Solo bass pieces and meditation.

I've had the itchiest fingers last couple of days... Went to a wedding over the weekend, which was fun, but I didn't take a bass (just a grip exerciser). Managed to tear a calf muscle dancing, which is a minor limp now (healing fast, I think).

The itchiness, though, developed into a sort of dark, sleepless yearning. I've got to play, play new things, write new things. Weird, out of character things. New sounds from research, radio 1, Maybe buy a Novation controller at some point, abandon old band concepts, shrink the personnel, programme a lot: expensive synth strings, horns, drums...

So to calm the beast, tonight was declared "dig out old tap pieces and start learning a new meditative solo piece" night. Other people's work, all, but something to still me before bed.

Satriani's "midnight" and "day at the beach" work surprisingly well on a 4 string, although the warwick's too heavily strung. The rhythm for Midnight took time to come, but the familiar alpha waves hit me and that sense of continuity, stillness, chronological nowness - it came to me, fleetingly, leaving that same beautiful feeling of being "at one" with something, anything, instead of the terrible otherness of day jobs.

New piece to learn is "Jacob's Ladder" from 100 degrees and rising, by Incognito. It's a beautiful piece, with a mainly Latin feel behind some wonderfully articulate gentle slap and fingerstyle, all light, feather-touch and playful. Things I'd rather be!

Overall, a good start, I've got the main A-E part right, along with the higher register piece which breaks it before it heads to F-B flat. It's so fast I think I need the Aria Integra, with the light 30s on it, to get the feel right. Beautiful piece, the strings towards the end are really nicely done. The whole album's got some great moments on it, they rein in the worst excesses of the strained female vocals on nearly all the tracks they appear on.

Keep playing, world. It's important.

Anxiety dreams of a Bassist

Wow, Freud would run screaming from this morning's little oddball moment. I suspect I'd stopped breathing again (last night was pretty rough) and from what I remember the dream had points in it where my left hand had been replaced with a transplant, which kept going numb and powerless until I took time to flex and work on it.

At one point, very lucidly, I was thinking this would stop me playing permanently, and I started remembering how to play Donna Lee in my head. After this, the fingers (previously looking pale and lifeless, and unable to clasp at their tips as if broken halfway down) came back to life and appeared to be fine again.

I woke up gasping, as usual - not a function of the dream, more me not breathing. Yipe.

Creative acts with paint

Horrible, horrible helmet:



Plus Altern-8 style painter:



Equals primed helmet,



Then ORANGE.



And finally, shiny shiny.



Much better.

The benefits of daily metronome practice... strength.

It's weird how quickly you start to get strength and definition into your playing when you're regimented in your practice, even if you can only get 45 minutes of bass aerobics and a quick play along to some Madeon (his stuff's so good i tend to slap all the way through it, trying to embellish the excellent bass that's there already).

My right thumb has that self-guiding feel you get when something is starting to really "work", you know?

Also - found a bunch of guys on Diaspora who are running a collaborative music project, a lot of them are using soundcloud for it, so what the hell, I'll stick some low end noise on there!

Stashing parts for fixing stuff later - planning for the apocalypse

Well, maybe not the apocalypse. I've been stashing some parts for the car, mainly suspension bushes and other "consumables", while they're plentiful and cheap, as I want to keep the car for 8-10 years if possible (it should last that long, I reckon). I've now decided to do the same for my iPhone 3GS: I've got about £70 of spares and tools from http://www.AppleiPodParts.com/ including a complete OEM re-case (including the silver front bezel and internal attached parts) and a new OEM battery. These will now get stashed for use in approx. 2 years to recondition the phone completely when things start to wear out. I'll probably pick up a new digitiser / front button panel at some point as well - about another £30 or so. That should hopefully ensure a long and useful life for the iPhone. I daresay iOS for it will be deadended somewhere in 5.X long before I stop using it ;-) Fix your own stuff: it's the only way!

And at last, BlogPress came back up... google apps account using a virgin email address?

Non-music post - on the iPhone / iPad I've used a tool called BlogPress in the past - pretty good multi-platform blogging tool. Not the cheapest, but it's got reasonable integration of pictures and, more crucially and interestingly, video. It's been unstable under iOS5 and the last straw was when it simply wouldn't log in any more. I stopped using it and have been waiting for an update which Apple were apparently slow to approve. Installed the update yesterday (I'm sneezing and coughing my way through the first - and I hope only - cold of 2012) and couldn't get it to work - logging in seemed impossible... Turns out my google apps account wasn't keen to let me log in with my email address: this may well be an argument with my virgin net account, as they're the same, and Virgin have moved to using google mail. If I log in using an application specific password (google thing to allow one-step auth when your account has 2-step enabled) against the **username** I've associated with the account instead of the email address, everything works! I suspect there are other "clashes" like this out there... anyway, it's all good. I'm back into blog territory. I think I've even got twitter to log in...

New year, old music...

Here's some FunkyBass recorded live in Oxford's Bridge club, circa 2005/2006: from the Janeiro / Tempa Tempa era. Great track, this - Jake Carter wrote it, it's a classic. Jake can now be found online at http://www.jake-carter.com/. Do Your Thing - TempaTempa by Andy Basexperience Watt

A Day in the Studio... with output!

