zbd1960

When I started my bass journey about 5 years ago, I was already an experienced cello and sax player and I know that by-and-large you get what you pay for with musical instruments in terms of build quality and components. So, my first instruments are all 'reasonable' in the £500 - £750 range. But I've commissioned two instruments, which should be with me over the next couple of months or so: they're both obviously much more expensive. I'm just grateful bass strings are significantly cheaper than cello strings...

I've had updated pics in.... it's obviously getting near to being shipped... getting excited...

PLI is a requirement for most things these days. I first encountered needing it back in the early 90s for holding meetings of the astronomical society I was on the committee of... All the various choirs and orchestras I've been in have had to have it too - they usually go through Making Music, but MU would be an option for individuals/bands.

Hi, I'm a cellist - main instrument. It is extremely easy to acquire bad habits which are hard to undo, so a teacher that you get on with is essential really. There's a lot to angle of the cello, how you sit, left hand technique, bowing etc. And... cello is NOT the same or even similar to violin/viola, so find a cello teacher not a generic string teacher. The bad news is they're much more expensive than violins, the good news is there are very good instruments made in China at a reasonable price. Modern cello strings are much nicer/kinder on the fingers than the old cheese wires, whilst expensive compared to bass guitar strings, they last a long time. Go to a specialist string store / luthier to get an instrument, not a generic music store that doesn't have string specialists. Set-up and action are important. They'll also have secondhand instruments. Some teachers do too. Expect to pay around 1/4 of your instrument cost on the bow, e.g. £1,000 cello, £250 bow. Happy for you to message me if you want to chat more directly.

not my area of expertise... but I played it back through my hi-fi (Naim amps and Neat speakers). Bass sounds quite nice. I had a listen to several tracks and my thoughts I see are similar to others which is the guitar is maybe a little forward, which might be what you're responding to? I'm not an expert on mixing etc so I'd just ad that caveat to my comments!

Raised up by 45 deg - it reduces the stretch of the fretting hand

You need to be careful... a lot of singers engage in what might be described as 'tuned shouting'. This is not good. The voice will tire very quickly, you can get hoarse and have a sore throat and it can cause long-term damage. Yes, singing requires effort, but there should be no tightening of muscles in the neck etc. If you're forcing it, there's something wrong.

Agree joining a choir of some sort will help, also singing lessons will deal with technical issues. For various reasons I'm not a fan of rock choirs, but ymmv.

Earlier violin concertos by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Currently Respighi Botticelli Triptych

Certainly could not write any sort of job advert with those constraints. The training we got every year at work made it clear you cannot specify an age in a job advert. The direction we were given is you had to be careful with even office socials to not cause inadvertent exclusion... I realise this is a band advert...

ugh SAP/Concur... yuk. It's just as bad if you have to use it in a big organisation. It never integrates with anyone's IT systems despite what the snake oil salesmen say. Stupid business managers buy it without getting a proper technical assessment then IT spend years trying to get it to integrate with systems. I became convinced that the reason the bean counters liked the expenses system was that it was so difficult to use that most people gave up claiming

Have pity on us cellists (and double bass players). It is common to have a different string type on the A or the A and D string from the G and C string. A set of say Jargar strings - a 'medium quality' string is about £140. I have Spirocore tungsten on my G&C and Larson on my A&D. Cost is pushing £300. You can't really afford to experiment - all you can do is hope. There is a scheme for conservatoire cello students, other than that pay and pray... People tend to experiment with their A string options as it's the cheapest one at around £40 (the C on mine is around £120). The bonus I suppose is apart from the A string, the others will last a long time.

ugh the 'plays by feel' thing... freestyle jazz? That translates to me as someone who doesn't understand musical structures / forms, get things wrong, makes it up and calls it 'playing by feel...'. Is everyone else meant to be telepathic when he screws up (sorry, 'plays by feel')? Some forms lend themselves to improvisation, others don't. If you are in a group that improvises, then there will be procedures to flag what's going on (two foot stamps or whatever). As someone said earlier, the guy is gaslighting. Definitely good to escape I think.

I read a piece on the BBC News web site about this yesterday. The original case was dismissed by a judge saying the words were too generic. This was appealed which is the position it's now in... My view is that that 'copyrighting' words is nonsense. I'm unconvinced about tunes as well... In earlier times, it was common for composers to 'borrow' from other composers.

It will be highly specialised and will almost certainly require specialised packing

I left an orchestra awhile ago due to the bullying nature of some people there. Sometimes you just need to be true to yourself.

I bought something from Japan for the first time a few weeks ago - a film back for a medium format camera. Very straightforward and surprisingly quick. Even with cost of airfreight was cheaper than buying in UK/

Unfortunately, you're dealing with a surfeit of ego and one where that ego is more important than the music. If he's not open to sensible discussion, there's only one way it's going. I suspect "other musicians are OK with it" translates as dealing with it was deemed too difficult. I really don't understand how he expects other players to telepathically determine what he's doing. It's an outrageous level of selfishness.

More updates, including carving to reveal accent layer.

This. I left an orchestra because of that. Too much petty snide comments, to much ego/bullying by a few ruins it for everyone else.

I'm an experienced choral singer - I hadn't sung a note in my life until my mid 30s. I have no problem singing in a concert as part of even a small choir. However... ask me to sing solo.... and plot gets seriously lost. Our recorded voice is always a shock as it's not how we hear it through the bones in our skull - I hate hearing my speaking voice. All you can do as other have said is try to get used to it... Might be worth having some lessons from a singing teacher that specialises in musical theatre as they will be more focused on solo performance

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Playing an instrument requires muscle memory. If you've learnt it 'wrong', it takes time and effort to straighten it out. I'm speaking as a cellist here as I'm more proficient on that than bass... but you need to slow it down to a point where you can repeatedly play it correctly. You then up the tempo by 5 bpm and repeat... and keep doing that until you reach performance speed. You need to retrain your muscle memory. If there's a particular group of bars that's a challenge, start playing the last one of the group, get it right, then add in the bar before. Get that right and add in the bar before that... That way you are playing into something ou know you can get right. Hope it works out for you.

I like some jazz, but one of the things I don't like - and which is one of the things which I think gets jazz a bad name - is the type of gig where EVERY number requires EVERY player to take a solo in turn in some misplaced concept of democracy. You then get a forrest of notes thrown at you, which might be technically very good but about as musical as being hit with a brick. I much prefer it when it is much more mixed up, just an appropriate solo...

... whilst wearing an extravagantly styled cravat...