Wes Lambe 8 String Guitar/Bass for Sale in UK

Long story short, I need to repair my double bass and thus I need to sell my Wes Lambe 8 string as I can't get the funds anywhere else. I'm gutted. It is on EBAY! now for a week.

Just as Charlie Hunter was going to come to the UK aswell!

I look forward to buying another Wes Lambe 8 String once I can raise the funds again.

I hope it goes to a good home.

Ciao for now...


A very unhappy Mikey.

The day job...

Thought I'd just put this little clip of me and a few guys playing up on this site. It's from a 'function' gig we did a few months ago in Derby.

The tune is Break City and I'm playing my Yamaha TRB6 through a Phil Jones Suitcase.



I don't think enough emphasis can be put on learning good sight reading skills when playing tunes, especially at the tempo Matt the guitarist normally calls them!

All Available Transcriptions

I will be keeping this blog post updated as a full list of all transcriptions and arrangements I do.

D'Angelo - Spanish Joint 8 String
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Hurry Up And Wait... - Lead Sheet
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Boozer - John Scofield (8 String)
Boozer - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)
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Kenny Burrell - All Blues (8 String)
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St Louis Blues - Herbie Hancock [WC Handy] (8 String)
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Hottentot - John Scofield
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A Go Go - John Scofield
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Chank - John Scofield
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Protocol - John Scofield
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Sorry it has been a while...

Well I didn't realise it has been so long since I last posted, but the end of my 1st year studying jazz was more hectic than I thought it would be! So not much 8 string time, but lots of fretless and double bass on the go. Which is why I am really here I suppose!?

I'll probably do a few more posts about what I learnt this year both from the tutors and maybe more importantly, my fellow students.

As an apology here is the first section of Spanish Joint by D'Angelo, with Charlie Hunter of course on guitar/bass duties. It was on D'Angelo's album Voodoo. Check out the rest of the album as Pino Palladino plays the dirtiest hip hop bass you have ever heard from a Welsh man!

This is one of my favourite Hunter grooves to play and it is actually quite simple. Which is a bonus. Get a drummer with a fat snare behind you and this part really grooves.

Hopefully this will keep you going enough these next few sunny(!) summer days until I get in the blogging flow again. (I am actually meant to be packing to move house, but I found laying out my transcription for this tune much more satisfying!)

Until next time...
D'Angelo - Spanish Joint 8 String
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It's all in the face...

Since I recently aquired my 8 string I have had the temptation to give up the bass (possibly for lent :) )and concentrate on being a jazz guitarist!!! However, I have come to terms with the fact that this is never going to happen as my face just won't do what its meant to...















This facial talent must be something they learn at Berklee or other music schools in the US. It doesn't seem to be on my curriculum at Birmingham unfortunately. All these photos were expertly captured by ex professional musician and now photographer Dragan Tasic. Check out his link; he has hundreds of great jazz and blues musicians in his archives.

Thing's I am working on (Transcriptions should be up this week):

• Common bass and diad shapes for 8 string
• All Blues including melody
• A transcription of Charlie Hunter's playing on D'Angelo's Spanish Joint
• A few easy jazz-blues 12 bar progressions (with and without walking bass) using the common diad shapes for people to get under their fingers

Hurry up and wait...

I have started putting a repertoire together for a jazz/funk organ "trio" (Organ, Drums and me on 8 string) and decided I would love to do a few Soulive tunes.

So over the past couple of days my keys player has been working on the first track on Soulive's Doin Something album. We went over a few bits of it today and I have came up with this transcription. There may be a couple of errors in the bass part, but it is really hard to hear what the organ is doig sometimes.

It is only in lead sheet format as I can't work out a decent 8 string fingering for the B section (A and C work fine), but I am sure a few of you will want to play this tune with some of your bands. I may just have to give in and just play the guitar part on B and let the organ take the bass, but to paraphrase what Monk once said to Coltrane: "As long are you have an instrument in your mouth, anything is possible!"

