Went for bass ensemble concert. 1st time me going for one cos it's always on the sunday before finals week and I always needed to study. Today, sian of studying, so went for that. Mark Dresser's fantastic. He looks like he's in a trance when plays. And it's quite a sight seeing a group of strange-looking guys bent over their basses making strange sounds. Trust me, most of them don't look all that normal, long hair, strange sideburns, moustaches.. Mark was the most normal looking one, and my Indian friend and the fantastic chinese girl.

Long long concert. Some interesting pieces. First piece is called Invocate, written by Mark. The group of bassists stand in a circle and Mark starts playing, then the guy next to him imitates his style, then the next guy join in and so on.. The exact notes you play and when you like to cresc and dim and attack is all up to you, just follow the style. It's like one of those follow the leader games where the first person do something, then the next person follows while the first person changes his action, then the 3rd person follows the 2nd person and so on. Fun. Just that Mark makes some highly technical moves that are rather hard to copy. He ended on some note that is so high that it's off the fingerboard, but everyone managed to copy that. They're good.

Han Han's Tarantella was a beautiful beautiful piece. I really liked it. It's fast, difficult, very energetic and has a very nice tune. A true tarantella. I think she has a very nice sound, and her high notes are in tune. I really don't think bass should go play such high notes actually. Anything above the G above the staff on a treble clef is way too high for a bass I think, people go way out of tune.. And that G is already an octave higher than what I can do comfortably.. I must go look for all the harmonics on the string, saw some harmonics that I nv knew existed today.

I'll never be as pro as any of them and guess what? I have no wish to be there.. I'll be an educated listener instead..

1 thing about modern music. It has evolved into, well, sequencing. A bassline which repeats, many lines of variations above it, adding up to a whole which sounds coherent. The mood moves and changes with time, so maybe progressively louder/ more notes and then dies down and so on.. But that's what it's been reduced to.. What happened to melodies? Non-repeating stuff? We need less sequencers and more melody generators..