BASSMAN 2 - "Play everything slowly, but sometimes in a fast tempo."

 The two young guys were out of their ute and walking towards Neil Senning. The big one was closest now but the one with the angry face spoke. "Listen up old cunt, we want your wallet and your phone. Don't make this hard or you'll be spending your last moments in that gutter.

"Listen up?" Neil thought, "How American!" Then he thought of an American tune he had been practising on his double bass not long before he headed out for a walk.

Charlie Parker's Anthropology was a good tune for running eighth notes. The chord progression was known in Jazz as 'Rhythm Changes' because this progression was originally used in a tune called 'I Got Rhythm'. Neil knew the tempo 'crotchet = 240bpm' very well because, generally when he was practising eight note lines, he set his metronome to 240bpm and worked up from there. That meant that he was playing 480 notes every minute, or 8 notes every second. Obviously, the number of notes he played every second increased as he wound up the tempo. He often thought of a wise old saying, "Play everything slowly, but sometimes in a fast tempo." When you practised like this enough times your body did seem to slow down, the reality that your hands were moving very fast was sort of lost as your whole body settled into this way of being.

"I should warn you that I'm a bassman." Neil told the big guy who was now getting very close. Although it probably made no sense to him, this statement seemed to annoy the big guy and he set off a wide swinging punch that was probably intended to catch Neil on the side of his head. For someone who was now working at about 'crotchet = 300' this was simply a call to action. The first two fingers of Neil's left hand were already in the big guy's eyes. He let out a very high shriek before dropping to his knees with a big hand over his own face. 

Now the angry looking guy looked really pissed off. Soon he was to learn about the German bow grip. Neil moved quickly, very quickly, and his right hand did what bassists call an up bow but is really more of a sideways movement - it's a term that originated with violinists. It caught the angry looking guy on his left ear and was very quickly followed by an eye poke from Neil's left hand first finger. "Practice over." Neil Senning thought to himself. 

The two young thugs had left the key to the ute in the ignition, so Neil borrowed the big jeep - just to give himself a bit of distance and be closer to home. He left the big jeep on the road beside the beach. He attempted to throw the key into the sea but it fell short into the sand. Old arm muscles. Neil walked the rest of the way home.