TimR

Keanu Reeves.

The short bloke from Top Gear.

Yes. It's a fine art to play one as well.

Especially if you're not going to last the full distance.

Went to see Richard Bona at the jazz cafe mid-week about 10 years ago. Doors opened at 7. We arrived at 8. Usually bands start at 9. He eventually appeared at 10pm. At 10:30 large numbers of people started to leave to catch the last train home, so they could get up in the morning for work.

OK. We'll maybe I'll concede, obviously if you've paid loads of money to get into a Richard Bona gig, I would suggest you go to the box office and complain to them and try and get your money back.

The option is not to go and see Richard Bona live. And if a band starts doing something you're not enjoying, leave. I think we've covered- "I don't play solos". Would be good to hear from some more bass players on how they approach playing solos.

I think the great thing about a solo is it can be improvised and anything can happen. It's why I enjoy playing and listening to live music. Anything can, and usually does, happen. Wrong notes, going into the wrong sections, starting in the wrong key, drum kits gaining a life of their own and wandering down stage, amps catching fire, dodgy sound mixes. It's all part of the live experience. A lot of that has become very sterile and clinical now. I think a lack of real live music on TV, multitrack recording on protools and auto tune have spoiled people somewhat.

Is that not the purpose of entertaining and performing. It's all a show.

It's showing appreciation. The performers are there to perform to you, you are there to enjoy the performance. I've noticed this with City vs Village audiences. City audiences seem to think its your job to make them enjoy themselves. Village audiences are there to enjoy whatever you do. YMMV. I was at a dance competition once where the judge said (roughly) "Remember, you are there to entertain and the audience wants to be entertained, they want you to perform well. Enjoy yourself and it will show and make people happy. And remember there will always be some critics in the crowd looking for you to make mistakes and who like to criticise. So even if you perform badly, you're still making someone happy. So enjoy yourselves and show you're enjoying yourselves." Got a chuckle from me anyway.

Drum Solo: usually band stops and drummer hits everything in sight that doesn't move quick enough to get out of the way. Can be any number of bars or any time signature, poly-rhythms with different time signatures on each limb gain extra applause. Everyone is pleased when it ends. Choral solo: singer sings with all other instruments still playing. At end of solo, rest of choir join in. Acapella solo: see also Freddie Mercury. Guitar solo: usually rest of band play verse while guitarist plays as many notes as possible in the given time. Except for Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and some other notable exceptions. In rare cases band gets bored, put down instruments and go for a beer. Keys solo: always playing solos even when not supposed to. Difficult to determine when solo starts and when it ends. Bass solo: usually, drums continue, guitar comps and bass plays something melodic rather than bass and harmony, except when the bass plays just the bass groove. Except notable exceptions where the band stops and the bass player pretends to be a drummer. See above. If the band has keys player, someone unplugs them at this point.

A solo can be whatever you want. I suspect the binary true false nature of Internet forums leads people to imagine all kinds of best case/worst case scenarios. Looking at some of these replies, it's almost as if no one has ever played a siong with a basss intro. Hence why I asked an open ended question with an opportunity to discuss various approaches.

Nice. That's what happens when you give a Klingon a bass set to stun. It's pretty clever as a piece of art, liked the way he went into the intro of the next song at the end. Just not sure I can fit any of that into our current set, but will bear it in mind.

That's what inspired this thread. Seemed a lot of bass players didn't like taking solos.

Yes. That's a pretty straightforward method that works well. Think having the guitar comping is useful otherwise there's often a danger of getting lost. 🤣 Depends how long the phrase is as to how many bars you keep it going for. 8 bars might be a bit short if it's a 2 bar phrase over 4 chord changes. Certainly 16 would be plenty to establish some repeated patterns.

What do you do? Join in the fun using your wealth of background theory knowledge and years of experience to instantly craft an interesting line that has groove and entertains resulting in whistles and cheering from the adoring crowd. Or something else?

I think he's said that he doesn't pick them because he likes them, just because they're noteworthy classics which are by definition 'greats'.

Pubs used to be coaching houses where you could get a meal, a bed for the night and a fresh horse. Those were the days. <sings> And I'm a dandy highway man...

Or when people give apparently sarcastic responses.

Yes. I realised that. Just thought it was worth discussing. 🤣

Was aimed at me. I suppose it is really. But discussions change depending on what's happening. Probably similar in many commuter belt pubs around London. The other pub is more of a locals pub, its full of middle aged men complaining about stuff, but I can take my dog in there.

No. We usually have very long discussions. The landlord is a Hong Kong Chinese and a rabbid communist. There's an artist who is a marxist, a bank trader who is a Labour/Conservative swing voter, a guy with a degree in politics who runs his own business and is as Conservative as they come, plus a load of other assorted characters. Nurse, artic truck driver, a cabbie. It's usually very lively on a Friday and Saturday. Just not on a Sunday. I don't get people who think discussions are arguments and try and close them down. Odd.

Many years ago, this happened to us on Friday night. I was playing in a function band and suggested we did a few pub gigs as they'd probably lead to more gigs. The rest of the band were against playing pubs. (But I think we ended up picking up a gig wedding/dnd/birthday practically everytime we played) People in the audience were phoning their friends up and telling them to come down, the place was rammed. The regulars usually talk to the bar staff and tell them to rebook if they like you and/or you're better than the usual bands they see. Then word gets around and next time the audience is bigger. We never went back, because- "We don't do pub gigs..." There's no telling some people.

Until recently this year, I've always only ever plugged in direct. In the last 5 years I've been using a Korg Pitch-black as a tuner as its easier than pressing a mute button on the amp. Earlier this year I bought a Keely Bassist compressor which is now always on as it has more control than the single knob amp on-board compressor. I have a chorus pedal at home in a box but have never taken it out of the house.

Just have a pinned post on your page so it's the first thing everyone sees.