thepurpleblob

I'm sure I've told the story... I once went to an audition where they didn't want to give me a list of songs. "They are all standards". Needless to say, not a glimmer. Not even the slightest recognition of any of them. Valuable lesson learned.

I mostly play 5s these days but I can switch to a 4 without much thought. The only thing is string spacing. Everything has to be the same. I don't like 5s which have 5 strings crammed into a 4 string neck anyway.

Who the hell would want to live in London? 😂 However, even up here in Scotland playing city centres is a massive PITA. I really can't be bothered with the stress of playing somewhere in Glasgow on a Saturday night. It's impossible to park the damn van... ...much rather play out in the 'burbs.

Trying to do too much means stress. And stress causes all sorts of illnesses that you don't want. You have to recognise when it's all too much and be prepared to let stuff go. You have to say 'No'. Do what you need to do to maintain a balanced life. I'm assuming you're not ancient. You can always come back to music if your circumstances change.

Why have an affair with someone who is Phrygid. Much more fun if they fancy Aeolian 😉 I'll get me coat...

I can think of as many great female bass players as male ones. Which just goes to show that we shouldn't really need to ask questions like this....

Cheers.... I've got a version of it that I can get away with but I'm clearly missing all manner of ghost notes and whatever else. I'd be interested to see a more authoritative version 😄

It's not about the bass... play anything. Nobody will be listening anyway 😄

Does anybody know the whereabouts of a transcription for said Duran Duran ditty? TIA

I find equipment acceptability exists on a kind of curve. Nodal points are "It's new, it's brilliant", "It's nearly new, it does the job", "It does the job but I don't like this", "sell it!". Most equipment I have owned goes through that cycle with very few exceptions. Although I don't play it much now as I mostly play 5 strings, my 4 string StingRay is definitely a keeper. After ten years it's still great to pick up and play. My Barefaced cab has also been around for lots of years and I think is the same. About a year ago I sold my soul for a Lakland USA 5 string Jazz stylee (after saying for years that having two volume knobs was an utterly ridiculous idea) and love it. I suspect it's another keeper but it's too early yet.

Only days with a 'Y' in them...

They were more devious than that. They'd already phoned around all the venues for upcoming bookings and told them that the band was changing its name....

Dolores Erickson - just saying There are some other versions from the photo shoot doing the rounds. I'll leave it as an exercise...

True story - drummer friend and I started a band. Time passes, things going well. Singer leaves for new project and we recruit a new one. Great voice, great with the audience and so on. Two months later he corrupts the lead guitarist and me and the drummer are sacked because we won't do 3 gigs a weekend (which we always said). I've met some really cool people and some proper a*** h****s the like of which I never seen before playing music. The moral - I'm not sure there is one apart from to say this is what it can be like. You chuck this and you go to another band and some other diva.

I think it's all reasonable advice if a little oversimplified. It probably *will* help a lot of players to play better. My best bit of advice to myself is, "nobody got sacked for playing root notes in time". It's on that kind of level! ...and she's most probably a better player than me and has much nicer hair. Who am I to judge? 😄

Erm.... yes 😈

I'm 54 and the youngest in my band by ten years. None of us finding slippers and Antiques Roadshow remotely attractive 😉

I've bought a few things. Everything seemed to arrive in a couple of days.

Yeh - while not unreasonable, $15 for delivery to the UK is a deal breaker. Shame...

Peter Hook and the Light in Glasgow last night. He's not the best singer, he can't sing and play bass at the same time but it was a great show. Very rowdy crowd-pleasing encore. They seem to have got a job-lot of new Yamaha basses too. Blonde backing singer (Mica Millar) was a pleasant distraction and - a new one on me - SWG3 venue is pretty good too.

Which just goes to show that an audition is a two-way street. It also shows why I would (now) never take the slightest interest in joining a band that wasn't already gigging and had some video somewhere to prove it!

Just this weekend... (to set the scene we are all 'mature' and have got pretty good gear)... "you lot certainly know how to spend money!!"

Learn the damn song(s). The number of people who turn up to auditions who haven't bothered absolutely amazes me.

There's a hell of a lot worse out there than Ed Sheeran. I'm looking at you Sam Smith 😂

Not really... a lot of Jazz falls into the "just because you can doesn't mean you should" category for me.