josie

That's not worse, it's better! 🙂 I also have little coloured ribbon ties on the ends of all my cables so I can tell (1) which end belongs to which and (2) which cables belong to me. I'm trying to get the others to visibly tag mic stands and PA stands too so we know for sure who should go home with exactly what.

It's not just you. Electric string does that as soon as you turn your back. Buying cables I look for those neat little elastic-and-hook loops some have which make it easy to secure them into some semblance of order which might stay put until the next time they come out of the gig bag.

Belatedly my thanks and congratulations. I too would have preferred two separate one-hour episodes - of course i could have split up listening to it, but i got absorbed and went straight through. Good natural voices. Good to have the segments explicitly flagged up. Tiny detail - there have been threads here about "what should you always have with you at a gig" usually spare battery. strings, &c but the podcast was the first time I'd heard a hand towel recommended. I passed that tip on to the others in my band. We played a couple of outdoor marquee gigs last weekend, and I was not the only one who gratefully reached for a towel between every song! Thank you @SpondonBassed 🙂 It's a lot harder to do than it sounds, very well done and thank you.

Best wishes! and very well done for going for it. Respect. I took Bass Guitar Grade 1 at 60 and Grade 2 at 62 - got a Distinction in both. I did find it a bit disturbing sitting in the waiting room surrounded by parents who had brought their sprogs in for the exams and who were obviously much younger than me! Obviously you have much more at stake, but please don't let yourself be put off if you're waiting with entrants 30 years younger. It doesn't mean they're better, or more deserving than you of getting in. Oh and I totally f****d up the most important part of the 2 through nerves - broke down and said "Sorry, I've lost it." The examiner just calmly let me do it again, and his written comment was very positive. I suspect recovering under pressure is a skill they value. Hope this helps.

We had a somewhat different experience - we played together, off and on, for a year as a blues workshop at Band on the Wall in Mcr which ended with a friends and family gig at the BotW cafe. At the end of that gig we looked at each other and knew we couldn't let it end there. There was so much shared energy and potential, we just had to carry it on as A Real Band 🙂 Two people did drop out, one more joined, but by then we knew exactly how much commitment and ambition was shared. Played our first gigs outside Mcr last weekend, and we're all looking forward - realistically - to building on it.

Pm'd

And now there's a beautiful Warwick 6 for sale in the marketplace... I'm just hoping he'll tell me it weighs 20 kilos...

Beautiful! I've been trying not to want a 6 but... What does it weigh please?

I have been seriously tempted. I'd love to have the full range of relatively easy options I'd get from BEADGC. I doubt I could find a 6 light enough to gig though - both my regular gigging basses (GMR 5 and Aerodyne 4) are well under typical weight and my back still complains by the end of even a 45 minute set 😞

My 1966 cherry red Gibson EB2 is faded - much more on the front that the back - and gently worn and rubbed. I had a chance to do an almost straight swap for a mint condition 1965, still bright cherry red and looking as if it had never been out of its case, and turned it down. The other looked and felt artificial, too shiny. Mine looks and feels as if she's been part of 50 years of music history. I wouldn't be drawn to a bass that was visibly seriously bashed about, even if it was genuine wear. New relic'd - only if it was the only bass on a desert island.

We think of the cello only as a four stringed instrument, but in J S Bach's time, five string cellos were common, and of the cello suites BWV 1007-1012, the 6th is just about possible to play on a 4, but not possible to play really well.The 5th string is needed for higher notes, so that would be like a bass 5 strung EADGC. (Which I did, briefly, with my ex-band, whose originals often worked best with high basslines.) Excellent discussion here: http://5stringcello.com/english/i-j-s-bach-and-the-five-string-cello/i-j-s-bach-and-the-five-string-cello/

Welcome! Sounds interesting, please let us know how it goes 🙂

Dave Pegg - one of the very best - plays a fan-fretted Ibanez SDG 5. And a beautiful thing it is.

We played Scarisbrick Marina Festival, just outside Southport, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday clashed with the footy and predictably there were only a handful of people there, it felt a bit too quiet, and we drifted toward the end. Better on Sunday - we had a drummer this time, a dep who did pretty well, still only about 30 people but they were bouncing around in their seats and clapping to the faster songs, better atmosphere and we played better. Afterwards an elderly lady came up to me with the sweetest smile, put her hand on my arm and said "Thank you - the bass drives the band, you know." Made my day 🙂

What do you have already? How far do you want to experiment? What kind of music do you want to play? Try a hollow-body or semi-hollow-body. My 1966 Gibson EB2 cost about £2k - fair price - and she's changed the whole visceral experience of playing bass. The physical resonance of that thin body combined with the growl and punch of the sound are like nothing you'll ever get from any solid-body or any acoustic.