did something good for myself tonight. [View all]
Hubby was on the front porch playing his fake Paul McCartney bass while playing along with Beatle CDs.
He was playing through his Fender Twin Reverb which is a pretty serious amp.
We are both musicians but have totally different approaches.
We have never been able to find music we both wanted to practice and record, although we have both used computer software, I used my synthesizer to arrange and record classical/opera songs.
He inputs notes one at a time with a mouse; I am a fairly decent piano player and play it live on my synth and go clean it up on the software when I have sloppy note attacks and such.
I grew up on classical and opera and classical is my first love. I took piano and violin lessons for many years, starting when I was five. Learned to read treble and bass clef both. Got tired of the fiddle after about 15 yrs b/c community orchestra was not a challenge anymore. I'd played all the major symphonic repertoire and I was tired of it. Kept playing piano just for myself.
He started out on guitar in '64 because of the Beatles. I grew up in the 60s and 70s as well, and loved old rock, but I never saw it as challenging enough to hold my interest in playing, unless it was possible to improvise on piano, and I haven't seen piano players generally do that in rock, when it's primarily guitar-based.
People have asked me why we didn't work together and I told them the truth: Rock is not musically challenging enough for me & I don't like distortion which is what all rock degenerated into, it seems. Jazz might be. I am a big fan of Pat Metheny, jazz guitarist.
I quit listening to rock and decided that it was dead when The Police broke up in 1983. They were the last rock band I heard that I thought was interesting.
Some years ago he bought me a Fender Jazz Bass. A jazz bass has lines on the neck, but no actual frets. Like a violin, viola, cello or bass. I told him I could play electric bass if it had no frets and was tuned in fifths, like a cello. I tried to teach myself guitar in high school and the intervals did not compute.
He inspired me and I got my jazz bass out and he switched to lead guitar and we jammed. I tried to learn bass lines. They're not that complicated, and if needed I can read bass clef since I'm a piano player.