I have to confess that I’ve not been as diligent with preparations for electric bass in the Charnwood Concert Band as I’ve been for some of the other projects I’m pursuing. For example, I need to put in the hours to get somewhere with the tuba parts for the Training Band because my skill level is much lower. Most of my bass work has been on getting ready for the Legally Blonde musical, where I’m one of five musicians and carrying much more of the load in a score that certainly qualifies as ‘complex’. Therefore I’ve largely been relying on the reading abilities I’ve been polishing over the last year for CCB.

One has to be a bit careful though. For example, we pulled out Jurassic Park tonight. The first page is pretty easy. Sure, it has a few changes of time signature and there are a handful of bars with semiquavers or syncopation but it’s not too fast and mainly minims, crotches and quavers along with a few rests. Given that it is also a proper string bass part (written an octave above where it sounds, just like I’m used to) and all is good on the sight reading front.

Page two though…! It’s not that tricky but it’s certainly not as easy as the first page. I got through it tonight but perhaps just a little more homework is called for.