fretmeister

Website no longer available. https://gak.co.uk/

I played sax for many years. So I'd see a note on the stave and play that note - and the sound would be a major 6th below what was written. I have tried to write for sax along with Concert pitch instruments and it does my head in trying to make it work. I can still play a bit but I don't own one anymore. The best get a piano piece, and then play using that. They can't play a "C" on the page because the note will be wrong - so they shift it all in their heads in real time as the play. My old teacher jumped between all the different saxes (Eflat and Bflat), Clarinet (mostly Bflat but a few odd ones) and the Bassoon family and the piano. Had no trouble transposing it all in his head. Amazing! Good image from wiki:

No drama. A claim would be statute barred now, as long as he doesn’t do something silly like admit the debt or offer to pay even a quid.

They have answered me: no plans for any new versions of the Bassrigs.

I think it used to be. I've got loads of books that contain both - all bought before the internet. Same for the guitar magazines of the day. Doesn't seem very common these days. I haven't bought a tab book for donkeys so I don't know about newer published books. Or even if books like that are still published in light of all the free stuff on the web.

I tuned a bass in 5ths after seeing some pro do it that way. I lasted about 3 days before putting it all back!

You don't consciously identify the letters in a word either. You recognise the whole word. That isn't the main problem with tab. Tab is usually lacking rhythm information and other things like accents and so on. But worst of all it has no genuine pitch information. E string 3rd Fret is only a G if the guitar is tuned that way. A G on a stave is always a G. Guitarists (and bassists) are particularly bad for this. "Play a G" - "that's not a G, we are in drop D Tuning!" It's a small wonder that piano / keys players haven't killed us all. Standard Notation provides a common language that can be used by everyone on any instrument. Tab does not. Tab can be a barrier to effective communication. Not a problem in a small band or one where all the instruments are guitar based, but as soon as any other instrument is added then the problems are there. Can't hand Tab to a keyboard player and ask him to sight read it! Don't get me wrong - Tab is a useful tool to get beginners playing something they recognise quickly. That's inspiring, and inspiration and encouragement is vital for progress, but it's limitations are massive.

Every covers band on earth has songs that a member doesn't want to play. Even in originals bands there will be songs that are favourites and those that fall down the desirability list. I saw an interview with Metallica recently when they were saying that they didn't really want to play "Seek and Destroy" anymore but the crowd wanted it so they played it. The band's enjoyment was not a factor in putting it in the set list. And for non-writing members of an originals band - it's no different to being in a covers band. Paying gigs have very little to do with enjoyment of the music. It's a job like any other and that comes with both boredom and excitement. If a person is really lucky - the excitement might even reach 50% of their day. But anyway - there is a necessary split between learning music academically and creating art. They are different things and require different approaches. I'm sure there's loads of kids who hate caterpillars, but they read "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar" because it's been carefully written to be a good training book. Every surgeon learns how to remove an appendix on the way to be being good enough to go digging around in a brain. We all learn the rules of our primary language as an academic subject while enjoying art that was created by that language along side. But they are not the same thing.

You are not helping!

Here: Seems to be a 2007. https://guitarchimp.com/products/2007-gibson-thunderbird-iv-bass-white

Deffo a Gibson Thunderbird. The colour might not be available at the moment though.

I've never worked in a guitar shop but I did 9 months in a car dealers. Used to get people coming in demanding 20-25% off for cash on a new car when there wasn't even 10% in them at full price. They'd never believe us. There wasn't even that much in most of the used cars after the service / MOT / replace a tyre / valet stuff that was needed before a trade in was ready to be sold. Half the time it was more sensible to run the trade in down to the local auction in whatever state it was in. Main Dealers make their money on the finance packages and not on the cars. The cars are really just a way to get the punter to need credit. If there was ever a 0% special offer on a car that was a clear indication that the maker had made far more than needed and needed to get rid of them fast. It became a bit of a joke. There was a Ford special edition Fiesta that had a 4 year 0% finance offer with only £100 minimum deposit. When Ford announced it the reaction in the sales team was "So - it's a piece of shit then?"

is that all? Blimey! That's just madness! Why would you bother? Might as well have a pizza van instead.

If GAK have £30M turnover but will sell for £20M then there's a shit load of debt somewhere. Andertons don't need to take that on.

I used to cover that tune. I used a Digitech Bass Synth Wah and a EHX Metal Muff. They were in separate loops of a Boss LS-2 so I could blend them. Then into a compressor to smooth it all out a bit as the output from the 2 pedals had very different peaks and decay times. The Metal Muff did the drive/fuzz element and the BSW gave some swirling movement underneath. Sounded massive.

That was far easier to read than the outpouring of drivel I wrote!

