JoeEvans

I've recently started to play the double bass after having played a fretless for years. There's a thing I've always done on fretless that I can't do on the double bass, but I'm sure I've heard people carrying it off in recordings, so I'm interested as to whether anyone has any suggestions (or even knows what I'm on about...) When playing a walking baseline with a triplet feel on fretless, I will sometimes play octave-fifth-root in a quick triplet sweep (e.g. D on the G string, A on the D string, D on the A string), with a rhythm like ba-ba-ba dum dum dum dum etc. The move is a little bit like the second to fourth notes of the baseline of 'Money' by Pink Floyd, only with the three descending notes played as triplets within a one note per beat line. Anyway, on a fretless I can finger this 4-3-1 and hold that more or less as a chord while sweeping one right hand finger down across the strings. On a double bass I can't do the left hand in the same way at all, but I hear people pulling something very like this off on various jazz recordings. Do I just need to practice more, or does anyone have any cunning tips as to how to achieve this effect?

A friend was at school with Alex James and told me that it's not actually his real name. I think he's called Dave really, but changed it because he felt uncomfortable having two Daves in the band. I wouldn't want to vouch for the truth of this in any way, I have to say, but there it is all the same.

I heard it said that if you mop a little bit of surgical spirit on your fingertips regularly it toughens them up. No idea if this is true, though.

Years ago I was playing a gig with my beloved cream Tokai Jazz copy, probably fairly drunk, and I noticed that the people at the front of the audience were really staring at my bass. I assumed that they must have been wondering what kind of rare and precious instrument could produce such an awesome sound, or perhaps gazing in astonishment at my amazing right hand skills. But then I looked down and saw that the bass was all spattered with blood because the end of one finger had kind of come to pieces without me properly noticing.

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]"[color=#000000]Now if someone has or can get hold of an original 50's Fender neck then you will be on to a real winner."[/color] [color=#000000]​And an original 50's Fender body to go with it.[/color][/font][/size]

[url="http://www.borderbiscuits.co.uk/our-biscuits/dark-chocolate-ginger/"]Borders Dark Chocolate Ginger biscuits. [/url] Other biscuit manufacturers should basically just give it up right now.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1426458349' post='2718286'] What if it's NOT a big budget gig? Would you put on a mediocre show and do half-assed rehearsals..? [/quote] Well, since you put it like that... But I might well try out new songs for a pub gig, maybe have someone depping without much rehearsal, possibly even let the drummer do a solo...

I would bump up the fee a bit for a big gig. Not ridiculously so, but if it's a big budget gig you need to put on a good show so you might be rehearsing extra thoroughly; you'd definitely need deps if someone was ill or whatever; any faintly dodgy bits of equipment will want to be replaced, even if it's only crackly leads or whatever. Ultimately, the fee any musician gets paid is not about how awesome they are, it's about how much money is changing hands for the event. Even if people are not there just to see you, you're contributing to a big piece of business; you will want to behave extra-professionally in that context, but you also ought to get paid a little bit more.

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1426184706' post='2715433'] But it didn't do anything for his jazz, did it? [/quote] Who knows - it might have been even worse without the yoga!

Yehudi Menuhin did a lot of yoga and he got to play with Ravi Shankar, Astor Piazzolla, Benjamin Britten, Edward Elgar, William Walton and Wilhelm Furtwangler as well as hanging out with Stefan Grappelli in cool jazz clubs in Paris. So you won't go too far wrong there...

All this time I've been playing it (approximately) on a fretless bass without realising that he overdubbed the upper line!

I think I've got an unopened Theramin kit in the cupboard somewhere if anyone is seriously after one - it was supposed to be a good one too for technical reasons which I can't now remember. I'll dig around...