TimR

You sound quite intense to me. When you're not practicing you're looking at videos of bass players. You're making an effort and trying hard to get along with people. Playing bass in a band should be easy and relaxing. You shouldn't have to try hard to get along with people. There's a middle ground between playing roots and playing bars full of notes. Maybe relax a bit and play more rests, listen to the rest of the instruments and only fill gaps if they really need to be filled. A lot of those bass player videos are demonstrating ideas and lots of ideas in shirt clips. You don't have to use all the ideas all of the time.

If you think having to wait a couple of weeks for guitar strings is bad, step into my world. I was quoted 12 week lead time for some equipment for work at the beginning of 2021. 74 weeks later and I'm still waiting. I hope it's the right one when it arrives.

Yes. The cement and ballast was from Wickes and delivered next day. Wickes don't sell the level I was after and Screwfix were also out of stock at my local shop and strangely no option for delivery. I thought I could get it same day on my way home from my morning activity but just meant I worked on something else instead.

I purchased a laser level using click and collect from my local B&Q that was showing 3 in store. I converted some points I had to B&Q vouchers. An hour later I received an email saying my order had been cancelled as the item wasn't in stock and I would be refunded in the next 14 days. It was a Sunday, their call centre wasn't open etc etc. So I ordered the item from another B&Q near where I work. And promptly got stuck at work the next day... Eventually got to pick it up on the Wednesday morning. The lady handed me a Tri square... 🤯 Her error, the higher value click and collect items weren't left in the cardboard box right next to the front door. 😁 Anyway, the job I was going to do on the Sunday afternoon was finished on the Wednesday night on time for the concrete to set before Easter weekend sun. Still waiting for my refund...

Pulling this apart a bit. I think what you're complaining about is double standards. Guitarists who aren't playing note for note, asking you to. This is a difficult one to deal with. Sometimes they're just trying to cover their bad playing by deflecting attention to you. I've had that a few times, I've played something note for note, the guitarist has then insisted we listen to the original, then played the bass line on guitar, badly and loudly, I'll repeat exactly what I'd played before, and they'll say, yes that's it. I don't worry about it too much now. Played for years with a terrible drummer who convinced me I was out of time and wrong. They went through 3 bass players very quickly after I left and I recently spoke to their latest bass player who was having the same issues 10 years later. 😁 Ultimately no band plays it exactly as per the recording, even if they think they do.

The club will be protecting themselves. Anyone injured on their property is covered by their insurance. The club insurers are reducing their exposure to risk by making sure 3rd parties liable to cause injury are covered.

You would then probably have to incorporate the band as a separate business identity. That's a lot of messing around.

There really should be a sticky for this, it comes up so often. The PAT test basically gives you proof that you've periodically inspected your equipment. Most people will already have PLI if they're a home owner but it could be difficult to prove the activity of playing in a band isn't a business activity. It may be worth talking to your insurer and get them to write to you to say they'll cover you. Similar to how you notify them if you have possessions over £1000.

There's no way a 9v battery will last 10 years!

I only use one for gigs. The other stays in its case. My main bass has failed twice. The first time was in 2009 and the second time 2019. I've been playing bass since 1985, so close on 25 years without a failure. Funnily enough the singer offered to bring his bass to the gig as a spare and I'd asked him why would I need a spare? In 2019 I had a spare, learned my lesson 10 years earlier. 2 failures in 35 years is a reasonable failure rate. Both times failed machine heads on the E string, restringing a bass so the E, A and D strings are in the A, D and G positions during the first verse of the first song and then playing an entire gig on 3 strings is quite tricky. Spare bass wins every time over that outcome.

Neither. They're both a poor compromise. At what point does it become glorified karaoke? Singer with a guitar playing to full backing track? It's OK, but it's not a live band. My brother played drums in a band with sequenced keys parts that he programmed. In the end they got a non musical drummer in and my brother played keys. IMO they should have just lost the keys the drummer wasn't a good match. Its a different skill set playing to a sequencer. Not something I enjoy doing. I prefer to have some breathing within the music that you don't get playing to a fixed tempo, or and an opportunity to extend songs adding verses and choruses if it's going down well. Sound engineers who are PA operators aren't engineers.

I found playing in bands like that, you're given the dots to play. No improvisation, you play the arrangement. The great aspect of that is that you know the finished article will sound good, and you don't have to spend time working out your part. Turn up and play what's written. I remember once we bought in a pro conductor for a concert, he stopped us during a rehearsal and asked the drummer what the hell he was playing, the drummer couldn't read music, and up until then the conductors had let it slide if it fitted. 😆 If you think Sex on Fire is boring you want to try playing some Tuba lines...

I don't see how this is possible in a band of 4 people. Then in a bigger band it becomes more and more difficult to find music that every member of the band likes and that will engage the audience. No wonder so many of you don't want to gig and prefer to stay at home on your own. To me that's the opposite of why I play music. The sum of the parts and the socialising is what makes music fun.

It was an example. I used plumber because everyone keeps comparing musicians pay to call out plumbers pay. Could be any job, every job has some aspect that's menial and just has to be done. Some jobs are completely menial...

There are very few amateur musicians who can operate at this level. If you can, then that's the level of playing to aim at. It's the difference to playing Sex on Fire for the 1000th time and playing it for the first time. I've never played it, and I'm actually still to hear any band play that intro as per the original recording, not that it matters. 😆

Seems to be mainly bass players who feel they're not being musical if they're not playing music they like, or are playing music that's too easy for them. Seems to me that's being quite pompous. My point still stands, we can't all do something interesting all the time. That's life. If everything we did was fun and interesting there would be nothing to compare fun and interesting against and everything would just become one level. It's all about differences, light and shade, fast and slow, long and short, simple and complex. Especially in music.

Yes. And still have to do the boring stuff.

Steve Lawson plays gigs...

Possibly. But bass players? What does a bass player do who is not playing with other musicians?

Surely being a musician is the same as every job. There's extremely boring parts to everyone's job that we just have to knuckle down and get done. A load of people like to compare us to call out plumbers. I'm guessing a lot of call outs plumbers go to are unblocking drains or stopping floods. Hardly exciting new problems and creatively designing new installs.

My Spotify has no adverts. YouTube does have a play history but mine isn't limited to songs I've got to learn for the band. There's more than one way to skin a cat, I'm just suggesting one I find a lot more easy to manage and share. If we add a song to the playlist it automatically updates on everyone's list. Plus I can listen to an entire Spotify playlist or select a single track in the car via the car ICES, or even via google voice control. Not sure YouTube and diving are compatible.

The problem is you then have to keep a list of links somewhere and sit through adverts. I find YouTube a nightmare to learn songs through.

I have created a Spotify playlist. We use those songs as the reference songs and only those songs. However, it didn't seem to prevent the argument: "that version isn't the original one that everyone knows that's on YouTube that I already learned". Even though it was executed the same note for note. 🤦‍♂️

In terms of PA, there's a big difference to playing a pub or small club vs a dedicated music venue or theatre, or festival. I'm not sure anyone can generalise what other people should do, based on what they do, without taking into consideration the type of venue and band that they're in.

I agree with the hpf. Just turn down all his bass knobs on his monitor amp. But ideally you need to start thinking about your song arrangements more closely together. Rather than saying "Don't do this." you need to work together to find something that works on each different song. Sometimes the keys will be glad that they don't have to use their left hand (certainly some I've played with have said it's good not to have to play everything all the time.) Or maybe program bottom half of keys for string pads up an octave etc and just thicken the sound with one chord per bar type playing.