kwmlondon

It is and there are points when I find myself playing the dots on the page and I almost feel giddy that I'm doing it. It's like witchcraft - I don't know the song but I'm playing it! Then, at other times I feel like I'm trying to read a foreign language and they blur into a mess in front of my eyes, but I do keep plugging at it - I can feel my brain gears crunching and try to learn something new. Lessons? I've flirted with them but the teacher I had a few years ago isn't available any longer and we got on really well - constructive, pushed me enough to make me work but encouraged in the right way to make me feel I was getting somewhere. It's so nice to hear that you have a nice tone isn't it? I'd do it again if I found the right tutor, but I'm looking more at performance classes in an adult college at the moment. I'm doing a course at City Lit at the moment and that's been getting better and better. This week we worked on improvising with a melodic minor scale over I-IV cords!!! Scary stuff but very excting!

I tend to play the same things each rehearsal - trying to get the band to work. I respect them as people and friends and definitely as song-writers, but as musicians? I'm afraid not. They've been good and let me write my own lines to their songs but I don't really get any feedback. The last rehearsal with one was really frustrating as the drummer completely loses time at points and the guitarists noodles between songs so I can't take my earplugs out. I asked him to stop but he just started again not even aware he was doing it. I now go over and turn the bass down myself on the guitarists amp! No, don't hold back. I'm pleased to get the feedback. If I'm competely honest I need to get out of the situations I'm in and take up a new challenge, it's just really hard when you like the people you play with and don't want to let them down.

Well, for the most part it's like meditation for me. For a long time it's really been calming and relaxing to do my exercises but recently I've just gotten angry and that's not right. I guess I need new exercises.

Totally, it's a lot more fun playing I Want You Back than drilling arpeggios but I found the arpeggios help me play the songs. Playing the tune is the reward for doing my scales!

No. Well. Yes. I the nerve damage means can't feel the buttons on a remote control so it's a pain choosing what to watch on the telly and it's hard playing with a pick as my thumb is numb but I get by. It's got me playing with alternate finger picking and I've really enjoyed getting into that - I'm quite good at the old ghost notes and I can play Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick at about 90% speed and I can play Hysteria at full pelt! Honestly, I never thought I'd be able to do something like that but I can... roughly.

fortunately I'm not very egotistical when I play or it may hurt my feelings.

Okay. Here's what happened. I'd not played in 15 years or more and in that time I'd cut my right thumb very badly. I met up with some old college buddies for a jam and I could not play the way I used to, I tried playing "properly" using alternate picking and realised how much my poor technique was holding me back. I'd avoid certain things because I could not every hope to play them, but then thought "dammit, why not learn to play properly" and I've been doing it and for the most part it's been satisfying and I can play things I'd only ever dreamed were within my ability, but .... but recently I've just felt really frustrated. I put hours and hours in every day through the pandemic and it was really good to drill scales and arpeggios. It's just recently I feel like I've hit a wall and it is bruising.

I have been working on Sir Duke for 5 years. I am a bit better than I was a year ago but my old brain isn't exactly picking stuff up easily! I am working on my music reading though and that's really, really frustrating. I do a bit every day but it's like knocking nailes into the wall with a banana...

Yeah, that's true - I am much better than I was a couple of years ago but I don't FEEL like I'm enjoying it. My band members? When I say I am getting frustrated with my playing they just say how good I am, which is kind and nice but honestly I don't think they really know what I'm doing anyway. They don't listen very well. A couple of times I've actually stopped and nobody's noticed!

But when I've played with musicians recently i've found myself turning the volume down so I don't have to listen to myself.

I play Mayor Of Simpletown most days as a practise track to improve coordination between my left and right hands. I've been at it for years and still not nailed it. AND he played it on a fretless for flip's sake!!!

I practise every day. I have done since I got serious about playing and getting decent on the intstrument back in 2019. I've been playing bass for over 30 years and used to have loads of confidence, but recently now I'm really trying to get good at it but I am finding that the more work I put in the more annoyed I get and over the past week I've started to get angry with myself. I'm actually turning down in rehearsals with the band now because I am losing confidence. Midlife crisis maybe? I don't know. Anyone else ever get this? Please. Need some reassurance.

