Rosie C

Our last gig of the year and traditionally our biggest. That's me on mandolin & vocal, though I feel little shame as we had a very talented friend join us on double bass for the night.

I took lessons for about a year - 30 minutes per week in school terms over a year, so about 15 hours. My teacher took me from being unable to sing to being able to front a pub band which got decent audience reaction and re-bookings. She taught me a bit of technique - having a solid support from the diaphragm, holding notes for the full length, hitting a note square on and becoming used to intervals. We also would spend some time working through songs I'd be performing where she'd point out where I was making errors. She also helped me control chest & head voice and helped me with higher notes adding seven semitones, so now on a good day I have a 2 octave range. At the school I went to one lady taught singers mostly for pop / rock / musical theatre. The other taught more along classical & choral lines. All in past tense as I caught covid a second time and within a couple of weeks I had a dairy allergy which has taken most of this year to figure out. I'm hopefully retuning to lessons next year. I have found the voice is a delicate thing. It's not like a bass guitar that can be played for 2 hours then chucked in a bag until the next a gig. I can't sing for 2x45 minutes like I did last night and expect to sing again today - though hopefully that will come with time and better technique. I seem to have had more colds since I started singing, though I think it's actually that because colds have such an effect, I notice them more.

Bass: John Taylor, Paul McCartney Guitar: Ritchie Blackmore

I'm having similar - I can post in some areas, but not the main discussion area

I did pop in, I play mandolin mostly these days, including a guitar-bodied octave mandolin and a Gibson SG clone converted to octave mandolin, but just found tumbleweed

I have a Squier 4-string fretless jazz bass. Sunburst with tort. Bought for around £350 just before covid lock down. It's been rebuilt by a local luthier, set up for me and I really can't see me ever buying anything else.

In the 1980s one singer in our high school band had an SM58. It was quite a cut above anything anyone else had. The other singer had something nasty by 'Realistic' or similar. I'm not sure how I first got into Sennheiser, but the E835 seems to suit my voice, though these days I make like Taylor Swift and use an ME3 headset.

I'd love one, but they are a bit pricey. I make do with a somewhat battered 1980s Hohner. That said, it feels like it's due for tuning, and at £500 a time, it wouldn't take much to get a second hand Roland, something like the FR-3XB.

Thanks again, it WAS in E. A simple bass line, but a lot of fun to play. Before the service I thought it highly unlikely there would be any dancing but the new vicar was indeed dancing in the aisle and waving her arms around, so there you go! We played "One More Step Along the World I Go" for the first time too, things are definitely getting more up-beat lately!

In some ways it's easier than changing key, providing the instruments can all change. I play piano accordion which is in A=440, and that just can't change. I gave up collaborating with a guitarist who didn't tune to A=440 and sent me recordings to play along to

E it is then, thank you both! 😊

We're playing "Great Big God" for the first time in tomorrow's service. Unable to contact the BL today, I'm wondering what key others typically play it in? No guarantees that's what we'll use of course, but E seems common in online charts, and I'm thinking to prepare a chart in E is better than no prep!

I'm on a Facebook group for my area for people hiring bands. Nearly all the adverts are for "singer with backing tracks". They don't even want a singer/guitarist. I play in a duo sometimes - male & female vocal with guitar and mandolin, but even that seems too big a band for most venues. Depressing really.

ha ha! No, not @Muzz's pool ball

I still have a Cortina, and yes, I also have the pool ball gear knob!