Fretting about things...

[sleigh]

 I don't generally talk much here about music, but... I had to have my bass worked on, since the volume control pot had decided that it not only didn't want to work, but it wanted to make horrendous crackling noises when turned. So I took the Roscoe in to my local luthier... and I also asked him if he had the time to rip the frets out and make the bass fretless.

So he did -- and a gorgeous job he did as well; he replaced the frets with rosewood inlay which stands out nicely against the curly maple fingerboard (a good thing for me, since It's been some time since I've played a fretless). I got it back Thursday evening with a gig on Friday.

I wish I'd had more time to practice, honestly. The first half of the first set was... well, rough. Too many somewhat flat and somewhat sharp notes as my fingers kept wanting to play where they used to go (for non-musicians: on a fretted instrument, you put you fingers _between_ the frets; on a fretless, the fingers go _on_ the fret, or at least where the frets used to be.) I was starting to get the hang of things later in the night, but I was having to think about where my fingers needed to go, which is not a good thing. Too many flubbed notes for my comfort.

So I'll be practicing bass a lot more in the next few weeks -- which is a good thing. Maybe I'll even sound half-decent next time. I certainly didn't on Friday.