He's said he doesn't know any theory at all, which I infer as he never plays scales or arpeggios etc. Most of us, when we're learning a bassline will work out "okay so that's a simple arpeggio for the next coupe of bars" or "it's a pentatonic run" which makes it easier to remember and work out what to play BUT also means if you had to vary it a bit that'd be a doddle. Just start the scale on a different note, go down for the 5th instead of up, could play a different scale or chord tone and that's kind of how I write an orginal bassline, even if I'm not aware of it - the more basslines you learn, the more theory you have, the more scales and patterns you've practised the bigger your selection of tools. Giaccomo has no tools in his toolkit. He plays the notes, he doesn't know what they are or why they work so he can't change them. That's what I think. He steals because he literally can't write anything himself. He's a mimic.

Sounds very interesting. I’m still a bit of a beginner with chord tones so what were the notes in that arpeggio pls? I’m sure I know the sound but can’t get it from the description. Cheers!

Her style is just so calm and relaxed no matter what notes come out. I was hypnotised by how efficient her playing is when the tone is big or the music busy. Inspiring to be sure.

I saw her at a Sandberg masterclass at GuitarGuitar in Camden earlier this year. She's a fantastic bassist and musican and also a really warm and engaging communicator. If I thought that bass would make me sound like her I'd buy one, but that would take more talent than I have and more practise than I have life left so no. Not on my list, but it'll be a fabulous thing, for sure.

TD or not TB… that is the question.

Looking forward to it!

I sold Rob a little Laney 15 valve combo and it was a great transaction! Rob was excellent to deal with and I dropped the amp over with a freind of his who lives around the corner. Great to do business with him and I hope the amp gets some good use now! Thanks for buying, Rob!

That's one of the weird things about the fretboard for me. If I'm doing something specific, like playing a bassline I've been playing for ages, you can ask me what notes I'm playing and I'll pull a face like a todder trying to do a poo. If I'm practising sight reading I know EXACTLY where I am, what key I'm in, what mode etc. When I'm writing a bassline I'll often be pulling "routines" from the old memory bank to try out and maybe slightly aware of the theory behind it but usually much more intuitive.

Yup. I had a combustion and I just didn't like the EMG preamp. I took the batteries out and used the passive/active as a mute switch. And very handy it was too. Since I got my ABZ though I find the passive tone incredibly useful, and the bass and treble on the Never are so usable - I'd say I use the onboard preamp about 20% of the time, passive the rest. In terms of options though, I'd be fascinated to try out the six-position but as it is I think I'm better off with 4. It's like compression - the best system I used had an on/off switch that worked. As soon as I start to get too much choice I feel like I'm wasting time faffing and give up!

Met up yesterday in Pirate, Dalston, with one of my bands. Lovely guys and they're getting better! The drummer is definitely coming on leaps and bound. The songs we know are getting tighter and working better. We're gonna have one more rehearsal then do a band open mic in November, maybe do a split bill with the guitarist's other band (he's retired so he can dedicate his time to music). But... the big eye-brow raiser was my sound yesterday. I had a Blackstar 250w 15" combo and blow me if it wasn't one of the best sounding rigs I've had in a practise. So punchy, deep and clear. I was running my Dingwall ABZ into it through a Sansamp VT-21 and the dirty sound was sublime. The Neve preamp on the Dingle is the best active circuitry I've ever used, seriously. I don't often use the bridge pickup on a bass because it lacks low-end but taking the bass up a few notches to balance it and tame the low end gave me an incredible rich, burpy sound with oodles of attack. I even whacked the treble up for one tune with distortion to get a really nasty, clanky sound. Unbelieveable how versatile and useful it is. The Blackstar did make me wonder how many of the other bass amps I've used in rehearsal spaces have just been buggered though! Maybe this one was new...

I honestly think the Neve is the most usable preamp I’ve ever had. Brilliant thing.