Hurry Up And Wait... - Lead Sheet

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Fancy a pint down the Battle Cruiser!

Firstly, a question: I am putting tab with the 8 string transcriptions aswell, but would you also like to see recommended left hand fingerings? (i.e. should I play the bass nite with 1st or 2nd finger) or is this obvious enough or easy enough for people to work out? Let me know and I can go back and amend the sheets or just start doing this from now on. Or even if you are having serious issues with a piece ask me. I should have time to explain in detail a bit more how I play it.

Other ideas welcome...midi files? audio? video demonstrations? If I can do it, I will give it a go if it is going to help the new 8 stringers out there.

Moving on, for those in the world that may not know Cockney rhyming slang, a 'Battle Cruiser' is another way of saying 'Boozer' or pub. A place where many evenings and weekends are wasted while supping a nice cool alcoholic beverage or ten! This also happens to be the title of the next piece I am putting up for you:

Boozer - John Scofield (8 String)
Boozer - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)
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I promise I will start doing more songs of other albums soon, it's just I really do like these grooves. I have now played then with the keyboardist from my organ 'trio!?', and he still can't get over the fact that it sounds like two people playing the parts. So if you are struggling, keep working at it. The results will be worth it.

Sorry it's been a few days since the last post, but I have been practicing really hard on the 8. I came across a book called 'Pedal exercises for the electronic organ' by Rimac Hinter in my local library and I have been trying to apply some of them to the 8 string, with mixed results. What better way to imitate organ players, than actually learning how they did! When i get at least a sheet of these exercises workable I will put them up, as I know a few people just want some easy parts and shapes to get under their fingers, rather than the mass-syncopation of some of the tunes I have put up! :)

Until next time...

Kenny's got all dem Blues!

I had a request for something will a little less syncopation than the previous pieces, so I chose to do a version of All Blues. I have been getting into Kenny Burrell a bit and noticed that some of the 3 note chord shapes he uses are similar to Charlie Hunter's and I like the way he comps through the changes in this piece. There are a few nice shapes/patterns that you can easily take and use as your own.

The piece itself is particularly simple and nice to play through; the hard bit is the physical side of playing barres on the 8-string, but I feel it is something which none the less should be practiced. I know some people find playing barres hard on their fingers or wrist so take it easy and find a comfortable position to play in.

This is just an arrangement of the comping, over the next few posts I hope to have a version that incorporates the melody. At this time it has a few stretches that most people (including myself!) wouldn't find easy. So:

Kenny Burrell - All Blues (8 String)
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Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I will catch you in a few days with some more simple grooves and patterns for the fellow beginners/improvers out there.

Transcribe the whole album!? Maybe I should the grooves are just too good!

So, how did you find the previous Scofield transcriptions!?

I have now got them going on...except Protocol! Then again it was mainly done as a finger work out for this new beast to get some independence between fingers on both hands.

From one newcomer to another on the 8-string, these transcriptions really aren't that hard to play as longs as you take it very very slow, master one beat at a time and move on. If that beat isn't working, try another. The more you do it, the more the syncopations seem natural.

So I thought I would stay with the theme and do another John Scofield tune off A Go Go. They are good because the tunes are fun to play, the parts groove and even though Medeski, Martin and Wood are playing their ass' off, it's Scofield's playing that just tops it off!

So here it is Hottentot. Fairly easy to play as on 8 string as there is very little interplay between the two parts:

Hottentot - John Scofield
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Incidently, did you know that Hottentot comes from the name given to the Khoikhoi ("men of men") who are a historical division of the Khoisan ethnic group of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen. It means "stutterer" in the white colonists' northern dialect of Dutch, and is a name that is nowadays considered offensive by the Oxford Dictionary of South African English. You didn't know that!? I wonder it Scofield did when he named it.

