dianec42

I played my bass for about 10 minutes. Most of that was just noodling around and seeing if all my fretting fingers work. Answer: The pinky isn't great, but it can be made to function.

After a while I tried playing some 12-bar blues but it kept turning into Stormy Monday so I went with that.

Now my fingers are all sore. Also I have no calluses whatsoever. It will be interesting to see how I progress. Especially once I start playing faster things and the pinky gets in the way more... or not... you never know, maybe the PT exercises will do their thing and the finger of doom will keep up.

Gasp, I think I'm actually going to start practicing.

Apparently I didn't make myself clear earlier.

I am in a band run by someone who thinks "The Man Who Sold the World" IS A NIRVANA SONG.

Pity me.

So this is somewhat magical, at least until I find out how they do it:

There's a free app for the iPhone called Shazam. You play a song at it for about 10 seconds, it communes briefly with the mother-ship, and then it tells you what the song is and who performed it.

I don't know if it's available for other kinds of phone or not. They seem to be on the web at http://www.shazam.com/.

Today's lunchtime conversation was a touch more surreal than usual:

"What are you guys doing?"

"He's getting his phone so we can have my phone talk to it and try to confuse it...."

Sadly it doesn't seem to know anything classical, and I managed to stump it with Don Dixon. Come on people, that's out on CD! It does seem to know an awful lot of other stuff though.

So, bets are now open: How soon before someone gets busted for doing this while driving? (-:

Last night I did some more cross stitch... I got to start TWO new colours, including the last shade of purple! I'm nearly done with the lower half, which is good as the page break is driving me crazy! (I even got to use one of the threads from my existing stash - will wonders never cease! The dark purple, of course.)

Yesterday I had a random bass line stuck in my head. I still have no idea where it actually originated, but today it came to my attention that it's awfully similar to the guitar line from "Nerve" by Shriekback. Yay, one more of life's little mysteries (possibly) solved.

This morning the cats were staring intently out onto the deck. Instead of the usual choices (squirrel; neighbor cat; mass hallucination) there was a tiny kitten out there! Awwwwwwwwww. I'm a little worried for the poor thing. Current plans involve Kitten Rescue Lady (who fortunately makes house calls) and a humane trap. She (the kitten, not the rescue lady) is tiny, looks about 6 weeks old at the absolute most, covered in fleas, and strangely friendly. She has at least one thing in common with Zoot, namely that she's so friendly she wouldn't last 5 minutes in the wild!

ARGH, I have a Weezer song stuck in my head. It's been there all of 5 minutes and it's getting mighty old.

Also I went to the gym Monday night. Hoo-eee. was that crowded. Carpe cross-trainer...

I'm sure there was more stuff but that's all I can think of right now.

... and it was pretty good.

I just got back from an open blues jam in Long Beach, and boy are my ears tired.

I think I used up all of my extrovert points for the year being chatted up by strange drummers. Oh well, that's what I get for playing bass.

It was fun though. I've already made a list of songs I know, used to know, and/or sort of know, to consider for next time.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Re%20Vos%20Cerveaux

(The original English version, with hilarious WoW-based video, can be seen & heard here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM )

Eep! What happened to KMZT? 105.1 seems to be playing country and western now.

I found KMZT's AM presence, but that doesn't work too well while I'm driving, I keep losing the signal. Does anyone know a good backup plan?

Extremely introverted bass player, wondering how to go about finding people to play with.

The obvious answers, and some limitations thereof:

1. The office band: Fun; they found me; 1 gig a year is not enough. Am considering asking if people want to continue to get together and jam in an unstructured fashion for the rest of the year. Advantages: We have the space pretty much to ourselves, and I can continue to mooch off of Dan's random hardware as he's pretty well storing it there. Disadvantages: We tried this last year and it petered out by mid-January.

2. Ask every musician I know in the area: Umm, I know one guy at the office who plays guitar and ISN'T in the office band; I asked him today if his gang is still looking for a bass player. Answer: Maybe.

Am going to ask everyone in the band if they know anybody who knows anybody, etc. Obviously, I am also posting this lame cry for help to LJ. Am considering trying to track down the landlady's son and see if he's back in the area.

So... if you were in the LA area, looking for people to play with, how else would you look? Bonus points for taking extreme social anxiety into account.

After months of nagging me to HIT THE @$#%! STRINGS HARD ALREADY, Dan actually turned my amp down today. He's apparently been doing this surreptitiously for a while now.

I guess that means I'm doing it loudly enough. (-:

... for the lovely expression, "I've got blisters on my blisters". I have been using it to great effect lately.