mcgraham

Not bad! I certainly can't do that... or at least I don't think I can ? Mark

[quote]That's kind of what I was getting at, his sounds are just wrong, and he is mixed too high.[/quote] I wouldn't say they're just wrong, I just don't know what he was going for. The tone on Time Out makes me think of bubbles, it's pretty bad. [quote]And the golden rule when transcribing - learn it! Write it out if you want, but it is far more important to learn to play what you're working out, with the same feel as the original - when you can play along with the record and what you play is indistinguishable from the record, you've nailed it.[/quote] To learn something from the act of transcribing a piece, you don't [i]have[/i] to learn it 100% dead on, and as 6stringbassist said, you can use even a little bit of transcribed material as a springboard for your own ideas. However if you transcribe a whole piece and learn it as XB said, you will obviously gain more than if you did only some of a piece, and can only play it moderately accurately. Mark

[quote]I got one of her earlier albums a while back - 'Another Mind'. I've not yet listened to it all that much. From what i have heard though, i prefer the more recent stuff.[/quote] Yes her stuff has definitely improved, though after transcribing her stuff I'm increasingly more impressed by her arranging and compositional ability. [quote]Dave Fiukzynski is a good guitarist, but I think he kind of takes over a bit on the last album, my favourite has to be 'Brain' with Anthony Jackson on bass, as well as Tony Grey.[/quote] I disagree. However I will say I'm not a fan of the mix on the Time Control, it feels very plain. On top of that I greatly disapprove of Fuze's choice of effects/effected sounds on the album, I have no idea what he was thinking. Check out the live videos of the stuff on youtube, IMHO a [i]significant[/i] better rendition of their pieces. The video of 'Time Out' is absolutely electric. EDIT: Here's the link [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu6agePRtzk"]Time Out[/url] Mark

You've inspired me to get back into Hiromi's stuff and transcribing it. Her group sounds soooo much fuller now she has an electric guitar in it.

I'd be interested. Always looking to learn something new, and if there's tool related info available, even better! I would love to learn how to level/crown/profile frets and file nuts. Once I can do that I won't need to pay anyone for a setup ever again! Mark

Wulf- I'd say I do something like the 'sketches' then filling in the details. I start with the obvious, then work towards the less obvious, the stuff that expands your ears/listening. Mark

[quote]Not forgetting that Jazz comes from the Blues and has the Blues at it's root.[/quote] Perhaps historically, but I really don't hear it like that. [quote]When practicing don't forget about chord tones - by playing chord tones with chromatic approach notes above and below you can make instant jazz[/quote] I never liked that approach. [quote]And the golden rule when transcribing - learn it! Write it out if you want, but it is far more important to learn to play what you're working out, with the same feel as the original - when you can play along with the record and what you play is indistinguishable from the record, you've nailed it.[/quote] Agreed. At the same time however, I would encourage people not to get downhearted if you're finding something difficult to nail 100%, getting close to something shows progress at least, and that's something to be proud of. Mark

