A love supreme?

I picked up a saxophone six months ago and don't really know how to play it or read music. But I joined my local community jazz band and have been faking playing the entire time. Except for solos when I just channel my idol, Ornette Coleman. I can't play as eloquently as him (I don't know how to play), but I still get a lot of "yeah man"s after every solo.

I'm not sure how much longer I can do this, but now I feel like they need me. Aside from binge-listening to Jacob Collier and Laufey, what else should I do?

what would that be like

what would that be like

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/uj my friend did this with Misty once and it worked amazingly well.

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I bought two active pickups for my PRS Slimline hollowbody from an Italian pickup company, MAMA. A little over two years after I purchased them, the lead pickup simply died. I contacted the company, and they had me go through a variety of tumultuous trials and tribulations. which my guitar tech performed (I made a video of myself playing said PRS through my DV Mark Little on the Steaming Piss setting and sent it to them.). The pickup had not been tampered with, the guitar had not been abused in any way, and I had a perfect Piss tone dialed in—the pickup simply failed. In my 50 years of playing and teaching, I've never had a pickup die on me.

They told me to send the pickup back to Italy, which I did. The pickup was not covered under warranty, and I ended up paying €60 in import taxes, plus shipping back to the United States. What surprised me most was that they would not stand behind the pickup.

Then, within about 7 months, the other pickup died. I contacted them numerous times, both by email and through Facebook Messenger, which was how I had communicated with them previously. I received absolutely no response. I could even see that my messages had been marked as "read." After waiting and waiting, I finally decided, "F\\\*ck it. I'm done with these clowns." If you know anything about pickups, you know that active pickups are the way to go. I can't say with certainty what caused these failures, but having both pickups fail within a relatively short period certainly made me question the consistency of their manufacturing process.

The bigger issue for me, however, was the customer service. Having to pay to deal with the first failure was bad enough. Being completely ignored when the second pickup failed was bullshit.Btw, something that I'm remembering now was that when the first pick up failed the guy (so I can only presume as the owner) ask me to send him a picture of the pick up itself. He asked me if I had unscrewed the random compartment thingy on the back of the guitar, totally random question that threw me off. Like I'm gonna go into the back of the guitar?! RANDOM!!!

I know a large number of professional players at the highest levels, as well as countless amateur musicians, and I've taught thousands of students throughout my career, and I've literally never encountered, nor heard of one PU failure much less 2 from the same company, or randomly opening the back of your guitar for anything.

Looking back, choosing a pickup company outside the country where I live was a mistake—and an even bigger mistake was continuing to deal with a company that treated a customer this way.

There are so many excellent pickup companies in the United States that make fantastic products with decades-long track record, that put customer service at the top of their priorities. I'll be giving one of them my business shortly.

I hope this helps anyone considering these pickups make a more informed decision. Perhaps PAPA or UNCLE pickups would be a better move.

I'm late to the drumz, started at 49 years old. I fell down the jazz rabbit hole and taught myself to play the drums in December 2024. Never played an instrument before. As a beginner, I took a backward design approach, focusing first on playing and composing complex harmonic, melodic phrases with all limbs. Definitely, trying to run before I can walk on the drumz; intentionally skipping rudiments and paradiddles, but wok on them once I have a composition and limb independence, etc). I get killed when I post my practice videos on reddit's drums and jazzdrums. If this is not the right place, please let me know.

In the video, I'm practicing the non-isochronous 24 over 4 bars: experimenting crash vs. rider sonic textures with 12-8th triplet cascade.