Owwwwwwww!

Well we were rehearsing in school on monday ( spring break) and we rehearsed from 10 - 5:30 and also on tuesday.

I'm playing bass ( we're doing the music for "The Wizard of Oz"; a play.). We have like 5 or 6 songs, but we had to play them each, well more specifically I had to play them each thousands of time ( exagerating ) because: Let's practice the brass part, okay bass lay it down for me, Let's practice the dance we are going to do, okay bass lay it down, *insert whatever you want*, okay bass lay it down for me/us/them/everybody.

And this show really has alot of parts that need practicing. Every character has a theme song, Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and the other guy ( Scarecrow), oh yeah also the witch, and a song for the Munchkin part. The songs are: Somewhere Over the Rainbow ( practicing the brass part really got on my nerves in this one xD ), They don't really care about us ( Michael Jackson song ), a cool reggae in Bb (Bob Marley I think), Blues in A major ( Random blues), Scary dissonant stuff, Willy Wonka song. ( the songs are in the order I mentioned the characters). And we also need to practice the dynamics, as to slowly going down in volume to make the transition between music and no music, and suddenly going up in volume when a big part happens, all in real time. It has been a fun challenge.

And well I'm not a bassist but I can play the bass, but my hands aren't used to the big man bass ( or any bass at all ). Not my left hand and not my right hand; I've got pretty good right hand picking technique ( with the fingers) because I sometimes play like that on the guitar, but dang my right hand fingers are really beat up. Also my left hand, I'm getting bass callouses, o.o, I now have two callouses, one one the tip and one a bit further down O_O.

So any tips to ease the finger pain? Man I always feel sorry for noobs who ask this question, now I feel sorry for myself.

On the other hand the guitar feels like a child's toy now, in a good way.

After playing the Blues a hundred times ( you know the famous blues bassline, although there are many variations) of playing the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and sometimes b7 but in our specific blues I play the 6th note. In position as in play the 1st note with the 2nd finger on the 5th fret in this case, then the 3rd ( C#) with the 1 finger in the A string, then the 5th on the same string, and the 6th on the D string, and repeating this pattern starting from the correct I IV V notes ( A D E ).

This way of playing the major scale I know it as "positional scale" ( which is without moving the hand from that position ) and now on the guitar it is like extremely easy, you know like "funny haha" easy, after playing it on the bass.

Same thing with the 3 note per string way of playing the major scale ( 1 3 5 ( frets) ) doing that pinky stretch on the bass was hard as heck at first, but then I got it down, and it is now also "funny haha" easy.

I also know all the guitar parts to the songs :D so I can play them by myself later, except the blues, the bass is so integral to that thing.

Woohoo best part of all, I don't have to lug around anything because its the school's bass and amp, :D.

Wow long post, oh well.

8)