Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Picking Picks Picked Pick

While we were prepping to lose power** [Bring on the mocha chunk cranberry brownie sunday!]* my mom came across some thick gauge [is it still called gauge?] guitar picks.  I haven't bothered with picks because my fingers work just fine and not having picks is what makes bassists the most mysterious of rock band members. [Sorry keyboardists] I mean think about it, drummers have their sticks, guitarists have picks and the singer has his water bottles. Bassists if they don't have picks have nothing but they're matching set list. [I've never seen a bassist toss out a water bottle and I've been watching]

I'm really torn about this, I like using my fingers, my callouses are a source of pride, but it is a guitar so why not use a pick? Also I'd love to have one of those bass clef on a pick necklace but the pick thing still irking me.        



*I have Mocha Chunk ice cream that I'll have to eat if we lose power. We also have brownies with dried cranberries.

**[which we never lost] 

Monday, October 29, 2012

The Storm be Comin'

I won't be posting for a few days since according to the weather men says [hahaha...] that I'm losing power with this on coming storm. Since I haven't lost power since Isabel nine years ago I'm not too worried but the if the house does float away my amazing landlady is insuring all my bass stuff for $5,000. This is awesome when you consider all my gear cost about $500.

wait...140+230+25+10+10+14+25...Okay about $454 man I'm cheap.

   

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Strap Locks and Other Shocks

Got off my ass and tried out those strap locks I ordered [and actually arrived]. They're awesome when you consider they were only four dollars and didn't involve major alterations to my guitar; otherwise they are just little bits of plastic I don't totally trust.

Dunlop 7007S(?) Ergo Lok Strap System (just copying and pasting what the website says.)
I did do some mild hopping and swinging and it creaked abit in protest but held. Also when I put the first lock on I turned it too far and it popped off in two pieces, went back together with a literal snap.

Now I tuned my bass and again my A string is hanging out in G AGAIN, and my tuner jumps from G to A sharp AGAIN [I should be happy it was an A at all] and when I got it back in tune, everything after the third fret sounded dead.    
  

Friday, October 26, 2012

This is on the Useless

**This is an old post that has been sitting in my drafts for awhile, pardon my old editing style**

If you've been to any beginner bassist sites you've seen the list of what every bassist needs. Instead of repeating the same old list I'm going to tell you what you absolutely don't need.

1. Bass Playing for Dummies or any other self help book. [Okay this may not be totally be true I've only read the Dummies one] Dummies have been my go to for trying anything new and I gotta say this one felt like a slap to the face. First it ASSumes that you have a friend who plays bass [and will let you manhandle their gear. And why would you be going to a self help book if you had a friend who had half a clue, I mean even wannabe guitarists have enough brains to exchange for a guitar when they mistakenly buy a bass] The maintenance section has lost it. It goes on about washing your hands every time you touch your bass and how you should be careful about wearing down the frets and about filing them. I'm still looking for the paragraph where it talks about putting your bass behind vacuumed sealed plexiglass and playing it telepathically.

2. A bar stool. This is supposedly the best for sitting around and playing any guitar, you know what else works? Any old arm-less chair. I'm considered short by american society and I choose to veto a seat altogether; I spend way too much time on my ass anyway.

3. A music stand, this isn't totally useless but please have something to put on the music stand before you buy it. Case: I'm not into tabs so I bought the best value music sheet book I could find, which happened to be 1024 pages. Point: No average music stand can hold it, I've having a shelf installed to hold it.  
           

Thursday, October 25, 2012

My Clip-on Tuner has Life!

When I got my Shark Clip-on Tuner from an online store who's name escapes me the tuner wouldn't work right. I contacted the website and they sent me another one no problem, they didn't even want the broken one back as proof. [Great deal considering it was $10 online and $30 in store]

Well today I was reheating my coffee for the second time [I have weird coffee habits] and there it was: the box with the broken tuner! I grab the battery gently place it in the good tuner and rip my bass from it like the bass deprived madwoman I am.


IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After almost a month without a tuner I'm shocked to find my E, D, and G string within the right note! But the the troublesome A string is a B... With a slight turn of the knob the B jumps to a G flat and I have a mini heart attack because that's exactly what happened when I had it plugged into the Fender tuner with the broken cord. I take a deep breath and try again, the elusive A appears!   Now to see if it'll stay in tune, but only time will tell...

Cord still hasn't shipped, one more week and I buck up and spend 50 more cents.

Good thing to have if you can find it cheap.

Look what else you find when you plug in "shark bass tuner" into google images:




Wednesday, October 24, 2012

String Theories

My cord hasn't shipped yet, so I'm putting too much energy into finding strings. Oh look a message from Micheal good timing, so bass strings should last me a lifetime if I clean them? Then what's wrong with my bass?!?! [Okay so I don't know for sure that anything is broken since I don't had a cord or tuner battery but still....]

