TimR

Nope. Neither have I ever played Mr Brightside or Sex on Fire and the last time I played Mustang Sally was 2008. No one wants to play them and the only ptime people dance to them is when they're massively drunk. Again, the recurring theme on this thread is no one wants to play those tunes to a room full of drunk people. And you really don't have to.

Exactly. And as I pointed out if you're playing specialist gigs you'll have to travel around to find the venues and Pete claimed you wouldn't, and then said that's what he does. Additionally he has to use an agent to find the gigs. Successful dance bands have always kept their setlists fresh, my dad's band always had a numbers from the current top 40. I'd guess the difference now is there's no top 40 and Spotify etc have replaced Radio 1 as the mainstream music source. So we have to search around and pick newer songs to learn, but audiences really appreciate not hearing the 'classics' that every band seems to trot out. Bands seem petrified of trying anything different. No wonder some bass players are bored with gigging.

This is lazy setlist compiling in the extreme and going to end up the blind alley that the Dad Rock bands have gone down. If you want to play Hendrix and Led Zepplin becase that's the only music you like, then yes you're going to find fewer and fewer venues and audiences to play to. And that's why you have to travel around to find them. "Play something we know." doesn't mean, "Trot out some tired old classics that we hear every week.", but it certainly doesn't mean "Play something else you like, but we've never heard."

You're playing music no one else enjoys listening to? But people are enjoying listening to it? I think that you are missing something there. Either you are playing music other people do enjoy listening to, or your audience are faking enjoyment.

That's obviously not true at all. Playing music only you enjoy, by definition isn't going to appeal to a whole audience. And is completely different to enjoying the music you are playing.

It's worth bearing in mind the Beatles and Stones heyday music was 60 years ago. People who were big fans and teenagers then are now in their late 70s/80s.

That all goes with the territory. Problem is if you only do two gigs and one is rubbish then 50% of your gigs are rubbish. The more gigs you do, the more you'll understand whether what your playing is what people want to hear and you're just getting the odd duff audience, or whether it's the other way round. As I wrote earlier, if you're playing Dad Rock, all you'll get is Dads standing at the bar watching and drinking. If you play modern pop, you'll get a younger, keener more energetic audience. If you are dead set on only playing music you enjoy, the only person who will enjoy the music is you.

It was going OK. You do have to try a lot of songs to find ones that work quickly. Quite a few of them ended up being too much effort for little reward. When there are thousands of songs around just have to keep plugging away to find ones that suit and can be easily adapted to a 3 piece plus singer.

When my kids were small and I was working stupid hours, it became a source of great frustration that I was making some serious commitments with time, energy and money, when other members of the band who didn't have busy jobs and families weren't even making half the effort to learn and practice material or even cancel minor social nights out in order to play gigs. When your drummer decides he wants to watch football in the pub with his mates rather than play a wedding gig you start questioning if you're in the right band.

One pandemic later... Have picked up another 4 songs in the last 3 weeks from 12+ that have been suggested. Suffering a little bit and regressing a bit back to "But I have a heavy rock sounding guitar and all these are synthesizer songs".

Is it a full time job that would pay enough to warrant staying away from home? Or is it evenings and weekends and you are holding down a full time day job?

I don't understand that analagy. Changing your own wheel. Putting up your own shelf or curtain pole. Bleeding your radiators. Setting up your bass. Are all very simple jobs. Going to listen to a band vs playing in a band, are, I'd suggest, a completely different level. Otherwise, I'll just hand my bass to the first punter who enters the pub and tell them to get on with it....

Don't underestimate the number of people who think professional is better than what they can do, so must be better than what you can do. My guitarist has recommended his tech to me several times for me to get a 'proper' set up as 'it's a complicated thing to get right'. These are the kind of people who call out the AA to change a wheel on their car.

Learn the song structure before you pick up the bass. Work out what key it's in. Learn your major and minor scales, the rest will then be very easy. Be prepared to make changes to what you've 'learned' at home playing to the recording, because your band arrangement will be different for a variety of reasons, from talent through to instrumentation. Watch the rest of your band members and listen to what they're playing and adjust your playing to fit. Just playing what you 'learned at home' will not work. Once you have an arrangement sorted, record it on your phone and take it home and learn it all properly by playing it repeatedly. One gig is worth 1000 rehearsals, don't rehearse 1000 times before you gig. You will make mistakes and from them you will learn, no one else will remember them.

Just to clarify. The E machinehead broke. Twice. The original and then the stock replacement both broke. I thought it wise to change/upgrade the whole set.

I agree. Modify - drill or cut or otherwise somehow permanently change the original item. Swap - change something that may make something look or sound better or different. Upgrade - change something for something that's better quality and more reliable. I've upgraded the machineheads on my bass from cheap Chinese aluminum machineheads to Gotoh machineheads. I've fitted straplocks. Which are not permanent, so neither a modification or upgrade.

There's a bit more to it than just this, but this guy explains how the algorithm presents people with 'reasearch' which can drag the susceptible down a rabbit hole. And ultimately ruin lives. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMLPwooRQ/

Haggis eat a special food known as Lego. It makes one leg go longer than the other.

I'm fairly sure there was a study somewhere that found women listen to the lyrics and men listen to the music. I'll see if I can find it.

Why are you wasting your time and energy? Ignore it and they'll either come back with a decent offer or go away. You're getting emotionally involved, annoyed and frustrated for no reason whatsoever, and you're giving them an indication that you'll engage with them. Why spend any energy and time on people who aren't serious?

Don't get emotional, it's a business transaction. Keep it friendly and answer the questions. Avoid sarcasm or whit as that will go missing in written communication. If the buyer can't string a sentence together then they're hardly likely to have been able to read the original advert. Sometimes English is not their first language, again, a lot of nuance can be missing or missed in written communication. Answer questions politely and don't get drawn into conversation that's not directly related to the object being bought/sold. Don't reply to anything that's not a direct question. It may be frustrating but if you want to sell something that's just what you have to cut through.

When I was playing the Tuba the arranger gave all the music in treble cliff. This was historical because players would often move 'down' the band from trumpet, through baritone and euphoniums as they got older. I used to spend a lot of time writing fingerings on the parts for a couple of the other players in my section. They could do it but it was quicker for me to do it.

I do both. It's useful. So put me in the middle group who don't imply anything. Previously on this subject I've said that most pop songs should be fairly quickly learned with one listen through by anyone who calls themselves a bass player. It should be any musician's aim to learn to use their ears. If you're not listening in a group situation you'll just sound like a bunch of instrument owners playing off rote. Music is like any other language.

So I guess maybe the Tab isn't 'wrong' unless the notes actually don't fit the key or chord quality, they're simply just someone's interpretation. Ultimately, and we've done this a hundred times, no one will be playing the original recorded arrangement live for a variety of reasons.