Week 3; Part 1

Sunday:
     7:00am. Picked up a large mocha on the way to 7:30 rehearsal; service began at 9am. Not being a morning person, it takes me a long time for my mind to begin firing on all cylinders. Coffee helps though! 

     Loading and unloading my gear is much nicer than when I'm playing guitar. On guitar, I have the guitar, an effects processor, headset, surge protector, finding somewhere to plug in... But when on bass, it's just the instrument. I get to plug straight into an amp which has its signal fed through the PA as well. For the regular services I don't get to play though the amp-- just a simple direct box. It does require me to carry along a set of headphones, but they fit easily into my gig-bag.

     The morning went well. I played my anniversary bass (10-year wedding) a G&L L2000 into the church's Ampeg 15" combo amp. I ran the bass in passive mode, with the pickup coils split and in the middle position. It sounded great! Especially during the Revelation Song.

     That afternoon was filled with more house hunting and a long story short, we made an offer. The house is out in the country and listed at the top of our price range. We met with our agent later in the evening and made an offer we were comfortable paying. They have 24hrs to reply.

Monday:
     Temps in the 90s, so I couldn't begin practicing until the evening; our back room just gets too hot. I get to play with our regular service band this coming weekend which is Saturday night and two services on Sunday morning. Two of the three songs I've never heard before so I had to spend more time working with the chord sheets.

      The offer we made on the house was rejected. One of the things we are looking for in a new place is a music room-- an area where I can have all my gear & practice and still have the ability to turn around without tripping on something. The current room I am using is 9" x 9" which makes it terribly cramped. 

     I sure hope our next place has air conditioning...

Tuesday:
     1:00 - 5:00pm Practiced this weekends songs. I spent most of the time working on the two difficult tunes and that effort paid off. I made a few notations on the chord sheets... hopefully with a little more practice I'll have these two down.

Wed:
     After learning that bank outsources it's mortgages to Quicken Loans, we decided to go with our credit union about obtaining a mortgage, and met with them today.  It's another hot day, so I took some time to catch up with the blog entries, and took a break from practicing. 

It's easy to get burnt out, and for practice to become a chore rather than something fun. I decided that I needed to take a rest, and not even go into the practice room for the day.