Rosie C

This is taking "played it 'til my fingers bled" too far!

I think it was the official Planet Rock camera person.

I've been working on my debut album since the days of Covid. With a serious house move in our future I got my finger out and recorded it in September-November last year. In the chaos of moving house the tracks have started arriving from the studio... This one tells the story of my dad, as a student working at the local steel works in the holidays in the vacations as I'd just arrived on the scene! The bass is my Squier jazz fretless with XL chrome flats. Running through a modelling gadget set to "Mesa Boogie".

Not my gig, but I was in the studio yesterday recording the first couple of tracks for my second album. The studio engineer, who is also guitarist and sometime backing vocalist on my recordings, casually dropped into the conversation that he opened for Planet Rock's "Winters End" festival on Thursday... and I get this guy whenever I need on my amateur recordings!

Undertone's "Teenage Kicks" - a school friend lent me his bass and a couple of days later I'd learned Teenage Kicks and I was in the band. It's still the first bass line I play on any new instrument I buy!

I did check beforehand and they said it was fine but if the instrument wasn't capable of doing something the examiner could make no allowances. Which was fair.

It was very impersonal. It was a couple of years past the height of covid, but the examiner was sat behind the sort of translucent plastic curtain you see in supermarket butcher's counters. She wasn't at all friendly and didn't give the slightest bit of body language. In comparison the three (?) Rock School examiners I've had were all friendly and chatty - talking before the exam about things beyond the range of exam - do I play in a band? How long have I been playing the instrument? etc. and a warmer, friendlier dialogue during the exam, smiling occasionally, just little things that put you at your ease. The very first Rock School exam I did was "Grade 1 Acoustic Guitar" and I turned up with a guitar-bodied mandocello and the examiner was really interested in it as she played guitar, and when it got to the chords part of the exam we talked about voicings and how I couldn't really play an E minor, I could only play an Em/G. Anyone who likes to talk chord voicings gets a 👍 from me.

This one is very bitter sweet - on the band stand as part of the local Wassail yesterday, leading community singing along with the local singing club and male voice choir. We had about 500 in the audience all singing along. Sadly that's the last gig we're doing as a band, but there's some good memories. Sorry, it's a rubbish photo, but you can see most of my bass and my left forearm!

My previous teacher would not teach pop songs as she said "they are hard to play because they're so badly written" - she was a graduate of the Royal College of Music though, and friends with Alfred Brendel, so that's perhaps understandable. In contrast my current teacher is a professional jazz pianist and he's opened up so much to me - working out what you need to play in a piece, without playing all the notes. Chord substitutions, and missing out the less important notes in a chord etc. Improvising a left hand part and changing that depending on whether there is a bass player. All very useful for playing in a band, but perhaps not recommended for ABRSM exams!

I found a new 'shelf' for my Elf today

It is. I have to admit it's been a bit of a learning curve, but I'm getting there now!

The very last pub gig we did with our Renaissance-rock band was 18 months ago - as well as the usual early stuff we had a few of 20th century covers on the set list - Moonlight Shadow, Lightning Tree, All is Found, Meet Me on the Corner, etc. Once we'd played those the audience were asking for more songs that they knew. So we stopped taking any pub bookings as I'm not doing it as a job and I want to play music I'm interested in. We get fewer bookings, but they've been awesome - historic buildings, medieval fairs, etc.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the ritualistic sacrifice at the end of the evening! 😉

Oh, I so need those! Our speaker stands get yellow/black hazard tape stuck on the front-most leg for some gigs.