peteb

As I understand it, the 'head' is the main theme of a piece of music, which you are likely to return to during the piece. The chart is simply the piece of paper that you have on a music stand in front of you (or these days, a file on an iPad). For example, in Jaco's 'Portrait of Tracy', you get the all harmonics intro, then you play the head (the main melodic bit that you remember about the tune) before a B section and then back to the head for the outro. I'm sure that Rob can correct me if I haven't got that quite right.

I get cramp when I try to play with a pick these days as well. I went back to fingerstyle after playing with a pick for several years because I realised that I was a more fluent and had less limitations using my fingers. I was just a better player that way. I do occasionally meet people who remember me as a pick player. I actually started out playing fingerstyle because of the cool looking, smiling black dude with the afro and P bass in the instructional book I originally learnt from. If he played with his fingers, then obviously I should...!

Yea, but Chris Squire and many others did! Both can be great - whatever works for you...

I originally learnt to play fingerstyle, but a band leader persuaded me to play with a pick (very much a thing at the time), which I did throughout the 80s! About 1990, I reverted back to exclusively playing fingerstyle, which I've carried on with to this day. To be fair, I was always a far better fingers player and these days I very much doubt I could play anything like a full set with a pick!

So, played the Farmyard Party at the weekend - pics above on @casapete's post a couple of pages ago. The Friday was very hot and sticky. As we were staying over, I had to put up a large tent pretty much on my own (the missus is recovering from an operation on her hands) in rock hard ground - hence me managing to look sweaty, pasty and sunburnt all at the same time in the picture of me and Pete above. Great to meet Pete before the gig - I was obviously pretty busy trying to get everything ready for our show, so I only managed to see a couple of songs from his band, but he is obviously a very tidy bass player. There was a bit of a groan from backstage as they played a song on our setlist, but fortunately that seemed to be the only one, so we managed to avoid too many duplicate songs! The gig itself was a bit hit and miss. We had a (very good) dep guitarist and it had been sounding brilliant in the three rehearsals we managed to get in before. However, live there were a few adventures starting and (particularly) ending songs and a fair few missed cues. Endings became a bit of a negotiation between me, the guitarist and the drummer, with the poor keyboard player trying to work out what was happening from the other side of the stage! However, we got a pretty good audience reaction and had a lot of very positive feedback after the show (with a couple of gig offers thrown in), so it can't have been too bad - amazing what you can get away without the audience noticing when playing live sometimes! Gear wise, I was using the 78 P bass and the usual set-up of a Shure GLXD wireless, Thumpinator, Cali76 bass comp and Caveman pre into a Handbox R400 and Berg CN212 cab.

No, I'm afraid that might (marginally) help to keep you fit, but it isn't going to do anything to maintain muscle mass or bone density. The only way to do that is to regularly lift weights.

The jabs work, but they do have side effects and they won't give you too many of them. I had one when I was a teenager and about to do my O levels. To be fair, my hay fever used to be much worse in my teens / twenties

Nice one Pete - I will see you later

This I believe that lifting weights also helps to maintain bone density, so if you slip when you're old you just get up and brush it off rather than requiring a hip replacement.

It's always fun to be part of these big events, even if you're not on the main stage.

Fortunately, the only time I've ever used Preparation H was to put on a new tattoo years ago! Summerfest looks like a great event - shame we don't really have anything similar this side of the pond. The bike rally I'm playing (the Farmyard Party) is one of the biggest ones in the north of England, not quite as big as Stormin' The Castle in the North East, but still about 6,000 people on site. They have a blues tent (stage) for the old school bikers who still like their blues - will probably have a few hundred people or so in there. Maybe a 2,000 for the main stage (that I last played ten years ago with a rock band).

I've been taking prescription anti-histamines (not the ones you get in a shop) in hay fever season since I've been a teenager. I do have some special beeswax type thing to wipe inside my nose, along with nasal sprays, etc. I once did a big blues festival type gig in Dundee once while having a major attack. It must have looked a bit strange to any eagle eyed punters to see a box of tissues on top of my rig, with the cover behind the cab half filled with used tissues - not exactly rock n'roll! It was actually a great gig in a pretty big packed venue, but I was relieved to get through it...