[quote]Mark - what helped you to get your head into all the Hiromi stuff, and to develop your ability in order to play all of that?[/quote] Drawing on what dlloyd said, it's all about training your ears to recognise things such that you know (at least sonically, not necessarily intellectually) what is being played just by listening. Note, this does not necessarily require an instrument. What helped me was: Transcription, modes (or at least a packet of various scales) and noodling. Above all listen to what is being produced when you do these. Transcription helps you to broaden your horizons musically, introduce some fresh ideas into your playing, see things from another persons perspective, and ultimately do things you don't do naturally. Start small though, don't try for too much to soon as it may get you downhearted. Try making a list of 5 'things' you want to understand from a song and work towards them. Maybe balance them out so there's some that it's just the chord progression you want to know, some that it's a signature phrase you want to know, some where it's coping with the time signature etc. Modes (I've mentioned these before) are useful collection of notes/intervals that help to train your ear. Every possible interval available in an octave is contained in at least one of these. Therefore, if you practice them (try looking for some lessons from Satriani on these, I really like his approach) and listen to the sound of the intervals, you'll eventually start to understand what each interval sounds like, then you have the building blocks to improvise freely. You can then construct any scale, phrase etc, and (theoretically) you can figure out what they sound like without an instrument. Random noodling, useless if you don't listen, amazingly useful if you pay attention to what you're doing. I found that in doing this you are essentially trying to break at least somewhat free from patterns and structures you have been told, or already know, or feel constrained by, e.g. think of blues guitarists, rarely do they come out anything new to 'say', as they are confined (more or less) by their typical scales (which is perhaps why average guitarists all sound like blues guitarists). Try to play in varying shades of random and try being erratic in your note choice, be completely chromatic, or non-diatonic, or moving between the two, maybe straying away from one key, return to it... or maybe not? Just be adventurous and see what you come up with. Be sure to listen what you're playing, and try repeating odd phrases with different rhythms, accents, tempos, feels etc. That way you're hearing ideas that people have rarely heard because they don't think to look (or listen!) there. I've unlocked so many useful phrases from that it's unreal! Anyway, post is long enough. Hope that helps.

Those are indeed encouraging words. Really good of him to take the time to correspond with you. Some of us do get caught up in just sheer technicality without any musicality, others become complacent/content with 'nice' music and never bother to improve their technical facility which should in turn serve their music. Either way, it's important to remember that exercises and technical ability are not an end in themselves, but just a means to an end, the end being creating music and saying something musically. Mark

[quote]With another soloist, MG actually playing some bass rather than messing around with Logic and his effects, and a bit more structure, the gig could well have been fantastic.[/quote] Whilst I wasn't there, I have had somewhat similar thoughts of late. There was the MG clinic on bassplayer live (or something; watch it on youtube) and I found myself fastforwarding through the performances, hoping for something interesting. I know it's all subjective, but (to me) it did feel like it lacked... substance? Mark

[quote name='birdy' post='214998' date='Jun 8 2008, 05:38 PM']I have got an IP112 with the EX112 extension and love it. If you are seriously looking at Bergantino you should arrange with Mark at bassdirect to go and visit him and try out all of the various combinations. A great way to spend an afternoon :-) Steve[/quote] plus the one i would highly recommend mark firstly, and i'd highly recommend checking out the berg range, they have a lot on offer and each has a lot to offer. Mark

Hmmm, just to throw in my 2p... and keep it short I've played with a very large number of different musicians, in a very wide variety of contexts. One aspect of this that I love/loved about each of them is the musical interplay I was able to enjoy with those musicians. Another aspect of this I enjoyed was making the uninteresting, interesting! Not in a selfserving way, but making something bubblegum into something really quite special. I think I am like Bilbo in that I do seek out expression in music, and that what is out there at the moment isn't reeeeally about expression as much as it is about having a laugh (nothing wrong with that!) and/or making money (nothing wrong with that either; just not in line with what I'm really into). I'd be happy to have a group of musos perform rarely but practice/jam/share musically often, as expression is what I'm after in one regard. On the other hand a covers band is great fun. Repeating many song note for note is hard technically, but using pre-existing songs as frameworks for new and interesting pieces is where great creativity can really come into it's own and shine through. Both ends of the spectrum are great vehicles/mediums for creativity, improvisation, fun for the audience and the musicians, but the danger of the former is that it can become self-indulgent and pretentious, the danger of the latter is that it can become stale and soul-less. That's just my opinion. Mark

May I ask what the exact final dimensions will be? Mark

Thanks for that XB, I need to de-emphasise my 'stick with this method' comment, I was coming at it from a 'if you're dancing about the neck' perspective. If you're going slowing or playing fairly standard lines at tolerable speed then having more than one finger per fret can really be beneficial and require less work than the above method. It really does depend on the line you're playing. Mark

Gotcha. In that case I would say it depends on what you are playing. Sometimes it's easier not to, but I would say stick with this method. For instance, I have several exercises that would be impossible to play above a certain speed without doing them this way, other ones I know are harder to play this way but are much more elegantly played as a result. In general I opt for this, but not always. At high speed though I stick with this method. Practice will get you there. Mark

