Orchestral manoeuvres In the dark

[lownote]

Playing Dereham Blues Festival yesterday we did one late night nightclub gig in almost complete darkness.  Eek. But playing fretless, as is what I do, came in very useful.  Interestingly if I consciously tried to feel for the right note things went pearshaped, while leaving it to mussel memory worked fine.   

[Mickeyboro]

Mussel memory? Sounds fishy to me…did you play scales? 😁 🐟 

[oldslapper]

6 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

Mussel memory? Sounds fishy to me…did you play scales? 😁 🐟 

No he plays Bass for cods sake. 

[oldslapper]

1 hour ago, lownote said:

Playing Dereham Blues Festival yesterday we did one late night nightclub gig in almost complete darkness.  Eek. But playing fretless, as is what I do, came in very useful.  Interestingly if I consciously tried to feel for the right note things went pearshaped, while leaving it to mussel memory worked fine.   

I do find the same. Playing fretless in the dark is less scary than fretted for me too. “Wrong” notes can be slid into “right” ones, and with a bit more top rolled off, slight intonation imperfections can be less noticeable. 
Whereas I find a wrongly fretted note is more obvious. 

[Boodang]

Muscle memory works well but fluorescent dots work better! Had my fretless jazz fitted with fluorescent side and fingerboard dots, and now I love a dark stage not least because dots floating in the dark look rather cool.

[toneknob]

drop any clams?

[lowdown]

On 10/07/2022 at 11:58, oldslapper said:

I do find the same. Playing fretless in the dark is less scary than fretted for me too. “Wrong” notes can be slid into “right” ones, and with a bit more top rolled off, slight intonation imperfections can be less noticeable. 
Whereas I find a wrongly fretted note is more obvious. 

 

 It might be less scary to you but, to the other musicians, "wrong" notes and "slight intonation imperfections" might be really scary to them.

[oldslapper]

3 hours ago, lowdown said:

 

 It might be less scary to you but, to the other musicians, "wrong" notes and "slight intonation imperfections" might be really scary to them.

Its jazz, there are no wrong notes. 🦧