Upon research I've discovered that awesome deep booming sound I love gets cooler with heavy gauge stings. Shame my bass' nut can only hold up to "medium" strings. [I'm praying that means .45] Good thing brass strings make a deep sound too! Well look at that, brass strings okay came in .50 plus gauge [Is this reminding anyone else about the chicken vs egg origin question?]  I might try flat wound strings, they're a different sound then what I have now; it would be cool to change my bass' sound with a change of strings. [So much like shoes!]  

I need more information, I should go ask some people who work at local guitar shops. WAIT! According to Twitter I have followers, if any of you are reading this please comment below telling what strings you use (doesn't have to be bass). Even if you don't play anything comment anyway it would be nice to know I have readers that aren't Russian spammers. If you Russians are for real let me know!

Shame these clash with my bass.

These are those. 

  

Saturday, October 20, 2012

That's All? Part II

Southpaw!!
Needs female version 
Just because you live in her basement...
I am a girl and I want this shirt
story of my life
What?!?!
I feel the need to get better gear
Yup
Epic




All Shirt pictures are from Zazzle.com 

Friday, October 19, 2012

That's All? Part I

I went looking for some cool bass jewelry or shirt and was totally disappointed. I wasn't surprised by the 'I married the bass player' or 'Have you hugged a bassist today?' But the utter lack of  'I married my bass' and 'Have you hugged a bass today?' [What? I'd buy it.] So here is the best and worst of the shirts I found:



Worst 

Can't it just be bass?

Truth

Gag


YES!
That's all the pictures I can get into this post so this is part one.

All shirt pictures are from Zazzle.com







Thursday, October 18, 2012

My Relationship with Fender

It's a 'Love, Why Are You So Expensive?!?' relationship. It all really started when I began shopping for an amp.  Walking into the guitar center [avoid the Glen Burnie location at all costs] I had no idea what brand I wanted. I thought Fender was just like Singer, Kodak and Smith Corona; something that was great back in day but took a quality dive in the 80s and 90s and was simply riding off it's name.

Man was I wrong, I plugged into a a 30 watt Rumble and it was by far the best amp in my price range. [By best I mean it had the a great deep sound to it, the kind that could be used at a haunted house for the monster. Yes I meant it when I said I wanted to scare small children.] I was sold, but I'd heard from several sources that I'd need at lease 40 watts to be heard over a drum set. Lo' and behold Fender's Bronco 40 [watt] combo was at the Rockville Guitar Center [Go here if you must deal with a CG] on sale! [Don't you love smart phones?!?]    

So my forever amazing mother drove forty miles from one GC to the other. [This is after driving 25 miles from home to the first GC] When there we were greeted by a smiling face and finger pointed to the bass area. Of course the two largest amps are taken and on full blast so I stood close to the Fender [dumb idea since bass waves are really long] and crank it. It works, the Rumble setting sounds just like the real thing, and after telling the sales guy how far we've traveled for this he got me $20 off!

I was so impressed I vowed the next bass I'd get would be a Fender; then I started looking at ABGs. Fender and Ibanze both have ABGs for $400, for Ibanze it's the top of the line, for Fender it's the bottom. Neither are offered southpaw so...[Grr]      

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Shipping has Brought the Box to Shore

Really


Everything [but my cord] is here! I'm loving the Of Monsters And Men album, but I'm not so sure about the Mumford and Sons record, it's very low energy. As for the strap guards I don't want to break them out until my cord gets here and/or I get new strings [that won't be until next month at the lease].  Since that was short: Look! Video!




Tuesday, October 16, 2012

XX

Males are the majority in music and the post is about how to get over it deal with it.

Every year I go to the PRS open house I always end up shocked by two things: The amount of good hair this event can amass in the state of Maryland [seriously I can go a year without seeing two guys with hair below their shoulders, at PRS you can't throw a stone without hitting six of them!] and the utter lack of females at the event. It's not just that one event, every music store I've ever been in [including best buy musical instrument section] only has attached females, be them wives, mothers ect. I don't mean to sound like a bitter feminist, I'm just stating how it is.

Now for the dealing part: 99.9999999999999999999999999% of it is in your head. Yup, I know some guys will treat you like crap, but ask around and I'm willing to bet that that guy has been an ass to guys too.  Being the minority isn't that bad considering quite a few males don't know what to make of us females*.
There will be sex jokes, but any guy who will call out your curves isn't above calling a man small.


So don't make music into a battle of the sexes, be a musician first, and any real musician will respect you for it.

Not so much


*I just wanted to apologize if I offended any gender queer with my blunt language.       

Monday, October 15, 2012

Back Order Cord

I'm cheap. Now that that is out of the way you'll understand why I get my cord from amazon. I just ordered my second cord the other day along with a couple other things [strap locks, the new Mumford and Sons CD, and the Of Monsters and Men CD] so I could get the free shipping. Sadly amazon has not everything including my old cord which was a rotosound....five foot...it was curly and awesome. [I have no idea how it compares it's been my only cord thus far but it had great reviews and it was only four bucks] I could of gotten it's longer cousin for twelve dollars but for ten I got a fender cord which had perfect reviews.

