Deep to Deep, April 2000
| Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls (Psalm 42:7) |
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We gathered on Saturday 8 April at Burgess Hill Baptist Church, West Sussex, for another Deep to Deep get together. This page gives a report on what we got up to.
Plans for the Day
Thanks to Graham Hollebon for hosting the most recent Deep to Deep. We had seven (I think!) bassists in attendance and a guitarist and two drummers joining us for the last hour or so. I don't think we've ever had more than eight or less than six people at any one gathing... and we still manage to attract a mix of old and new faces across a wide range of skill levels.
Throughout the course of the day, we more or less followed the planned agenda:
11am (-ish) Arrive, set up and introductions.
11:30 I led off some discussion about scales, intervals and chord building. The basic notes are available online. We all had a go at putting it into practice over a short loop Steve Lawson laid down on his Lexicon gizmo.
12:30 (-ish) Cliff Wootton told us something about the Music and Worship Foundation, a UK wide network of Christian musicians for which he is one of the regional co-ordinators.
12:45 We tried to 'scientifically' compare sounds of a few different amps by telling Graham to play something and then plugging him into different amps (Ashdown 300W combo, SWR Redhead, SWR Workingman's 12, Peavey Basic 112) with the settings flat across the board. The SWR's had a slightly crisper 'hi-fi' sound than the Ashdown, but it really comes down to a matter of taste than one being better than the other (the Peavey also had a pretty respectable output volume and didn't sound too bad).
1:15 A slightly later than planned lunchbreak was a good chance to chat on an individual basis and try out other people's gear. My two top picks from the things I tried out were the Steve C's SWR Redhead amp and Richard's Fernandes Bass (can't remember much more about that one other than that it was black, had a 32" scale length and played really easily).
2 (-ish) With the addition of a few other instruments we did a bit of work on arranging a song (Men of Faith, Rise Up and Sing). Poor Graham. He'd wanted us to help him come up with a more interesting bass line and in the end we just told him to turn down and play less! However, it was all about choosing the right notes at the right time and working with the other instruments rather than competing. We also looked at playing different lines as the song develops to give a range of different textures (eg. all in for a noisy intro... and then drop to rhythm guitar and the bass line played an octave higher when the vocals come in).
2:30 We then spent some time jamming around on one or two other songs. Steve C brought out the old Junior Praise books and had us boogie-ing to Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. I led into Matt Redman's When Can I Go (appropriately sub-titled When Deep Calls to Deep).
3pm We spent a few minutes in prayer at the end, accompanied by Steve Lawson working through some mellow chords.
Hopefully this will give you a flavour of what we did. Let me know if you want to know anything else - though you'd hurry up before my memory fades! That's all I've got to say about the day - now pop back to the main Deep to Deep page.