TimR

Great update. I read the first post and was sure it was familiar. 🤣 My motivation to play when I don't have a gig lined up is probably the same as most of us. I've been playing long enough now that picking up the bass after a few weeks off is no great shakes, certainly for the standard I play at. I think just playing along to YouTube with "following track autoplay" switched on is quite a good exercise in ear training. You get no warning what's coming up next, you may never have heard the song before. The first verse and chorus are finding the chords, the next time round, maybe parts of bass lines, etc. Then it's on to the next track...

...and you didn't play any music at all?

Blondie's Maria, and Madness's Baggy Trousers (and quite a few other songs I've played) have inversions of chords that will sound off if the Root note is played. Not wrong, just slightly off. A chord isn't a chord until the bass player says it is. 😉 Often guitarists will have downloaded tab that just includes the 1st inversion of the chord.

Quite. Even worse if you're depping. Hard to Handle is a standard. I suspect there are as many 'versions' as there are bands.

Doesn't the original have brass? To be honest, I can't be bothered to bring a brass section into the pub for a single song. So the bass and guitar will have to have a different arrangement to cover that song. Black Crowes arrangement, Otis Reding, Committments, or our arrangement. Most people are just listening to the singer.

Bit of an odd gig last night. The rain maybe didn't help and apparently there was some boxing on and a local music festival. Maybe 30 people in. They appreciated us anyway. Acoustics very difficult to manage and a few times I couldn't hear the guitarist clearly enough which led to a couple of very bad bum notes and a complete restart of one song - I can't actually remember ever having to do that with this band. I need another clip box for the lights. Carrying cardboard boxes across the carpark in the rain doesn't do them any favours, and I really need to reduce the number of trips.

In the 1920s Ford introduced streamlined production lines which meant that employees only had to work 5 days a week. This left them with free time at the weekends to play bass guitar or run around sports fields, etc. Currently most of us could work from home on a 3 day week and still be just as productive, but inertia is preventing that. A few companies will lead the way once the old guard have lost control and retired. In the 1980s we had computers that meant all those ladies in typing pools getting RSI could go and do more interesting and productive work. I think AI is just another tool that we will be able to use in the same way to make things easier. People will move even less and get fatter. The people with skills to operate the AI tools and repair the machines will earn more money.

The Rise of the Machines is already here. So far it's military targets. If someone wanted to remove specific people en masse, quickly, from the population without collateral or infrastructure dammage. They already can.

I guess a ton a bass lines I play are influenced by something I've already heard somewhere, I wonder what creativity AI will bring to the world of requirement for session players.

They flew 117 drones into an airbase and systematically targeted and destroyed specific individual planes carrying cruise missiles. Reportedly 34% of Russia's cruise missile capability was lost in that one attack. That's not setting off a bomb and hoping you do a load of damage and scare people. And while those drones were each piloted by an individual operator back home in Ukraine, you can bet there's a ton of AI being used to assist and identify targets.

There will have to be restrictions put onto the type of content it can produce. Or some kind of digital watermark put into all video content in order for anything to be shared. Looking at the drone attacks on Russia at the weekend, AI is the least of our worries. Imagine a lorry driving into central London on a busy day.

I'm finding more recently people are having problems directly talking to people face to face and discussing their problems and feelings openly. Resorting to messenger, WhatsApp, emails etc, where all meaning gets lost. I have recently fallen foul of someone who has been saying things like "Some people might feel..", unfortunately unless those people actually say they don't want to... directly to me, then it's a hypothetical "some people.". Now, that 'someone' has thrown their toys out of the pram, said they're not being listened to, and walked. If they'd said in the first place: "I'm sorry but I don’t want to...", we could have sorted it all out a lot soon.

I'd say the issue here was auditioning and accepting a new player without the whole band on board to agree. I got fed up with playing Rock/Blues to an audience who kept asking us to "Play something we know." and "Play something we can dance to." We now play modern pop with a rock edge and frequently get comments like "It's good to hear something different from the usual blues rock we get." and people actually get up and dance. Bands evolve, time to move on, although it's preferable to be the one making the decision to leave.

Maybe he's upping sticks and moving to the UK. Who would blame him?