Back on the band front

[lumberjim]

dude. I hadn't been playing much (at all) for a while... Picked up the guitar yesterday, and couldn't get through one song without my hand going crippled. It was cold out, and I was leaning back in the chair with the neck up high... but still. I need to play every day from now on. my callouses are gone. I'm getting together with my dad and his cousin in August, and I need to be in playing shape.

[Undertoad]

IKR? It's one of those things; you don't realize how weak or strong that fretting hand is until you pick up the axe and give it a try.

Couple years ago I took like 4 months off, between projects, and then tried playing just a five song set of the old, hard stuff. I was shocked how much I lost in that time. Foo Fighters "Hero" requires the bass to be strong and sturdy and play solid eighth notes for the whole song... I was beat, just doing that.

The bass will have to carry the load...

It WILL, too... same sound guy as Rocky Horror, and he knows what I did for that show. There's a speaker cabinet under the audience, so they can bring me right up, and if I do a great job it will make a lot of things just work, even if the drummer is uneven.

[Undertoad]

With all this work, I am now able to read music....

...with my own notation in the margins of the score. I'll write out the notes in a simpler form. Some of the notation is fun, to musicians anyway: "Off to the pretty chorus" or "wait for snare dit-dit-dit" or "prepare for the fill!" or "Everything STOPS!" I'll write the lyrics in, if they help.

Then yesterday we rehearsed and I forgot my score! Fuck! But I had an un-notated PDF copy on my phone... thanks, Google Drive!... and wound up reading it, on the tiny screen... and did OKAY!

Thursday, with my score, I'll really be right on it, including what I'm calling "the pro riff", which just sort of... locked in. It's wild how that happens. This particular song contains a crazy riff involving all four fingers and all four strings over the whole song. It's VERY hard to get right, and judging by YouTube and other online resources... EVERYBODY FAKES IT.

Pretenders! Have you no pride! etc., etc. So I figured out how to play it correctly, and I play it every day, twice a day. And every time, I have to work hard at it; fuck it up most days. But as of yesterday, the muscle memory took over, and now I execute it without thinking at all. You want "Santa Fe"? Bam, there's the riff. Bam, there's the chorus.

It's technically the hardest song I've never had to play. "Ace of Spades" is actually harder but for rock-out reasons, not technical reasons. You can play "Ace" on one string, but playing it the right way still requires very hard work. It can draw blood.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If you play it right, and everybody else is faking it, when people hear you play will they say to themselves, that's not what I remember hearing before, he must be doing it wrong?

Even if nobody notices, you know you did good, and can take pride in putting in the hours to learning the right way.

[Griff]

Bravo!

[Clodfobble]

This makes me very happy.

[monster]

go U!

[xoxoxoBruce]

How to play a bass guitar...

[Undertoad]

That's okay! Except for the bit bending the neck. Fuck that guy for even suggesting it. There's no call for that kind of shit.

To each his or her own toolbox, MY video would include ghost notes... two-finger rolling triplets... de-tuning notes with the tuner... using fret clank as percussion... playing way up on the neck and using vibrato to mimic a fretless... hitting the body of the bass for effects... playing weird slidey notes with the mic stand... giving the drummer a look and then hitting "one" real hard to get their tempo in line... and forgetting the key and having to look over at the guitar player's hand to see where we are in the song.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...look over at the guitar player's hand to see where we are in the song.

That's what my buddy told me. "Follow my first finger."

[Gravdigr]

I'm really hot on Method #14.

[Undertoad]

That's what my buddy told me. "Follow my first finger."

Or if you can see the keyboard player, the left hand is bass, sometimes you can work it out from there. Sometimes!

During "Rocky" I could see the bandleader's keyboarding left hand, and would use it for timing... When are you going to hit that critical note you never cue us for? Because I will hit it at exactly the same time you do, and hence knock you the fuck out when it's perfect every time.

[Undertoad]

I'm really hot on Method #14.

The notes you don't play, that's where the funk lives.

[lumberjim]

Where the funk lives. That's one of them title things.

[Undertoad]

Opening night, and it went fine!

I was really worried for a while there. the drummer they found had 2 rehearsals. The cast's mics were cutting out during dress. And I had yet to complete a show perfectly. But there's something about doing it for real that focuses everybody, and it went over fine.

The sound guy knows me now, having done three shows with me, and made me real loud in the mix. (But I can tell I'm too boomy in the house.)

The theatre is an old converted barn; and the lights, sound and this time the band is upstairs in the loft. We can look down and see some of the audience, but they can't really see us.

The pain: I don't get to see the show... AT ALL. I hear the whole thing; and it's being shot with a camera and video fed to the band... but the monitor had to go right behind my head, since we have no room. I may ask to change places with the guitarist for one show so I can watch it.