Trying to clean up my Left and Right hand techniques.
When I took lessons ~20 years ago, I wanted to learn with a pick as that is how Jason Newstead played. Due to this, my teacher, who mainly taught guitar, showed me to mute strings by fretting with my fingers touching the strings I was not playing, and or doing what you also said not to, using my thumb to over the E string on my fretting hand. I do wear a size XXL glove, so it isn’t awkward for me to do this while playing and I have never had excess fatigue or strain while doing it.
I mainly taught myself how to play with my fingers a few years later, and recently stumbled across your Right Hand Technique lesson saying that Static Anchor, is basically the last thing you want to do. Honestly I only ever heard the term Floating Thumb within the last few years. I would say what I do is more “Hybrid” Anchor as I actually leave my thump on the corner of the pickup. When I move up the register on the D & G, I slightly shift my hand and my thumb ends up on the E, although it is still technically “Anchored” on the corner of the pickup. I never move to the A as it feels I am closing my hand too much.
I have found correcting this hard to do with riffs I have been playing over the years, almost as if there is a mental block. To work past that I have been working on going back to Fretting Hand Dexterity drills, playing a lot of walking bass lines and things I do not know to try and retrain how I am playing.
When I started taking the Beginner to Badass last week, I have been going through even the most basic lessons from M1L1 to start fresh from the beginning forcing myself to do this.
Lately it’s been stamina. We did a dance number set 4-6 songs and the last time we ended on footloose and my left hand didn’t love it. Worse we connected to a Ballad for the guys to “seal the deal” and I couldn’t really calm right down to the right mood. I don’t know how my drummer did it. He’s just switched off and chilled.
It’s true. Sometimes you just feel tired or not in the right mood. When that happens, it’s really tough to get your head (and hands) in the game. Can’t play your best when you’ve lost that loving feeling.
I mean good lord who can expect anyone to play ballads and be in to it in the first place, I am sure most wedding bands mentally check out through half of them. Except, of course, the singer, as this moment is probably why they show up at all
I have never thought about it …but of, course: that’s it! Nothing “seals the deal” better than a ballad!
I learned something today about the science of set lists - also, I want to rewatch “Wedding Crashers” now ^^
Ballads can be good or bad music, regardless of who does or doesn’t dig them.
But good pro (read, paid) musicians play ballads and any other tunes to the best of their abilities because: A) it’s their job to deliver clients great experiences; and, more importantly, B) they’re good musicians and they honor the music whether particular tunes are personal faves, or not.
So I am working on a guitar, and bought some great pickups for it used. I tried the pickup screws I had and they were too small, didn’t really think about it, just assumed I needed a different size, looked online and ordered the correct size for these pickups.
They arrived, and I went to mount them tonight, and the new screws were way too small too. This time I looked harder.
Thanks a lot, prior owner. I am guessing these were mounted in to threaded inserts in a guitar body (or worse, wood screwed directly in) rather than in a strat-style pickguard.
Hmm. Guess I’ll go for a nut and washer? Dayum.
Looking online, apparently the fix is to solder nuts to the pickup legs. @terb you know anything better here?
Hey guys, didn’t want to make a new thread about this but I am probably going to be away from the forum and bass playing for a little while. Without going into too much detail, my wife is currently having some heart problems and has had a couple of somewhat serious episodes over the last few days. It’s an issue called SVT which causes the heart to start beating in excess of 160BPM up towards 220-300BPM during a severe episode.
This is an issue that just started happening so we don’t exactly know how severe it is going to be or what the frequency of the episodes is going to be like. It is possible she will require medication to help manage it and in a worst case scenario heart surgery is a possibility. For most people that have this issue it never requires medical intervention so hopefully her episodes will be infrequent.
We have an appointment scheduled with a cardiologist for next week, but that’s what I’m struggling with. If y’all don’t see me around the forums for a while it’s because all my focus is on her at the moment
Hey man that’s not fun. I hope it’s just the episode and it can be corrected. Speaking on behalf of the “Post your Covers” crew, the thread won’t be the same without you and you’ll be sorely missed while you are away. Come back when the situation is clear.
I hope it will be fine, finger crossed !
Take care