Failing...

Thanks to Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog for this performance by Gary Karr of Failing by Tom Johnson.

HNIC - Hockey Night in Colorado

We recently changed our service from analog cable to satellite. One of the extra perks is that we get the NHL Network as a part of our package. I was already pretty psyched about this because there is almost zero hockey coverage on any of the major sports networks...instead they're covering something called the "World Series", whatever that is. Then I tuned in on a Saturday night and there were Canadiens on TV...and they knew stuff about hockey...and there was a double header of hockey on...and it was Hockey Night in Canada!

After a little research, it turns out that the NHL Network started including the full HNIC program in it's broadcast this year. I promptly added HNIC to our TiVo record list and declared to Nora that Saturday nights are officially Hockey Nights in Colorado. She kind of gave me a strange look, patted me on the head, and walked away.

By the way, I'm loving the NHL Network commercials featuring the confused head coach talking about hockey; they are hilarious. Here's a good example about Defense and Offense:


If you want to see more, this guy collected a whole bunch of them in one place.

Out of the Dark Ages of Music

I recently purchased a Korg Chromatic tuner. Up until now, I have always used a tuning fork to tune my bass. Much to my surprise, it appears that I consistently tune and play my bass a quarter tone flat. At first I thought it must have been that I hadn't played the bass in a couple of days and it went flat in that time. So I tuned against the tuning fork and checked against the tuner again. Nope, I was flat. Then I checked the tuning fork to see if it was flat, nope, it was dead on.

Then I started playing. Every time I hit an open string things sounded just a little off. Checked the strings again and they were still in tune. It was me, I involuntarily kept adjusting to the tuning that I've been listening to myself play for years. I'm going to have to do some serious work on my intonation!

Amazing how much a little bit of technology can help your playing. Maybe I should also invest in a metronome...I've skirted along this long without one, but I think that can only really work when you are playing with an ensemble and can hear what the others are playing. I've found it quite difficult to get the pieces to sound right when I don't have a conductor to follow.

Incidentally, I'm now playing Marcello's Cello Sonata 2. It's a nice little piece of music which doesn't involve too much thumb position. Something nice to get me back into the playing habit again. I'm taking baby steps here, play something fun and easy to get my intonation back up to snuff. Maybe then I can try some more technically challenging pieces.

I just realized that I haven't ever posted a picture of my bass. I imagine that only Ryan (of my vast readership of 3 people) would be interested in seeing the pic since he owns a Samuel Shen as well. Accompanying the bass is Señor Frog the Humidifier. Colorado is so dry I basically have to keep him running all year long.