ambient

The one big thing I was taught at uni is the requirement to have what they called a portfolio of skills, so you earning from playing, teaching, arranging, maybe writing too. It’s all music, I don’t get up at 7am and spend all day working in a shop or factory. Yesterday I was at uni for a PhD thing, yesterday evening I was teaching, right now I’m doing PhD work, this afternoon I’m teaching. There’s very few people I can think of that only play.

Isn’t your story also a case of checking your gear regularly? I’m guessing the jack socket is held on by a nut and washer that had come loose, or fallen off?

I’ve owned a few American built fenders, they’ve all been quite badly built. The main thing has been the neck pocket, everyone has looked like the guy doing it sneezed as he either put the router in in, or took it out.

Yeah, I’ve had a Japanese 4 string version, it was far better made.

That’s my point about the quality of American instruments.

I had a 5 string Marcus Miller bass that was embarrassingly bad. Maybe I was just unlucky? The neck joint looked like I’d done it. The little metal inserts/cups for the through-body stringing were loose and kept falling out.

The Japanese built ones I’ve seen have tended to be massively better than the American built ones.

I’ve never tried one. Steve Lawson was using one at a recent gig I went to, he seemed to like it.

You’re actually learning it, memorising it? From my experience things can change when you get along to the technical rehearsals, that why you often see pencil annotations on the scores.

It’s why I insist on collection only for instruments.

I’m sure I read somewhere that Mark King described himself as yawning over the music.

Very good! I can’t sing a note, if I try and talk at the same time as playing I end up dribbling, so well done to you.

It’s reason 49 for playing solo 😁.

Maybe email Status Graphite.

People who don’t stop talking at gigs really annoy me.

How many people listening would know it was an organ originally? How many of them would be bothered you were playing it on a bass guitar?

I’ve played a couple, like others have said it doesn’t take long to get used to them. The only thing that puts me off buying one is that it’s extremely difficult to play chords on them.

My W&T is 33”, I seriously don’t think it’s any less of a B than my old 35” Modulus had.

I came across this on Facebook. It’s not to everyone’s taste I know, but I liked it. I’m intrigued by the Spider capo too.

Yes. If you look at the chords in the real book, you’ll see they’re often written to include the extensions; 11th, 13th etc. See how it sounds to you. It’s good too if you can listen to a master of the art; Paul Chambers or Jimmy Garrison, and see what they do.

Do it, it’s like making a curry, the notes are spices. They’re diatonic, the chord tones are obviously the strongest notes, but others from the scale work fine too.

I tried the PJB Bighead recently, it’s head and shoulders above the competition 😁