ambient

Mark is in LA for NAMM.

I'm selling a five string bass that Nick showed an interest in. I was due to travel London, and said that as long as he was definitely interested then I would take it along with me. I spent the day carrying it about, and then travelled to Camden to meet him, (this actually being in the complete opposite direction to the station I was catching my train from). After waiting for an hour while he played the instrument, he then announced that he was unsure about it. The reasons: it was a 33" scale instrument, and it had dual-coil pickups. Both of these were clearly stated in my advert, and we'd talked about these 'issues' beforehand. I fully understand that you want to be sure that an instrument is right for you before buying it, but if you know that it's a 33" scale bass, and that it has dual coils, then why ask someone to go out of their way so you can try it? I suspect he just wanted to try the bass, and in reality had little intention in actually buying it. It's also more than just a little bit annoying that there has been no further contact from him, despite him promising that he would think about it and get in touch. I would advise not going out of your way if you're selling something, let him come to you.

It’s odd, I can remember phone numbers of relatives from when I was a child, and dates of birth too. I’m like a walking diary. Songs and music though I really struggle.

It’s an amazing accomplishment though. It’s not just the notes, it’s all the tempo markings, dynamics and all the other notations. It looks like it turned him into a bit of a monster to work with though. I’d have been off out the door, probably in floods of tears 😁

That’s something the book mentioned. We tend to learn in segments, even though we can play a particular bar or section perfectly, we sometimes struggle to play it in isolation, and need to play the bar or even a few bars approaching it beforehand.

That was like me at uni. I could remember what I needed to play for the time I needed it, then immediately forgot it.

That’s actually my favourite Rush song too. There’s a nice live version of that on live in Rio.

It’s actually quite at odds with the impression I had from listening to their 1980s music, which was my introduction to them. In that they’re anti-war and pro-environmental. It’s the road of life isn’t it? Full of twists and turns, and wrong turnings.

I was an occasional listener. They were certainly very good musicians. I prefer their roll the bones era music, which is the period when I was introduced to their music. I wasn’t to keen on their more recent music, and never liked their earlier music at all. Apparently their 2112 album was based on the writings of Ayn Rand, who was a pro-ultra right wing writer. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/13/rush-nme-interview-1978-rocks-backpages?fbclid=IwAR0QircyeWOvyTCZpnwoim3CZBpJvSvz6ELVom8xmdUsK4zzEfc4uNPiBHc

I was just reading about an early 20th-century conductor called Arturo Toscanini. Just before the start of a big concert one of the bassoon players hurried up to Toscanini, he was in a highly agitated state, and explained that he’d broken one of the keys on his instrument. Toscanini thought for a few seconds, then said ‘it’s alright, that note does not occur in tonight’s concert’. Apparently he knew every note for every instrument in that concert. That’s about 70 musicians and 2 hours of music. He also knew every note for every instrument in 250 odd other works from their repertoire, plus the words and music for 100 or so operas, and numerous other classical works. We had a class on my BMus course called LPW, which stood for live performance workshop. I hated it. Each week we had to learn a notated part, in my case it was the bass line, then perform it as part of a randomly picked ensemble. Some were quite easy, others were ridiculously hard. I always struggled to remember them, my best mark was in the jazz module, where we improvised and were allowed charts on stage. This is Toscanini destroying the bass section of an orchestra.

I went to one of the original bass days, in a music venue in Manchester. I quite enjoyed it. Janek Gwizdala and Yolanda Charles were both there. That’s got to be at least twelve years ago.

It would be pretty cool to go. They seem to have some amazing jams take place.

Always make sure you buy direct from the venue. There are lots of reseller sites making out they’re either the venue, or official ticket seller. It’s usually best to go via the artist's website. It’s not just concert tickets either. My mom paid about £50 extra for a passport renewal. The site looked like the genuine Gov.UK site. Luckily we managed to get the money back. My uncle had a similar thing with a US visa.

He has indeed. A really beautiful instrument.

Elrick make some beautiful instruments. I was at a Steve Lawson gig the other week, he’s started using them.

It was sad that Mark Hollis died last year. The colour of spring is an amazing album.

I’ve often wondered, do they really like those, or do they just pretend to, to please the band? “Ah god no! Oh well, better get up and make out we’re enjoying it, otherwise they’ll start playing an extended version of smoke on the water or something”.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geddy-Lees-Beautiful-Book-Bass/dp/0062747835/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=geddy+lee's+big+beautiful+book+of+bass&qid=1578573650&sprefix=geddy&sr=8-1