SevenSeas

Jim Rintoul is great!

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1406650163' post='2513448'] I opened the Bill Evans broadcast in YouTube mode and copped this amusing(?) comment; well, I was amused. 'God I hate the double bass. If you care at all about the articulation of the notes being played, it's painful to hear them smudged and that god awful buzzing at higher notes using an instrument never intended for this purpose. Imagine how much better this would sound with a fretless electric bass'. Anyone on BC? Surely not Bilbo. [/quote] Yeah clearly has no idea... Chucks playing is out of this world! One of my favourite players! I think he's like 25 in this video as well!

Normally there is a reason for frustration, I've been hitting the practice shed pretty hard. Today I got pretty burned out, due to frustration. Now it goes all fine until..., Today for example; - Sight Reading (Using Stuart Claytons fantastic sight reading book, you get some great results if you spend time with his books!) All fine. - Double Bass Intonation Exercises (all fine) - Piano (Scales, common jazz progessions 2, 5, 1's in different keys. Working on playing standards on the piano, at the moment Autumn Leaves. - Ear Training. Work out jazz chords by ear. (hard work....) Now anyway I get to practice jazz improvisation... it isn't going well. So I get fed up pretty quick and decide to put the bass down. I think most of the time it's a [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]psychological thing. When you work hard on something but can't get results its so frustrating. (I'm sure everyone here has been there) so I've decided to give the bass a break. (Only for a couple of hours)[/color][/font] Hopefully after a cycle or whatever I'll be able to pick it up and not feel burned out. 'fatgoogle' is pretty right that planning it out is a good idea, definitely the best way to avoid frustration. Also finding something that inspires you is a good idea, makes all the hours you put in seem worth it. (even if your still at the beginning or where you aim to be) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqCBFC1Jr0w

Your best bet is to email Martin Penning .http://mpenning-luthier.co.uk/Martin_Penning_Luthier/welcome.html (A fantastic bass luthier, lives in Frome. Not to far from Bristol and a great bloke) He'll sort out your bass. Unfortunatly most 'shops' who happen to set up double basses have ripped me off, several times. Don't want to go into detail but luthiers are your best bet. (Especially Martin) Greg Cordez lives in Bath and he is a great double bass player, he'll get you making a good sound. http://gregcordez.webs.com/

It's extremely difficult to describe how to stand; (despite it seems such an easy thing once you have 'mastered' it. The number one rule is you should not be supporting the bass with your left hand at all. You should be able to put your hands above your head and the bass should stay in place. I have met a few players who seem to think it should just balance for x-amount of seconds however you can stand with the bass and it will be completely balanced. Two problems I had which fixed it 1. Your posture should be completely 'upright' (when you're in neutral) you shouldn't be extremely bending over the bass or towards the ground your head should be (straight/normal) not tilted. 2. I personally finding have the bass a bit higher has helped with balancing the bass, (I'm unsure why this is, I suppose you're more towards the centre of the bass) before I use to have it 'eye level' current teacher suggestions forehead level which works very well. 3. I find you're balancing the bass with the left leg but I find it's only a slight bend of the knee (hardly at all) therefore you shouldn't feel like your legs being crushed. Impossible to explain, these are just methods that have worked for me. I have spent a while looking at different ways to standing with the bass and before I had been doing loads of practice but getting pain in my left arm. (from squeezing to hard with the left hand) after I reviewed this it was because I was holding the bass (up) in my left arm/hand. (when you shouldn't be holding the bass with your arm at all) it should be from your legs. Of course this is just my opinion, I'll post a picture if people want to see.

These guys are incredible, no doubt about that. The double bass player is 10x better than me... and i'm off to study at music college next year. (Of course music should be about music and not competition but of course thats a part of it) Does kind of put into perspective how much a difference these music colleges make! I have to agree with Mark it would of be nicer to see some musicians from 'normal' backgrounds however i'd hate for the competition to be like a sob story from X Factor with little talent. Where these guys are actually incredible players!

Very true but I do all the editing when I get home, so thats not a problem. I picked a simcard which Zoom recommended for that device so fingers crossed it will be okay. I can always turn my mic on before I get there. I'd rather have lots of room on the card then not enough. I mean two hours of continuous recording is always going to be a lot of space.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I looked into it more. Bilbo was correct (well I haven't tried it yet) but I had the setting on a really high WAV file, so after an hour of recording the SD card was full. So I have changed the settings and just brought a 32gb card. So fingers crossed that works. Yeah unfortunatly I live in the middle of no where (and I can't drive... yet) so I leave my house just after 6am and get home at 8pm Hector. Its all worth it though, he's changed the way I play bass. Still got loads of shedding to do though.

Anyone got any good suggestions? Basically I've been using the H2N Zoom Microphone which is a great microphone however it keeps saying the memory card is full... which it just isn't. It's literally empty. Anyway I travel a 14 hour trip for lessons in London so recording the lesson (even with a not great recorder) is pretty important. This is the 2nd time the recorder has cut out half way through the lesson so i'm looking for another alternative. At least so I can use it as a back-up incase the Zoom stops recording. I can't find anything in the manual. Any suggestions? Thanks everyone,

All great advice.... Used several different approaches and found the sound I wanted for On Green Dolphin Street. Anyway forgetting all that, had my first double bass lesson with one of the Trinity teachers. Don't want to give any names but their whole concept of jazz bass playing was phenomenal , I mean they ripped my playing apart. I have a lot of work to do. I mean I think it can be rare to find a teacher who is an amazing teacher and a really amazing player. Can't really go into all the exercises I've been told to do but to some it up; 1. Learn everything by ear, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe. 2. I got a lot of bowing work to do and some pretty good exercises. 3. Listen to as much jazz as physically possible. 4. Make sure you're listening to the right guys. Theres more then that to go into.. but would take a long time.

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1393191740' post='2377250'] One thing which might be fun for you to look at is experiment with avoiding playing the root note of the chord on the first note of each bar. Good Job [/quote] Yeah I should be more experimental, a lot of books recommended keeping to strong chord tones (R,5) on beats 3 and four but of course i'm sure theres many ways to approach this.

PDF files still not working. Has anyone read and worked on Ed Friedlands walking bass line book and could recommend another book with a slightly different approach. (Not that Ed isn't great because he is but i'm sure theres plenty of ways to 'play the changes'.

Okay here are some lines for two standards I've finished working on and i'm quite happy with those. So if anyone wants to steal use the lines they can or... wants to add to those lines thats great. Anyway I'll check out Scott Lafaro owns trio, rather than Bills (stuff which is awesome) and need to transcribe (especially analyse) more of Ray Browns lines. If anyone has some good lines for On Green Dolphin Street that would be awesome.

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1393093946' post='2376185'] To open , save to computer and simply change the name of the file extension to .pdf [/quote] The file was already a PDF, thats what I can't understand. I had already exported it into a PDF file.