Hmm, I think you're asking an innately flawed question here. Growing as a musician requires you to learn, experiment, evolve; one 'item' such as a chord tone approach to improvising will not achieve that, neither will lots of separate 'items' that you may amass. You need to recognise that they are simply approaches to learning theory which you then [i]choose[/i] and [i]apply[/i] in your improvs in your own way. I could go on for longer but I'm trying to keep my answers shorter Mark

Well, I don't mean to second guess what Steve was saying, but I believe that one finger per fret is firstly a [i]guideline[/i], not a set in stone rule (watch Dave Marks vid on bad habits for good explanation), and, secondly, isn't that easy or useful for doing double stops, particularly if you're missing out a string. If you didn't mean double stops (i.e. two notes played together) and were describing going between a first and fourth/first and seventh, then again, it is a guideline, but can be achieved with practice. Mark

Not even necessarily when played together. Bear in mind that if you're playing in a given key (with or without accompanying music actually playing) then you've already got a sonic backdrop or musical context in which your notes have an effect. Once you've learned a few scales, try switching between them i.e. play E major, then E minor, then E dorian, E harmonic major, etc etc, and start to highlight [i]why[/i] they each sound different, and which notes are primarily responsible for 'making' that scale sound the way it does. After you start getting into that, you start to realise scales are only tools that can help lead you to forming musical ideas, and that you shouldn't be bound by those set patterns. You don't have to be overly pretentious with the assigning words, I just found it a useful way to start learning what sounded like what, helping me to make something substantially musical out of those notes. For learning what works, transcription (as said above) is good. Try this: find a bit of a song you like, identify what you like about it and what draws you in, learn to play it, then try to insert elements of that into your playing. I'll give you a simple example (mainly guitar based): I like the stereotypical blues/rock guitar phrase of bending the 3rd up to the 4th, holding for a count and releasing to the 3rd, i.e. in the key of A minor, bending the C to a D, holding for a count and then dropping into a wide vibrato on the C. It's the extreme tension, build and release that I really connect with. I then learned to play it, and I frequently use the pattern of bending up and landing on a note below (or above) in a similar fashion to achieve the elements that I connect with. Listen to any blues or rock based guitarist (*ahem* Satriani) and you'll hear that it's littered with that one idea or rehashings of it. That method is probably more to do with phrasing, but it will certainly help you make what you learn your own. Mark

Go for it! If there's a fretless Jazz available somewhere I'd suggest that option. I'm not a huuuge fan of the mwah sound but I love the smooth and 'pure' sound of the notes on a fretless. It offers you new ways of playing things, and some pretty extreme vibrato, glissando, legato and all the other -o's, more so than fretted. I do like fretless but I prefer the sound of a fretted bass for my playing style. Mark

Good point(s) to emphasise Mark

Yes

[quote]And, if i widdle around enough for long enough, eventually something should click, but how long it takes to click depends on the person clicking? (that was a mouthful. )[/quote] Mmm, not really? No more than sitting in lectures not paying attention, or reading a book without considering it will help you to absorb or understand the information. No amount of widdling will further your musical understanding if you don't consider or evaluate why what works and where. And even that is subjective. Mark

...and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability.... *sigh*

[quote]I found that working exclusively at "bass level" gave me a worm's eye view of music - transcribing and playing chords and melody significantly expanded my overall sense of music.[/quote] Ooo good point! I remember my ear first opening up transcribing Satriani's stuff on guitar, as he uses a lot of odd scales, modes, modulations and what he calls 'pitch axis' theory. Effectively he plays in G something, then switches to another G something or another scale that shares a similar note to the scale/key he was. Great for ear training as it allows you to compare intervals against each other. Also whilst you [i]can[/i] freely and effectively improvise harmonically and melodically (in a non bass function sense) on bass, it requires a slightly higher standard than it does to do the same thing on piano or guitar. Mark