My concern for the blues gig at the bike rally tomorrow is the high pollen count and what it will be like in the marquee @ 8:30pm...! I have played a gig before while having a hay fever attack and it's interesting to say the least! It is forecast to be in the mid 80s at the rally - not bad for the north of England. My missus wants us to camp out and stay the whole weekend. That will depend on how bad my hay fever is...

That looks cool Daryl...! I'm playing a big bike rally with the 'occasional' blues band this weekend. It's a big event, but not anywhere as near as big as that!

I'm afraid that I find exercise bikes deadly boring. I really need to get out on the MTB again, even if its just on the canal towpath. The trouble is that I find even the slightest hill a bit of a problem now. Lifting weights is the best thing to do, especially as you get older and you start to lose muscle tone and your bones become weaker. I pay £16 per month in gym fees these days, which by any account is very good value!

I try to lift weights three times a week. Unfortunately, I can't do the cardio that I used to do a few years ago (play 5-a-side, run, off-road biking, etc) due to a knackered knee and I could do with losing maybe a stone or so, but that's hardly unusual at my age (early 60s). The gear I use is lighter than it used to be, but not particularly lightweight compared to a lot of stuff around these days. I can still lift a Berg 212 cab (rather than an 810) at the end of the night, so no real problems. The issue I have is that even though I gig regularly, I would happily play twice as many as I'm doing currently! I certainly felt more 'match fit' as a player when I was gigging pretty much every week!

I've got a couple of Xotic basses and I think that its pretty safe to say that isn't from the same stable. I'm guessing that it's a custom build superjazz - never seen that logo on the headstock before.

Of course it doesn't, it's Tim Lefebvre playing it. I'm sure that he wouldn't play anything that sounded 'wrong', or that the band wasn't happy with!

Just looked at a recent version of them playing it on the Howard Stern Show with the great Tim Lefebvre on bass and he plays the A, not the G#...!

Played at the Cart & Horses in the East End on Friday night with the Zep tribute. If you didn't know, this is the venue where Iron Maiden cut their teeth, which of course you would never guess from the complete lack of memorabilia around the place, Maiden themed beers and wine at the bar and everything in the familiar IM font...! 😉 A bit of an odd gig, as we had a dep drummer for the night, which as you might imagine is a tough gig for a drummer to dep. The guy we got in had been struggling at a couple of rehearsals we managed to get in, but he did fine. Not perfect, but not a disaster by any means! A smallish place so pretty packed, a great audience and Didge even managed to work the Eastenders theme into his keys solo! NB. the picture is of the soundcheck, not the keys solo in the gig itself...!

It depends what you are doing and what your band is about. Are you playing covers of tracks where the performance is more important than the song? If I'm playing something like Hot For Teacher, I want the guitarist to nail EVH's guitar part note for note. Same thing for a Rush tribute, the performance is key, so play it exactly like the record or don't bother. It's a bit different covering many other types of bands, where the bass player(s) might have developed / changed the parts over the years, or never played the same thing twice. Then you have to get the feel and spirit of the original, rather than just play the part as the record. Of course, it also depends whether you are just playing the song, or covering a particular version of the song. Remember that keeping it simple is often the best option and not settling for less at all. The thing is that you should be playing a simple part by choice, not because you can't play anything different!

I agree with that approach if you are trying to replicate a Jamerson, Billy Sheehan or Geddy Lee part. For something like the Black Crowes (who I love BTW), I would be aiming to get the feel right, rather than playing it note for note.

I completely agree (or at least to the extent that the logic for fahrenheit is somewhat convoluted). Celsius is a far superiour system. But I still think of weather in fahrenheit and all other measurements of temperature in centigrade!

I'm the same, and it makes absolutely no sense? Long distances and a person's height have to be miles / feet and inches, but otherwise smaller distances have to be metric, temperatures should be in fahrenheit for weather, but otherwise in degrees centigrade and weight must be in kilograms, except for a human being, when I can only compute stones / lbs. Dunno if it's my age, but I'm caught halfway between imperial and metric, even thought I know that metric obviously makes more sense and is a better system!

Yep, a bit of a geezer with connections to quite a lot of Manc superstars of a certain time! Me and the guitar player (who used to have a guitar shop in those days) always used to have a chat with him after rehearsals. He always had an interesting story to tell and I remember his quite fascinating insider take on quite a controversial matter of the time that he had been innocently caught up in. Very much a Les Paul Junior type of guy! 🤩