ambient

What is there to criticise? I was looking on the daily fail website yesterday, as I do occasionally purely for amusement. There was an article about the guy giving evidence to MPs about the Cambridge analytica thing. So many comments were just concerned with the colour of the guys hair, totally ignoring what he was saying. Similar to this, who really cares how many strings someone’s instrument has, they can play it, they enjoy it, people like watching/listening to them. Its good that people do think outside of the box. Imagine how boring the world would be if everyone thought the same and dressed the same?

I was always taught if you haven’t anything nice to say, don’t say it 😊.

It's a bass that they've extended the range of. I used to play a 7 string and loved it. The chord voicing possible were brilliant, as was too were the higher notes for melodic playing, I could get some fantastic sounds high up on the F string with an ebow. It's all about what you do. Something like this or indeed even just a 6 string isn't necessary and would possibly look daft if all you do is play alright now or Valerie down the local pub.

Why? Why should fun be made of someone on-line because of his instrument of choice? Sorry but I don't see it.

I hate threads like this. The guy's a friend of mine on Facebook. He likes it, that's all that matters.

I played a jazz gig on a borrowed very cheap Aria bass a year or so ago. Bare in mind I’ve been playing 6 string basses for about 12 years now. So yes, my bands don’t have sets as such, I’m just given charts to read and play from, but I’d definitely be able to play a gig using such a bass. I’m a huge believer that it’s the player not the bass anyway.

Following my earlier post, I think I'd also get confused, I get confused very easily.

It's just a change of key, so E would be Eb. I wouldn't down-tune I'd find it weird playing a B and hearing a Bb. I'd rather just transpose and know that I'm playing a Bb instead of a B, if you see what I mean .

My sleep pattern is a little different to most people’s, I don’t usually go to bed until about 3am anyway, then I get up between 9.30 and 10.00. Consequently any sleep inhibiting issues that would be caused by the gig have passed by bedtime.

I thought I read that it was seeing an American guy slapping that Mark King started?

It's a little like saying well stone-age man only needed............ He did the majority of his playing at a time when there were very few extended range instruments around. Five strings instruments were just starting to be accepted as a means to cover bass parts previously played on a keyboard. Who knows what he'd have gone on to do?

My siamese objects to your thread title by the way

I've done a lot of solo bass gigs over the last year and a half and was quite nervous at the first one. The only time that I was really nervous was when I did one with Steve Lawson last year.

This is the version I've always played, we did it at uni too and it was pretty much the same as this. I'd be playing it from the 4th fret of the E string up, that's where I'd be playing the Ab. The highest note os the Db which I'd play on the 6th fret of the G string.

A friend of mine does it all the time. He knows enough people that who he knows can just turn up and play. If one person can't do it, then he knows several other people. I've done some nice gigs with him, there was a Christmas market in Birmingham, best of all was a bandstand in the middle of a lake in Worcester.

This is why I won't post a bass, or anything really expensive or fragile. Often the insurance that they insist you take out doesn't cover instruments anyway.

It’s an arrangement I’ve got with a jazz band I play for. If they’ve got 30 gigs over the year then me and the other 2 get 10 each.

Train and walk.