Amen to that…
I had that same mixture of feelings through the whole weekend…it was different…
Musical Adventures
Awww Dave…
Prayers and blessings… strength for his family and for you too.
Thank GOD for music!
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Heading down to NIBGA fest this weekend to play a set on Thursday.
We have a new lineup of personnel that is much improved, so it should be a great time.
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Had an awesome time playing Van Wert OH bluegrass fest this weekend. Played one set Friday and two on Sat…shows all went very well for only being a two week old band.
Our mando/Dobro player stayed in my camper and noticed my BBC hat…found out he’s a gold pick member here and loves the site and Ben’s teaching. We had a blast performing together,hanging out, talking music & life and swapping original songs. He’s an awesome singer and guitar player also.
Made it through three rehearsals and three sets without a blister…I’m shocked…hot as it was I expected the bass to tear up my hands pretty well with all that playing.
Took my fiddle out to a jam Sat night and had one of those glorious times when my fiddle and I were best buddies and all went right with my playing…surprised myself with cool, new-to-me, improvised stuff a few times even
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Awesome! Congrats on the great weekend!
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Sounds like you had a ball Dave. You must post some videos of you playing the fiddle sometime give us all a chance to practice our fiddle backup on the banjo. Perhaps once he see how good you are @BanjoBen might invite you over to the cabin to put together some Banjo Backup Lessons behind the Fiddle. I seem to recall he had a plan to do a collaboration with Patrick Clark (fiddle lessons) a few years back not sure if that venture took off or not.
Archie, I’m not quite a fiddler…more of a fiddle owner…
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I heard you fiddle solo for the will the circle collab and it was “fiddler” worthy
Well thanks, but that took a lot of takes to get there.
I do spend most of the Winter cutting backup tracks (usually 4 to 5 minutes) w/guitar & bass and playing fiddle to them though. If someone had a request I wouldn’t mind trying to work something out for them to play banjo to…You’d just have to message me and we could decide what you want format. key, & tempo wise, and go through dropbox or google drive.
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"
fiddle_wood
Archie, I’m not quite a fiddler…more of a fiddle owner…"
Dave, I am not quite a banjo player… more of a banjo owner but I can pluck a few strings and make a noise. 
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Love that suggestion.
Change of subject here. Dave On the Upright Bass how many octaves are there/ are played in bluegrass ?
I’ve don’t actually know but at least three are available.
What is utilised is, of course, up to the musician. I’ve seen many use only one, I “usually” stay in the lower two octaves playing 'grass…some are all over the fingerboard.
Mood or what’s in the lead has some to do with it too…the more somber the song, or during vocal harmonies. the more I’d tend to use the lowest root notes possible…I’ll usually stay down low for any guitar or dobro breaks too, tiring to keep out of the register they are playing in
…higher sounding instruments, things with more movement in the chords, “walking” and quicker tempos I’ll tend to add the second octave a little more often.
I’ll qualify that all by adding that I stick to a more “primitive” sound than most…not a lot of embellishments…and less blisters
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Thanks Dave that’s helpful, looking for ways to experiment with the bass in TablEdit,
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here’s a couple things to try also to see what you think…
(1) When playing I V …before you go to the next chord replace the V note with another I
example: Take a typical I, IV, V progression like Blue Ridge cabin Home…key = G
/G, D / G G / C G / C C / D A / D D / G D / G D /
repetition of the root ( I ) on the end of the chord helps the new chord root stand out a bit more. It especially helps the bass sound more definite (organized) when going to the V chord (D) if you don’t want to do a run to note (chord)
(2) I try to stay to the closest notes available for the duration of a “Part” then when the instrument or chorus kick in I may change to another area on the fingerboard…in general this helps with cohesiveness and helps announce a change in the music.
( 3 ) Everyone has probably heard a “boogie” walk (basically / I, III, V, VI / Oct., VI, V, III / -OR- / G B D E / G E D B / …but using a simple Two-Step (dance) pattern sometimes can fit nice and is easier to do.
example / I, III, V, III / -or- / G, B, D, B / for measure of G I might try this on something that has a slow/mid tempo with lots of bounce like “Hold Whatcha got”
notice both these “walk” patterns end on the III (B) , so you can continue right on with that chord or switch to the IV/C or V (D) without worrying about hitting the root of the chord you’re going to early…which is the same thing the first example accomplishes.
Hope this gives you a couple organizational ideas to help you get what you’re looking for.
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Thanks Dave, love to hear some audio samples.
Well…I just gave you a bunch of hints and included the notes…and you wanted to experiment…
Just a reminder…the fancier the bass the less attention is given to what is in the lead…
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Hi Dave, Sorry if my response seemed ungrateful. I just meant that it would be great to hear you playing these patterns on the bass.
Not at all , I didn’t take it that way.
Don’t mean to sound harsh in my response either…just making the point that once you do the experimenting you can hear it…and you will have put to use things that you’ve wanted to learn.
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Last show until Feb is in the can…Had a great time in Paulding OH for their Fall Festival…Guys all played really well…
We did two sets on Sat and tried the single mic approach on the second set…not sure I liked it any better, but the crowd did…they said it was balanced well but I couldn’t hear diddly on our vocals.
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