a Jazz band must've been 50s, wrote a lot of other stuff and the John Armitage Memorial Trust (JAM) was set up in his memory. If I even twitch in the direction of trad jazz then pleeez shoot me. Yeah a little mutual support would be a good thing I think we're about the same place in our musical disability. Other than that I'll have a go at playing most things. I'm in the forgotten bit of Scotland, up the M6/74 and turn left at Gretna, along the 'Euroroute' A75 (yeah that'll be right) at Dumfries take the A76 goat track, turn off for Throughgate. Dodge the homicidal Timber wagons and fetus tractor drivers with their mobile surgically attached to their lugs and if you survived that for 6 miles you'll be somewhere near the grand metropolis of Dunscore. Any Further and you risk reaching Moniaive where they have regular folk jams and annual Bluegrass and Country festivals. Franz Ferdinand had a pad there for a few years. Be afraid, be very afraid 😥. To be fair the whole area West of the Nith is very Artistic/Creative with various statues and stuff dotted randomly round the countryside.

First track sounds a bit ELO ish, nice though

Lol I never really got the 'whole blues thang' but I do like to play bluesy style - the Blues and Pantatonic scales/shapes and bending/sliding notes so maybe I'm on a dark slippery slope. Too far to North Wales, maybe we can start a mutual support group for the bassically challenged 😎 see even my emoji got bluesy shades on. I'm DOOMED!

Yeah I feel pretty nervous about joining folk who can really play while I'm still toddling along taking baby steps and resorting to messing around with root notes. Some kind of grouping like you tried to organise would be a great confidence builder. I've spent a lot of today downloading the lyrics an chords from last night so I'm not as lost as I felt. It's a lot about building a playlist now for me and the more different stuff I play the easier it'll be for me to make a decent stab at stuff I don't know in the future.

I have maybe 20mins driving to get to the 3 local jams though I discovered one of the guys stays a couple of hundred yards away though neither of us knows of the person living in between us who plays drums and guitar. I think it depends on the people quite a few were on shifts so it was a 'quiet' night and the regular bassist was away, I think you just play along. I found everyone very helpful and encouraging, in spite of them being incredibly good, I could easily have just sat back and listened to them all night. I had my amp down real low unless I was confident I had it sussed. As I didn't know a lot of the stuff I was mainly playing roots by ear and because I had things down low I struggled to hear myself, something I need to think on. Over the next few weeks I'll start downloading lyrics chords and tabs for the things they're playing regularly.

Thanks, it was 3 hrs of of stuff I knew stuff I'd vaguely heard of and stuff I'd never heard of, Intense and a load of fun. Loads to look up and learn at least the root notes of. Lovely bunch of people, it'll definitely become one of my regular evenings.

Hoping to join in a jam for the first time tonight, may well just hide in the corner watching 🙄

Probably too long for radio/TV, some bits drift a bit, could easily have been cut down to around 3 mins without losing anything and be less repetitive/better for it. IMHO, enjoyed it though.

Adagio fugue yourself

Its OK but looking back it's very similar to so much that was around at the time, so maybe too derivative 'same old formula' and just falling short on pretty much everything.

Cat Cannons? Or Baroque, D Cat Cannons

Living out in the sticks for me it's all youtwat vids the ones that suit me best are Become a Bassist and BassBuzz

Quite right, I've got a couple of ideas rattling around the echoing space normal folks keep their brains but no way I'm putting them out there.

today that cabs are for resting your beer on while playing pub gigs, anything to do with music is purely incidental. That there are a hell of a lot more wannabe musicians (me) and musicians (everyone else) out there than you'd think, its just a case of finding out where they hang out, in some pubs you're literally tripping over them. Once you find one or two they're coming out of the woodwork. Bassists are like hens teeth, drummers like unicorns.

Just been listening to a local band at the village pub, not so much a band as a bunch who jam together at the Riverside pub in Dumfries, really tight with some excellent musicians among them. One original number which was right up words there, lyrics by the vocalist with music by one of the guitarists there. Planning on dropping into the Riverside next week to get an idea and maybe cut my teeth on some tunes as I like the stuff they play.

Donna Kebab and the Hot Rings?

Found myself really getting into that

When you come down to it Eagles and CCR are/were 'country' but not in the yee-haw, dozy doh c#ntery type way Nice Horse are worth a listen in 'taking the fosters' sort of way, very easy on the eye as well

Easterbrook Hall in Dumfries, easy haul in, Hotel on site. Scottish National Uke Festival for the last 2 year, Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Phil Cunningham and Ally Bain, so plenty big enough.

How about Snow Petrel? Just googled it for a larf, it actually exists and is a beautiful bird 😜

Is that the one with the green doors?

I've found learning the major scale and the Nashville number system underpin all my learning. Lets me learn and understand shapes that I can easily move all over the fretboard for as long as my fingers do what they're told (head banging on wall emoje). Everything else is mostly just slight variations given fancy names to make it sound difficult by a bunch of 16/17th century, Viennese, cnts to protect their little musical mafia.....Allegro, Pianissimo, Pizzicato. I mean come on, no Brit would call things stuff like that I think there're 6 main Blues shape variations varying only in how and what order the notes are played, change them again with a shuffle or straight rock beat throw in a passing note, bend another, throw in a slide, its limitless fun. 12 bar blues root notes are in an 'L' shape just choose the pattern you want to play, where you want to start and that's it, anywhere on the fretboard. Simple two note root and fourth or fifth anyone?

I was wondering that until I saw what looks like a cutaway on the shoulder is actually a sound hole, cool.