I spent Friday in pleasant creative flow, in the studio. It's been a while, and I had a project I'd started way back which I wanted to complete.

In the process, I wanted to upload some stuff to SoundCloud, where I've had an account for an age and not had any sounds on there at all. I want to start an audio CV with some recent work, something which showcases some bass, I hope.

Aside from the dodgy solo in the outro, I'm fairly happy with the result, as it gave me a great opportunity to learn some new Cubase skills I haven't used before, automating mixdown with the MIDI desk I've got (it's actually a 16 channel live desk that has a MIDI mode, I defined MIDI mapping configs for Cubase control). Great learning experience - effect inserts, panning, automation in general. Weird to watch the desk (it's automated and motorised) fiddling around with its own levels during playback.

If you're interested in the outputs, you can check my soundcloud stuff out here - this was the track I made a first mix of.

It's not bad but it's rough and ready, and that solo section is all over the place.

But I got something finished: that's desperately important.

Working on Chromatic Fantasy again!

I've reached page 3 of the transcription... it's coming together, slowly but surely, like one of those promises you made yourself and never quite managed to follow through on. I intend to be able to play this thing through at least once!

Ski tracks app - sweet

Ski tracks generates some excellent data you can plus straight into google earth. Was just reminded when is started it on the iPhone just now and got this excellent map of the last day's epic trek last march:




That's a fully zoom able and twist able map. A really nice keepsake of an excellent ski holiday.

Oo, that's got my appetite up.

Turning down a gig? Me?

It's true - I got an offer through the excellent Tony of Phat Tone Studios in Reading (his studio's a cracker) of a dep gig in London, expenses paid, hotel, etc. I turned it down after some deliberation.

The bands name is "the Gentlemen of Distorted Sound" (GODS. - look them up on YouTube, they're pretty impressive onstage.

Thing is, this gig was important for them. The chance to support the Quireboys, apparently, rested on it. But their bass player's wife went into labour, so they needed a stand in who could get the songs quick and run with it. I _could_ do that OK.

Thing is, look them up on YouTube, especially live; they're definitely part GnR, part leather-waistcoat-no-shirt-grungeglam. I would simply not fit it, not look right - and these guys have a look as much as a sound and songs.

Simple truth - If I did the gig, they'd sound great, but look hamstrung by the gimp on bass. I can't cause them not to get the gig, it's not fair to them or me. We'd both feel awful.

So I turned it down! Do you think I did the right thing? Let me know with some comments.

Old classics and revisited gems

Dug into bits of "Permanent Waves" by Rush last night: very enjoyable.

I've also been spending time trying to sight read more of jaco pastorious solo pieces, as these may form a great batch of warm-ups instead of using my rather mechanical regime (which I've been using for years).

In amongst all this appreciation for very old stuff, I've got a Moog softsynth for the iPad, which sounds just beautiful! Introductory offer: £0.69. Utter, utter bargain and sounds phenomenal.

My ex-bandmate Terry Collie appears to have had fun last Sunday finding open nights at pubs in London - twickenham / George was apparently very well organised. Rocky styles apparently, but well organised cuts it with me.

Thomann tryouts (again, first for a long time...) - tuning peg frenzy

Been a long time since I ordered anything on Thomann. I've put in an order ( €79.00 including postage ) for no less than 10 tuning pegs. It's time a couple of the beasts got some well deserved care and attention to the mechanicals.

The Tobias really does need new pegs - I replaced several a few years back, but my stocks are out, so I'm swapping all 6 of them out for Warwick ones. Here's hoping they fit.

The other 4 are silver ones to replace all the pegs on the Crafter acoustic bass I have - I was saddened by the quality of the pegs on it, they're out of character with the rest of the bass which has a quality well beyond its price tag. It sounds great, but the tuners have basically just eaten through the cheap metal the gears were made of. Not impressive. So it's warwick ahoy for them as well.

The fitting will be a damn sight simpler than the car seat was yesterday. Found that control knob, finally - another £6 to add to the pile, but the job is complete (bar a damn good leather clean and feed for the seat itself - it'll come up a few shades after that I'm sure!)

Also think I've worked out how to grease the seat. No euphemism intended.

Of cars and mechanics (sort of)

For the first time in a long time, I got the tools out in earnest and completed a much put-off job. My wife has a rather nice diesel estate car which has done us fantastic service zooming around France, but it has one niggling annoyance for her - the drivers seat. The car has leather upholstery, which is nice, but it's the basic model so the seats were only adjustable in a couple of dimensions.

Her previous vehicle had been a top-line company car, custom spec BMW 320d, with full electric seats, and she likes to drive with a lot of support under her legs, slightly pitched backwards. This was impossible with the stock seat.

I found an eBay listing a few weeks back for an 8-way electrically powered version of the same seat, so I secured it (and later, the switches, which the breakers yard had removed, the cheeky bastards - they got another 30 quid out of me for that and I still have to buy one of the switch tops) and it's been with us for about 3 weeks or so.