How did I know it was a good cord? [Besides the great reviews, and that it was made by Fender!!!]  Just like the first cord I got it was sold out when I ordered it. If even the all mighty amazon can't keep it in stock it must be good.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

How Poltergeist lead to Impulse Buys.

Today I was sitting in the living room when my bass just fell out of it stand. No dog had walked by, no door had slammed, it just fell from it's stand. Maybe the stand is in cahoots with the bass [even though I had just played it last night] but just twenty seconds after checking the stand and replacing the bass it fell again. [This thing has stayed weeks in that stand without and issue, yeah, yeah, I know it messes with the finish but not the playability of the guitar.] 

In a slight panic that my bass was going to totally do itself in I rushed to Best Buy and get this for $25:

  Here's the thing, lefty basses go in backward, so LABEL SIDE DOWN!!!!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

My Handle

When I got my bass I had no one to help me. My mom and uncle would reminisce about all the bass players they knew who got their act together, sold their bass and had started a family a thousand miles away. [They say you can't be a bassist and a grown up, it's true] So when a music junkie friend posted a picture of his music room that included a bass just days after I ordered my bass I took it as a godsend.

I went to a really weird high school, it wasn't even a high school it was a 'tutorial' where kids start in eighth grade and their senior year is when they're fifteen or sixteen. My senior year [age fifteen] the lunchroom went from six tables to four so the the grades and genders were forced to mingle. I believe us senior girls made the wisest choice by sitting with the eighth grade boys. At first it sounds annoying but they really kept to themselves throwing popcorn [the only thing they'd bring for lunch] into they're mouths and comparing lego designs. Until the scary english teacher noticed they're mess and demanded they cleaned up the whole table. [You don't cross that english teacher, ever] So we just set with them so we never had to clean the table.

I never realized how cool Micheal [one of the eighth grader] was until near the end of the year when he forgot his history book in study hall. Faced with nothing to due but school work I of course checked out his book. On the about the author page Micheal had drawn a speech bubble saying "I'm an idiot" and I nearly fell off my chair laughing. [No seriously, it's true, that book was catholic mythology, based just enough in history that you thought it was real until you tried to back up the information with an outside source; it was horrible]                  

Micheal has been amazing. I probably asked him a question a week for the first three months and he always has an answer for me even if it's 'I don't know'. [And I haven't seen this guy in person for four years now] When I got my bass it felt like my own ambition was only a life ring in a sea of  "You are Crazy", Micheal's support has been a solid handle for me to hold to without the nagging questions of why I hadn't stared lessons and when I was going to join a band. In fact Micheal hasn't asked me anything for all the questions I've asked him, guyfriends are awesome like that.

Moral of the story, go to you're non-jerkface music friend even if they're not a bass clef person. Now behold my high school! That's the whole student body one year plus me.

        

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

This is just how weird I am.

In case you haven't noticed I'm very fond of the word southpaw [meaning left handed] but I also said I'm right handed. No, it's not a typo, when it comes to everything but musical instruments and bows [as in bows and arrows] I use my right hand.

Why?
Again I say genetics. My uncle is left handed but plays drums right handed. Also I have mild cerebral pasty, long story short it's just easier to fret with my right hand and it's just more comfortable to hold the neck of a guitar. This has alot of bonus points for me since I have some dyslexia. [not so much the 'look at a page seeing a scrabble bag' and more of the 'writing a word and forgetting that ltter"] I  see the world rather sphere-ic-ly [yes, I'm making up my own words now] so to me the difference between left and right is 'if you say so'. Look at it this way, I live on the east coast and if I go east I go to 'the west', but if I go west I hit the 'far east'; and I have the confused mind?

Another reason playing southpaw is a bonus [okay this totally goes with the dyslexia so ignore my my totally awkward paragraph break] is that I just mirror every bass player I see. For all the books and online videos I've used, watching bands live has helped most; I mean a $30 concert ticket for a band that might be shit is way more fun then $30 lesson from someone you may not gel with.

[Don't digress, don't digress...I'm talking to myself]  Okay another plus of playing lefty is the cheap guitars! I saved $130 on a bass because it was used AND southpaw. I will gladly take 70% off retail.  

Monday, October 8, 2012

Sad Day

I'm convinced, my bass is alive. Today was the first time I picked up my guitar since discovering that little beauty I posted about. My bass got jealous and in revenge slipped from its strap not once but four times. I caught it three times, but the first time I was not so lucky. Now the A string sounds kinda wonky but I'm not totally sure since my one tuner has a dead battery and the fall took my cord.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Well hello there lovely!

I should be posting a video of me playing, actually I need to be studying for the stats and tribal arts tests next week. What am I doing instead? Lusting.

So pretty isn't it? It's only $300, but it's brand new so there are no good reviews. oh and it's only offered right handed. And oh yeah, who the hell has acoustic basses for sale [manhandling] anyway?

It's a SGBE 110VS by the way.