I also thought, on top of putting the 8 string transcriptions up, i may aswell do lead sheets incase there are some non-8 stringers out there (I would be interested to know actually how many 8 stringers there are!? comment me saying "I'm an 8-stringer and deserve double the gig paycheck!") or other instrumentalists who are interest in playing these tunes!

So lead sheets for tunes so far:

A Go Go - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)

Chank - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)

Hottentot - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)

Protocol - John Scofield (Lead Sheet)

Have fun and let me know how you are getting on with them!

Finally 'she' is here...some things for you to play aswell!

So here we are...over a week since I last posted. Why you ask?

The reason for this site is to follow my progress on the 8 string guitar and to inform others by discuss concepts that apply to it.

So it finally arrived on friday morning at 10am. You should know, up until this point it seemed to be missing somewhere over the Atlantic. USPS="It was sent and should be in the UK." Parcelforce="It hasn't been received, it can't have been sent!". Needless to say, I almost had a heart attack, but she is here now.

You could look a few posts back, but I want another excuse to post a picture of 'her'

My Wes Lambe guitar is....."Jackie Brown!" (The name my flat mate Trondur came up with the name for 'her'. It had to be a girls name, it was brown. It sounded good to me; Pam Grier's career was revitalised because of Jackie Brown, so the hope is mine will aswell. Also, this beauty is one bad mother!)


I have honestly never played an instrument of this build quality, it's excellent. I haven't really put it down since it arrived. So let begin the learning, here are a few transcriptions I have done for 8 string:

A Go Go - John Scofield
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Chank - John Scofield
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Protocol - John Scofield

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Well, since finishing my essay on jazz drummers last night it seems I can't stop looking at videos of this 'musical' ;) instrument.

See as a bass player, I seriously do have a large amount of respect for drummers, I have to, I play with them everyday and appreiate nothing more than a drummer laying down a badass groove for me to play over. However, they have more equipment than everyone else which takes much longer to set up, but they still insist on turning up to rehearsal later than everyone else. What's that about!?

Still, here are a couple of the better or interesting videos of these strange beat creatures:

We all tap on the table little paradiddles here and there...but this guy takes it a little further (One of my favourite Herie Hancock tunes as well):



This man is a one man D&B machine:



Well, he seems to be enjoying it:

Happyness...

I have just finished my essay for tomorrow, I won't post it up here as it will no doubt bore you unless you want to know more about how "the history of jazz is the history of the drums".

Instead I give you two things that made me smile tonight. Firstly, Maxwell's Unplugged album; I never even realised that he doe's a Kate Bush Cover!?

Maxwell singing This Women's Work...absolutely beautiful:

The other thing is this animation. It's from my friend's blog, he met this guy sometime over xmas and it was created for his sisters wedding or something. Absolutely delightful... :)

So, no updates over the weekend. This was due to two reasons:

1. I was in excruciating pain from hurting my back by picking up a chair!?
2. I was subjecting my ears to some filthy music

Point one is being resolved by super-pain killers, but I have been advised not to drink. This should help me by making sure I don't go out when i have to essays in for Wednesday (Note: It is now monday and neither have been started).

I have put a deposit down on a new student house for next year. There were a choice of two, and we chose, wisely I hope, the one that is going to be completely done-up by June. Shame really, as the other house had a life size poster of that nudey-bint Keely with her head replaced by Patrick Stewarts! Any weirder combinations out there!?

The inside currently looks like this:

However we have been assured that it will all be lovely and new by the time we move in. So now at last I can have friends come and visit without fearing the wrath of the barbaric security guards here. This place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox! As a plus I am sharing with a pianist, drummerist and trumpetist-got a jazz quartet right there.

You're all of course invited for the opening night of our seedy juke joint.

It's good to see one of my best friends start updating his site. I can't even start to guess what will be discussed over there, but I will keep checking up on it even if I fall down the stairs and my shoes fall off!

Right, I'm off to listen to some Mashed Potato Popcorn!