Rosie C

Pentangle is my band of choice this week...

Although my 1980s music lessons weren't up to much, what I've seen of my local high school's provision is very much better. They have a big band, show choir, practice rooms, recording studio, and help with loan instruments and free instruments lessons for kids who couldn't otherwise afford it.

We did music in the first and second year at school, with a horrible teacher and it was all just classical. In the third year we had to choose either music or art, and I took art. Meanwhile I was playing bass in a high school band. One day I was at school and was given a message to go to see the head of music. He explained he needed a bassist for the end of year musical, that I wasn't good enough (!!) but I was the best he had and would I like 1:1 lessons with him to get up to scratch. The rest is history 😎

We didn't quite go that far, but the next step was to have been cut the headstock down and move the 'A' tuning machine onto the underside, like a MusicMan.

I developed neck/back pain playing bass during lockdown - playing all day when I was suddenly home a lot. Initially I bought a Hofner violin bass which was super light. But I yearned for my jazz bass and different straps didn't help. In the end I sat down with my friendly local guitar technician to look at the weight. We identified: the steel clover leaf style tuners were really heavy, but could be replaced with alloy/nylon units the sexy high-mass bridge really wasn't helping and could be replaced with a bent plate type wood could be machined from underneath the fingerboard We removed around 1.5lbs in weight - with a lot of that coming off the end of the neck so it helped weight distribution. Of course this is just a cheap Squier whose value is more emotional to me than financial. I maybe wouldn't do it to a valuable instrument, but it completely changed this instrument.

No, no, no... until our band can afford a 7.5 tonne truck with tail lift and staff I'm not even considering anything like that!

Ah, my back hurts just thinking about anything bigger than 6U !

We're currently going down the rack route - our last couple of gigs have had way too many cables cluttering up the stage. Our first finished cabinet gathers together two phantom power units, a mic pre-amp and a chorus unit. 4U is probably out limit, keeping things down to 5 or 6kg max.

Not quite a gig, but last night I performed two songs at our local folk club - the first time I've sung publicly since 'ambulance day' in December after I had trouble breathing, needed an ambulance, and lost my voice for a month. I think I sang well and it felt so good to be 'back' !

Likewise, sciatica stops me standing for a full set, so I have a K&M double bass stool, but sit on it for playing bass, mandocello and vocals. But having seen this... that looks so perfectly natural, I'll have to have a think about a speaker-cab-seat !

My WL-20 has dropped out a couple of times - once when I pressed the Bluetooth button on our PA to pair with my phone and WL20 stopped working. That's sown doubt in my mind, so I've not used it at a gig.

I had this strap made for my Lego bass. Annoyingly the maker isn't on Amazon anymore, otherwise there's another couple of designs I'd have them make up 😡

Just an Orange Crush 25B on a stand.

We could have done. I thought to leave it in place, connected as an experiment to see how a 6-string pickup under 7 strings worked. I also thought of putting a jazz bass pickup there. But there's going to be a new fingerboard to accommodate the new neck pickup so I thought we may as well remove it.

They do vary a lot. I've attached photos of my current two, and @Owen has likely seen my build thread for one built from an Gibson SG style guitar.

Mmm, that looks a sweet instrument. My first one will be much more of an economy model, but if it plays well I might look at getting another made to a higher spec.

Allianz & yes, some sort of blanket might meet their guidelines!

I have a "musician's" policy - it's about £6 a month, and covers my more expensive instruments, the PA, plus 3rd party cover in case someone's injured by my kit. It cover unattended in the car as long as things aren't visible - which in practice means not covered unless I had a van.

Our main hymn book has guitar chords underneath the piano score, but then a sneaky tick/cross symbol to show whether the chords match the piano - mostly it seem they don't, so as you say you have to busk it. We used to meet on Friday evenings for a proper rehearsal then a pint & a meal, but that sort of stopped, so now it's a quick 30 minutes before the service. Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped with "How Deep the Father's Love For Us" - depsite my worrying over it, all went well! I was going to take double bass but I don't play it as much as I'd like and there were a few too many G# and C# notes to catch me out. So I took my jazz bass guitar which worked well - particularly when our first song was "He Has Risen" with its 1980s style 8-note bass line.

Happy Easter! Yes, I worked on it yesterday and it is easier to forget about counting and just focus on the chord changes. Either way, too late now - rehearsal at 10am and service at 11am.

We're just back from seeing "Texas Fever Tick" - a mix of various Americana music. They made a great sound - both were singing, the guitarist was doing Carter family picking to give something approximating bass, while the banjo player was also playing kick drum.

Thanks! I think "playing on the chord changes" is going to be the key. The music I have to work with tends to be either piano/organ music where I work from the bottom line, or 4-part choral music where I play the bass part. It usually works fine, but not for this one!

I think I just had a bad arrangement - I've a better one now!

Thanks! That's really useful - enough for me to do something, along with Richard's video

Thanks Richard! That makes a lot more sense.