cdog

@MichaelDean Total sidenote, but.. I'm total barefoot shoe convert for 8 years now so give it time. After trying a few brands I have settled on Altra, specifically the lone peak. They are trainers but super wide and comfy and more cushioned than vivos so less harsh on your feet. Can't see myself wearing much else from now on tbh.

Yes it's a great venue. I'm struggling to get in with other busy Leeds venues. We've played packhorse and crank studios which were nice but it's great to be somewhere that people can find you easily rather than being stuck in the top room of a pub. Any ideas gratefully received. Chris

Played Northern Guitars in Leeds on Friday with Heisenbug. Northern Guitars is a great venue in a busy area of town so plenty of passers by stopping and coming in. Crowd seemed to appreciate our all originals set. Chasing after more bookings now... Check out the crazy drum kit! VID-20250607-WA0014.mp4 VID-20250607-WA0015.mp4

Totally agree, don't practice mistakes, and sleep is the magic sauce. I realised I missed out step 0: make a playlist and listen to the songs as much as possible. Timings are interesting: I've found it quite easy to intellectualise harmony as it is lots of number relationships and I've learned about the theory, but I've not gone through that process with rhythm, probably because I've never been through formal training. So I don't have a clear mental model to slot timings into, I tend to learn through repetition. My plan is to learn how to use music notation for timings so that I can map what I'm learning onto that, like I do with harmony. I think I'll be able to remember timings much more easily when I've mastered that.

Wow, that sounds like a really useful tool. I'll try it later, thanks.

Hi, After playing in an original band for a few years I've just joined a covers band and had quite a few songs to learn. I developed a method which is helped me to learn them really quickly which is 1. Listen to the song and write down the arrangement on a sheet of A4. 2. Find somebody playing the song with bass tub on YouTube and make a note of the chords and any key rifts that are important to the song. Look for repetition of key riffs or phrases on the bass and write this all down in tab alongside the arrangement, see below 3. Once my sheet has got everything on it then I play along with the tab video a few times just to make sure I've nailed the timings 4. Find a version of the song on YouTube that has the base removed and then play along with the record like that referring to my sheet 5. Play along to the recording without the sheet. Has anyone else got a systematic approach that they use? I have found that I can learn multiple song in a day relatively easily doing this which is much faster than just playing along to the bass tab for me. Chris

I'd agree with all of the above : your role in the jam session is to drive the rhythm and to help the other musicians to anticipate what's coming ( which is what a good drummer does too eg any song by the pixies). So I'd be really focussing on roots and 5ths, and leading up and down to changes with runs where appropriate. Keeping it simple and in time will be much better for the group than trying to put loads of notes in. At home I'd play along to jam tracks on YouTube where you can experiment with your runs and make your mistakes.

Cool, thanks 👍👍

No it's not smart like that, just like a drum box app. It's free though and so I try to practice with it to help my timing