asingardenof

Calling all drummists! Last week I took my poorly Elf into PMT for it to be sent off for a repair under the warranty. While we were in there my 6yo son plonked himself down behind one of the very expensive Roland electric dum kits and decided to have a bash at them. Not literally, fortunately, but he seemed very keen to try playing them again, to the extent that he practically begged us to take him back the following day so he could try again, which we did. After directing him towards one of the less expensive setups he was more or less happy to amuse himself, and while Mrs asingardenof kept watch I gravitated to the bass section (as you do). Some time later he was still going, and we decided we should look more into what would be involved in getting him started. We've found a local drum school and he's had a taster session this week. He was pretty shy but did very well at the basic stuff he was being shown, and afterwards was very vocal about how much he'd enjoyed it, how he wants a kit of his own and more lessons, and how I should quit my current band and form one with him - my protests that I could be in more than one band are currently falling on deaf ears 🤣 Alas the teacher we went to has a full roster of 1-2-1 lessons and a waiting list, but he agrees with me that that is the best approach rather than group lessons. He has offered ad hoc lessons and advice as and when my son is particularly enthused, which the boy is happy with as he quite likes figuring things out for himself. So in the immediate term I've ordered him a practice pad and a set of sticks so he can practice hitting stuff, and am looking into what sort of kit to get him. He wasn't overly keen on the acoustic set he started on at his taster lesson, much preferring e-kits, which suits his mum and I (and our neighbours) just fine. But do we start him on a junior kit such as this one from G4M, or do we look into getting him onto a full-size kit ASAP? I don't mind going for a junior kit first if that's the best option, but a full-sized kit would mean if he lost interest then it would probably pass to me as I wouldn't mind having a go. The bright colours of the G4M kit have - as designed - turned his head, but should I try and dissuade him? And before anyone asks he has zero interest in picking up a bass!

Payback is a much better wedding song IMO

Well there's this one: bass chat or something? I dunno...

Another vote for the D'Addario XL range here.

Ghost Town - The Specials

The Birth of Loud by Ian S Port is a good read about the heyday of electric guitar and bass development and the relationship between Leo Fender, Les Paul, Gibson, Paul Bigsby, etc.

Apprentices will do both.

Given I'm completely skint for the rest of January this will be an easy one for me to achieve.

The Squier and The Sire. We're not guitarists, we don't need to play our basses the way the women we name our instruments after played us.

Where Do You Go - No Mercy

I use Dunlop Tortex 1.14mm. I have tried triangular picks but I have fairly short fingers and they feel like a handful.

Have come down with a cold. Managed to power through a three-hour rehearsal this afternoon feeling not too bad, but then I had to carry all my stuff down a flight of stairs and then a couple of hundred yards to the car. Wrecked now, and back to work tomorrow – yay.

Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants

I'm pretty certain that some other bollox along these lines was published years ago.

The size of my gut dictates the length of my strap. Any shorter and my basses would be unplayable.

Even the middle section of Tom Sawyer, I'm forever trying to play one string higher than exists and play notes off the fretboard.

We only have two confirmed gigs so far this year, one almost confirmed, and some vague talk about another couple. I'm still grafting to try and get more but nobody else in the band seems to particularly care if we don't get any more.

This also works in Outlook for Android

I don't know about texts but I've recently had legitimate emails from FB with recovery codes, indicating that someone has tried to access my account, but the fact that I have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled means they haven't been able to.

Given the Elf has gone back to PMT – and presumably Trace/Peavey – for repairs, this statement is a touch hasty in hindsight

I'm getting this at the moment

I've had this with Club Foot, where the original bassine was recorded by the guitarist, and the live version of the bass solo is very different to what's on the recorded version.

I've heard lots of tales of companies holding their Christmas parties in January, often just because of lack of availability of venues (i.e. everyone argued about who was going to organise it long enough to not be able to book anywhere before Christmas), but a Wednesday definitely seems like an odd one even though the reasons are sound.