The Mumpsimus Blog

Relearning the bass and other follies

06 July 2011

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Personal reminisence, Music and ukuleles, Social values

The past few weeks I've been a bit pre-occupied with several tasks and pursuits, so I haven't been blogging much, although I have been busy. About a month ago, I bought an Epiphone Viola bass from Blue Mountain Music. It was the culmination of several months' exploration and investigation of bass instruments that began with an electric...

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Tags: ukulele, guitar, bass, music 0 Comments

Vintage ukulele music site online

31 May 2011

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Music and ukuleles, art, culture and reviews

Finally finished my site for vintage ukulele music, a place where I can write a bit about the music, composers and performers from the 1920s and 30s. And it's a place where I can show off (and sell) my collection of song sheets and song books scanned to PDF. I have developed a real passion for the music of this era since I started playing the...

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Tags: vintage, ukulele, music 0 Comments

Bass, electric bass and EUB (or EDB)?

25 December 2010

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Personal reminisence, Music and ukuleles

Been thinking a lot about bass lately. Not the fish, but rather the musical instrument. I want to play one, at least a lot better than I can now.

Back in the mid-60s, I was in a garage band. They already had two guitarists, so I sort-of played bass, but I played it on the low strings of my six-string electric guitar (a Kent, as I recall). I went...

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Tags: music, bass, ukulele 3 Comments

Meanwhile, on the ukulele front...

17 September 2010

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Music and ukuleles

I've been a bit involved in the campaigning of late, and neglectful of making posts about my ukulele passion. So here we go with a few recent items...

About two weeks ago I received a mango tenor ukulele from Mainland, in a stunning faux-alligator hard shell case. I spent the following weekend with it, playing it almost exclusively and...

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Tags: ukuleles, Mainland, music 0 Comments

Jammin' at the Dominion Pub

31 July 2010

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Music and ukuleles

Susan and I spent a couple of days in Toronto this week, reversing the trend of coming north during the summer. We stayed downtown for a couple of nights and walked for several miles throughout the city - Kensington, Spadina, Queen Street West, Chinatown and more - enjoying the sights and sounds of a busy, multicultural city. There were two...

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Tags: music, ukuleles, Toronto, jam 2 Comments

Music, music everywhere

27 July 2010

Posted by Ian Chadwick in Collingwood life, downtown-BIA, Music and ukuleles

Last week we had the chance to enjoy two really different types of music. Wednesday we went to the Station (aka the museum) for the weekly Jazz at the Station event. We watched Bobby Dean Blackburn, a great R&B and jazz pianist/vocalist with a drummer and two sax players. Free event, and well-attended, although Frank McNulty told me the crowd...

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