Bilbo

Come on, Skol!! Where is the May picture?!! PS congratulations! (mutter, mutter) ;}

[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1398974507' post='2439678'] I never do any good at this! [/quote] We just have to accept that our works are a minority interest sub-genre.

Me at The Bull in Colchester recently, doing a Charlie Haden Tribute band.

Our band calender

I am beating the Sausage.... [size=4] [/size] Errrm. I think I better rephrase that [size=4] [/size] [size=4] [/size]

Definately 3/4. There are three giants in the world who have a full size bass and they play orchestral music. [size=4] [/size][size=4] [/size][size=4]Us little folk need a smaller bass to get around on it fast enough to play Jazz/Folk/Rockabilly etc. [/size]

http://chordify.net/chords/oscar-brown-jr-mr-kicks-attila-keri

I would but my wife wouldn't have let me (really). And she would have been right.

These kinds of details are pretty unimportant. Know the scales and learn to play them musically. That is all that matters. The finger you use is your concern not mine, Billy Sheehan's or anyone elses!! The chances are this will matter only when doing the Sheehan exercises, noever when you are playing a tune!!

You need a phase switch like the one on the Fishman. They also have them on Acoustic Image mics. I have no real idea how they work but they stop the problem you are describing, which is actually very common. You can usually pick up a Fishman for less than £100.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1398491874' post='2434600'] After approaching several bald men, I found my chap, who had a Hawaiian shirt and an eye patch :-D [/quote]

Just to add to the debate, many define improvisation as real-time composition so definitions are as varied as interpretation s. It is what the listener wishes it to be in the same way that it is what the composer considers it to be.

I agree that compositions should have some sense of theme and variation but 'sections' is not the only way to do that. For me, there has to be some element of forward motion and momentum and there are all sorts of ways of doing that. Doing it successfully is the art of it. I don't think I do that at all well and really struggle with any form of modulation so a lot of my compositions feel frustratingly 'static' to me. So, hands up, I think I am guilty of the charge as levelled. Will try harder next month!! {PS worthy of note is the fact that I also wrote a second tune this month (after the above was uploaded) but it was not inspired by the picture in any way and so was not submitted}

My favourite recorded bass sound was a Rickenbacker (Greenslade - Time and Tide). Rush, Yes - all sounded great. Fugly things but great sound. Can I have my tablets now?

Voted.

Even I know the start of Phantom of the Opera, karlfer. You'll be playing 'The Chain' by Fleetwood Mac next I remember playing 'Peaches' at a jazz rehearsal once before realising that no-one else in the room had actually been BORN when the Stranglers had originally released it!! Ref: the 16 year old singer. No-one that young should be allowed to make decisions about repertoire. No-one.

£7247, IIRC

If you like scars so much, here, have another one!!! (DOINK!) Seriously, if it is not what you signed up for and you don't like the 'new' genre, I can't see any point in hanging around. Alternatively, I guess you could tell them to point you in the direction of the kinds of recordings that are getting them excited and see if it floats your boat. I know that reggae doesn't really interest me, for instance, but there are some amazing things out there that come under that heading. I suspect you know what you want to do.

I hereby designate this to be the most boring thread of 2014. So far.

I have got to 50 without ever saying the offending word out loud so I guess I'll cope. I also made sure my bass was made of Mahogany, American Walnut and Ebony before I bought it, just to avoid this particular issue.

At the age of 50, I am having the best year I have [i]ever[/i] had playing live. About 5 years ago, I did 120 gigs in the year. I earned a lot of extra money but the music was totally sh*te. Some of it was so bad that I was really starting to question my own ability and getting massively frustrated that, in a nutshell, I was not doing myself or the music any favours by continuing to hack away in this fashion. I pared back all of my gigs to the bone and only agreed to take the gigs I thought had some musical merit or, if I am honest, which I enjoyed as a social event (in the 'dark years', some weren't even offering that!!). The following year I did about 30 gigs but I was arguably a lot happier with the gigs I did do and began to feel a lot better about the music I was playing. The space also allowed me to start thinking about playing the double bass and I saw an improvement in my playing, my musicality and my confidence. Over the next few years, I started to see an improvement in the number of gigs was getting but also in the quality of those gigs (I hasten to add that, by quality, I do not necessarily mean money - the best gigs I have now pay really badly but that is not actually why do it). The gigs I do now are invariably more 'up my street' musically and I set up my own gigs now as much as I wait to be called. In the last 12 months, as well as playing with an orchestra for the first time (see that thread elsewhere), I have played with John Etheridge, Jim Mullen, Gareth Lockrane, Julian Siegel, John Parricelli, Tim Whitehead, Tony Kofi, Kate Williams, Alan Barnes, Peter King, Georgia Mancio, Phil Robson, Christine Tobin, Martin Speake, David Gordon, Josh Kemp, Kelvin Christiane, Nigel Price, Vasilis Xenopoulos, Gilad Atzmon, Ross Lardner, Christian Garrick, Julian Nicholas, Pete Oxley, Steve Fishwick, Osian Roberts, Lewis Wright, Robin Jones Latin Jazz ensemble, Mark Cecil, Nic France (Kate Bush, Dave Gilmour), Steve Waterman, Art Themen, Mark Lockheart, Dave O'Higgins and Roger Beaujolais. In the next couple of months, I am scheduled to play with Byron Wallen, Jason Robello, Brandon Allen, Simon Allen, Ivo Neame (Phronesis), Matt Wates, Anita Wardell and Eddie Parker. I have also met and played with great (and I really do mean great) local (Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex) players like Andi Hopgood, Phil Brooke, Russ Morgan, Simon Brown, Roger O'Dell (Shakatak), George Double, Zak Barrett, Holly Barrett, Simon Hurley, Chris Ingham, Kevin Flanagan and Andy Watson and am imminently scheduled to play with a few more local monsters like Malcolm Miles as well as more gigs with Jim Mullen and a few others listed above. I have also done some other really nice local Jazz gigs with guys like Ben Blackmore, John Parker, Ian Buzer, Charlie Richardson, Dan Banks, Frank Sebastian, Adam Morris, Albert Garcia, Michael Spearman, Ian Thompson and Tristram Butler, any one of which I would be proud to share the stage with again at any time. It's been a great, great year. Playing live is what Jazz musicians do. There is not really much point in it otherwise!! My point is that playing live is what you make of it. You get as good as you can be, get better at setting up your own gigs, learn the repertoire and get good at reading, whether that is dots or just charts and put yourself in the position of being the guy who gets at least some of the calls.

Now there's a thought!! Another amusing Robert Palmer anecdote. I once got his royalty cheque sent to me by mistake. The PRS got my name when a band I was in registered, put two and two together and got five!

Actually, I have a great Robert Palmer story. I had to get a dep for a gig a long time ago (15 years) and I called a guy with some considerable pedigree (no names this time). I introduced myself.... Me 'Hi there. My name is Robert Palmer and I need a dep' Bass Player 'Not THE Robert Palmer' Me 'No' Bass Player 'Good. He's a tosser'.

Never heard of 'im.