Jonni Scott

Charity gig in Bedford. Thought I'd speed up the setup

Three reasons not to do a cruise ship gig: http://youtu.be/ikD3RSteUa0 After carefully considering the pros over the cons I moved to the next video. What skills you need for a cruise ship gig: http://youtu.be/nTE42fFkHJ0 I then realise my I've fallen short of the requirements as I'm not. Great on the reading skills. Aaarrrgghh!!

This week in Surrey

This is when I really should be reading. Remembering grooves is the only tricky part when playing with different drummers. Would free up my concentration, but would it make my brain lazy?

Let me give you the run down of this bass so far. As i assure you, there is no bass like this in the world. Orginally it was a Marcus Miller jazz. However the headstock was broken and so Michael took that opportunity to develop the bass in to something he had dreamed of doing. Here we go. The top wood is high grade quilted maple, this wood is trebley and also has low-high mid range. The back of the body is ash, ash wood gives good low midrange punch and low bass tone. A very good balance of woods . The fingerboard for the neck is rock maple. This feels nice on the fingers and has lots of high mids and treble. Electronics is complicated but I will do my best to explain. Basically in the bass will be 3 tone circuits 1 Passive circuit and 2 active circuits. 1.The passive circuit will be volume, balance and tone. 2. Active circuit aguliar. Vol, balance, bass, treble, midrange, and mid range boost. This circuit is new but I have heard good things about it. 3.The last circuit is a Yamaha trb. Bass, treble and 2 way presettable midrange. This is his favourite circuit that He has used for years. The knobs are stackable that means although there are 5 knobs on the bass, when you look at the bass, really there are 10 on the front and 1 knob in the back of the bass under the rear control plate. The 3 circuits share all the 5 knobs on the front to control them. These 3 circuits are all selectable and interchanges when I require by pushing or pulling on certain of the top knobs. Finally in the bass bridge there is a piezo pickup. This is used with a separate unit externally from the bass sort of like a midi bass concept to get sounds from the roland effects unit. The piezo pickups in the bridge can also use the any of the magnetic circuits, or can be blended in with the magnetic a 4th sound. The single switch will be used to select the sounds from the external roland unit.

This isn’t a publicity post. Ha! Its no secret that I play in a function band. Its decent pay, mostly weekends and the contract isn’t exclusive. This agency was unplanned too they came to a rehearsal and stayed to chat with us after. The agents had actually lived the lifestyle before they started the company. There are some really good bands on their website, some are reflected in the price. Sheeesh! Of corse I'd want to play for artists and do tours, festivals, etc. but this is a paying job For playing ability I think its great. Some songs aren't ones I'd particular listen to but being almost forced to play them I inherent new skills. Yeah this is obvious but I never have time to practice all styles. Well I do but I find I'm almost transcribing chops following favourite bass players.

The benefits of playing in Church especially when you don't know a song is the training it does to your ear. This was so apparent on Sunday. Even though I was playing I could hear where the changes were going. Yes there are common progressions and turnarounds but it's the interpretation and ability to locate the root note to a song by the way it sounds. That's when all the practice is sinking in.

Cue swift exit....

Day after the gig in Derby. The set was super fresh in our heads and we all agreed this was the tightest set we've done since the first set we did. I mentioned before that I'm so comfortable playing not just this set but in general now and I find I have more time to think when playing. Well I decided to add some flare in parts of the set. Now I didn't go all Victor Wooten on everyone but all the bass licks I practice at home relentlessly I thought why not drop some in. I've been feeling frustrated lately as I would play the set at home sometimes and think 'oh that chop would sound nice here, or that chop would sound nice on that song' but never actually do it on a gig. Partly because I back out last minute or forget the chop but mostly I didn't think I could pull it off. But I convinced myself do it once - who cares, pull it off, have someone compliment me on the chop and I'll lose the fear of doing it in the future.

Slighlty apprehensive about this gig. Having been told it was for a rugby team I could imagine many would be up to dancing to our set. But many of their wives dragged them out of their seat, whisking off their suit jackets mid-dance. This is about our 5th gig into this years agency line up and the set is starting to sink in now. I find myself feeling more free when playing, my hands are more loose and I'm not concentrating on the paying the songs right but find I have time to think and enjoy playing with the band as a whole. Even threw in a few synchronised dance moves with Alex.

The voyage to York was interesting as the location was literally in the middle of an open field. Sheep would randomly appear from nowhere and the nearest shop was miles away. Having said that the venue was quite intimate, and the audience seemed lively, cheering after hearing half of My Girl by the Temptations during sound check. However I feel I've made a blunder I don't wish to repeat. I confess I haven't been practicing the set as we've been gigging it regularly now. However I've been rehearsing with two other bands, which is eating up my musician memory. Not that this is an excuse but for certain songs where there are significant changes I had to 'wing it'. Example after the second chorus in John Mayer - Who did you think I was - there is a bass riff I'm to play but I 1. forgot where in the song am to play it and 2. forgot how the riff goes. As the drums were so loud and the guitarist was on the other side of them I sneakily played quieter to mask my sins and awaited the third chorus to arrive. This happened on Superstition too. A momentary lapse caused by my overconfidence in playing the set resulted in complacency. Now I'm guessing some was probably saying, 'why admit it?, you got away with it' and I did but I am my own worse critic and I want to improve. So at no time should I think I'm too good to practise.

This entry isn’t all about the negative side. I decided to play synth bass on a few songs just to add some variety as I get bored playing these songs a million times and want to keep it interesting. Even though I had to turn my amp way down (something uncommon with most guitarists) there a was an editor for a tech magazine who praised myself and the guitarist for our playing. Really appreciate the fact she enjoyed the set against some of my over critical judgements every time I play. Which I do because I want to improve, I must and I am doing. Just not quick enough! Haha