Last night I got home and decided there was enough light left to go for it, so I did a little investigation, established that the plug under the seat for the supplies had a full set of cables (there were 15 cables and the stock seat only had 3 plugs so I made the assumption that the car has a stock loom which will take all the optional extras), and went for it.

It was great to dig out the tools again, get my hands dirty, and figure out how to remove the seatbelt assembly (another piece the bastards at the breakers yard had taken off and neglected to mention in their listing!!!) and transfer it to the new seat - this went off without a hitch, each element under the seat actually had a physically notched removable plug so they couldn't be inserted into the wrong slot in the plug unit.

Best of all, the seat is in fact the right colour - so, although it needs a good clean and feed, I don't need to remove the upholstery and transfer it across.

The forward-backward motor sounds a little tired, I suspect the tracks need grease, but otherwise it's working fine and she now has the driving position she wanted.

I just have to find that switch knob. Grr.

Possibly the oddest Gig I've been to... Roger Waters does the Wall at the O2

Good gig: huge venue: enthusiastic performer: political content as subtle as a sledgehammer (and bang up to date, including plenty of recent footage from our current war fronts): a spectacular audiovisual experience.

But the audience... weird. Half-dead suits who have dug out an ancient T-shirt (or worse yet, have bought one at the venue): fat, bloated versions of their earlier, more energetic and visionary selves, suddenly half-reanimated like Jackson's backing dancers (and just as jerky in their motions).

Seriously, I sat near a fat bastard who nearly ripped the seat out with his catatonic rocking motions.

And at points, the whole floor audience stood up, and then in the next track realised they were quite tired and really needed to sit down again, but did it very gradually so they didn't look too old.

I spent a good portion of the time laughing at the audience!

Oh - and prostate problems and roving Becks beer sellers create CONSTANT TRIPS TO THE BLOODY LOO!

Gawd, these wispy remains of men...

Great gig though.

Best laid plans of the long weekend...

Well, a combination of things meant I only got a small amount of what I had in mind done. I got the studio set up, but then got myself exhausted moving crap gravel...

On the plus side, I think the project I started a while back is going to arrange itself into a nice trippy piece of 80bpm big-beat bentley rhythm ace / ethereal crossover.

I got experimenting with the GR50 and the 6-string, and started messing with pad13 - a 5ths heavy reverb flute pad affair. After a little low C bass and some heavy big beat, it's morphing nicely.

Today was a 12 hour day in work, so I've been restricted to a half-hour aerobics session on the Warwick. This turned out to be reassuring - fast fingers tonight.

I think the hard work over the weekend paid off - that, and the screwdriver work out I had this morning trying to dismantle a 6th high crate which arrived from Frankfurt... Pulled 8 "screws" out of the marine ply and pine before I realised they were actually a form of nail. Then I used a massive 8mm flatblade screwdriver as a crowbar and split the bastard from stem to stern. Very cathartic.

1st May Practice and musings

Breeze are playing O'neills in Oxford tonight. Get down there and suck up the sticky goodness.

I've got to mind the fort here at home, so it's 6 string practice time this evening.

25 mins of warmups with doubled finger warmups and some additions to the hammeron/pull off exercises.
Today's scale was A - majors, minors and arpeggios with triads and 7th chords.

Use some Jamiroquai to warm up the funk muscles. Decided on a stamina session so played:
- revolution 1993 full-on, all 10 mins 16 seconds of it. This one will work out your left hand, it's got a lot of B work down at the low end. Feeling pretty good at the end, can still pop around the fills.

Now we'll move onto a song for the day - analysis and catching some new vibes. My big list has some good tracks on it, all on the iPod. The idea here is to try to get some new ideas into the playing, maybe some new rhythmic influences.

Today it's "talkin loud" by Incognito. A challenger. That'll see me through to about an hour and a half of work.

Tomorrow should be a good studio day, if things are willing...

Another Nigerian bank scam

But this one is simply hysterical. Have a read. It came through to Nic as a JPG which I presume gets around spam filters.

Anyone know what a "suspense account" is? I don't think Hitchcock had trouble, but this fella has no idea.

The evening's work

All the usual stretch exercises, 15 minutes.
Spiders for 10
Hammeron and pulloff stuff for 5, finger isolation LH
3 octave Arpeggios for 10 across all 6 strings.
Right hand dexterity, all 3 finger workouts: both directions with lead and drag of alternating fingers.

Then some cover band work on 6 tracks, paying attention to the rhythm of the baselines on "smooth" (Santana) and checking the outro in particular.

Should have had a jam this afternoon but the drummer's in Armenia... How random is that?

Great night at the White Horse

Great night last night - White Horse, Emmer Green, Caversham, Reading.

The pub was packed - great atmosphere, like pubs should be, a lot of happy, friendly, chatty people.

The house band is the function band I'm working with - sounded pretty good for a first stab at public playing: lots of funk too. I think these guys could have a go at some original material... Hmm!

18th March is the next one; come on up and get a seat early - the place is jumpin! My last post shows how quirky the stage area is. It's total 80s front room chic!


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Location:Emmer green