Actually - this thread has dredged up a memory. At one gig for the Music Trust for the younger students one of the about 15 years old students from the rock band came up and said "Our bassist is sick and can't come. Can you fill in?" I said "Depends whether you've got the sheet and I can muddy through, or if it's something I know already" They had played a lot of new modern metal stuff I'd never heard before. He said "It's from a really old song called "Enter Sandma....." I said "Don't worry, I've got this." While dying inside at the "old" song bit! (Obviously the 15 year old drummer was better than Lars )

It might sound like I'm an awesome reader or something - I'm far from it. I have had piano and sax lessons in the past but for bass I'm self taught. I only started learning to read for the bass when I got press ganged into helping out at a music trust my kids attended as students. I would be given the music and have very little clue but with several hundred covers band gigs under my belt I could wing a lot of things at rehearsal and then I'd go home with the sheet and write all the note names on it - for every bar. I'd practice at home so I could play it properly at the next session. Then over time I would only write the name of the first note in the bar so at least I'd land on the 1 accurately each time. Then only for notes that were outside of the key signature as a reminder and for the ledger line stuff.

Yup - it's all pattern recognition at that point. To quote Billy Sheehan "If you're thinking, you're stinking!" That is the best modern translation of the old "Amateurs practice until they get it right, professionals practice until they can't get it wrong" saying.

You're half wrong / half right If you read a novel you've never seen before you can read it. If it's a kids book you could go stand at speakers corner and read it out first time to performance level. If it was a technical manual for something you have no experience of, containing words that you have never seen before, then there's a good chance you'd stumble over the pronunciation of those unfamiliar words. You might recognise parts of the work, like a prefix that is used for many things but perhaps not the entire thing. But for that kids book you are still remembering that when you put the letters "RALLIPRETAC" in the right order it says Caterpillar. Memory is necessary for reading. When you sight read something you have already played you are doing multiple tasks: 1: Reinforcing things you already know. Reading, even English, is a perishable skill given enough time. Reading things you know stops the memory files from degrading. 2: Building confidence in reading things you haven't seen before but have common elements. A common beginning or ending of a phrase or word (music or English) narrows the unknown element down. 3: Increasing your pattern vocabulary. Within a set key signature there are a limited amount of correct notes and so within a bar there is a limited way of setting them out. So just as every novel will use the word "and" there will be very common note progressions in a wide variety of music. "And" is a pattern of 3 phonetic sounds that your brain knows how to say as one word. A run of Root, 5th, Octave is a pattern that once absorbed as a pattern and the brain just plays it effectively as one instead of loading up the brain file for Root then 5th, then Octave. Reading or memorising is a bit piece dependant. Reading a Uriah Heap (or U2!) bass line is probably all memory after a few goes, so at that point the player is probably using it as a crutch or building confidence. Reading a Kyle Eastwood bass line is going to be more reading than memory, at least for a longer period. A Paganini violin piece is going to take even longer to remember. It's just more complex. We can all memorise a 4 line limerick. Not many of us can memorise The Odyssey, but we might remember little bits of it, here and there. The entire point of sight reading practice is not just the "reading" bit - it's to develop an internal vocabulary of phrases that can be accessed accurately and quickly and with enough confidence for performance. When you read a novel for the first time you are still using your memory - you know every word already but not the order that they will appear in, and this is the thing - your brain can predict future patterns. It knows that "and" is not going to be the end of a sentence. It knows that if there is a sentence of "It was the opinion..." then there is a really high chance that the next word is going to be "of" and the brain preloads that word before you get there. The same happens in music with practice. Music is a language just with different symbols for the alphabet and different rules of grammar and syntax. People progress with learning music in this way make far quicker progress - they know how to do it as they did it already for their primary spoken language. Bedtime reading with kids for 10 mins a day rather than just doing 2 hours in a Saturday is far better and it is for music too. As for different instruments, a lot of that is the instrument itself or the limited range of an instrument. Most bass transcriptions are just in bass clef even when playing high up the neck, the sheet will just have a load of ledger lines on it instead of showing the treble clef as well. Just because I know where the B is on a bass doesn't mean I know where it is on a tuba - reading on a particular instrument is not just reading the notes, it is the link between the page and the movement of the fingers or mouth or both. Without that link the reading skill is weak: it needs to become as instinctive as catching a ball. I can play a little piano and I can read the bass clef for piano, but I stumble on the treble because I don't do it enough. So my left hand is pretty accurate but my right is a disaster. A classical composer can read and write to an astonishingly high level: on the paper. That does not mean they can walk over to the violas and play their part on that particular instrument, even though the composer could play it perfectly on the piano or something else. Pushing the novel analogy to frankly idiotic levels: I can write an exciting ninja story. Doesn't mean I can pick up a sword and fight. But there will be a martial artist who can't write a good story but who could act out what I wrote, perfectly. I think a lot of people who do play many instruments who say they can only read for 1 of them are probably applying a personal standard to it. I'm sure a lot of them could sit down with the part and work it out by reading it, but not to a standard equal to their main instrument. It does remind me of a thing Marcus Miller once said - that in his experience the very best bassists he every worked with were all great piano players. The piano really is the biggest teacher of theory and harmony there is because of the vast range of the instrument and that 10 notes can be played at once. A final thought: There are pieces that exist that even Yo-Yo Ma couldn't perform perfectly the very first time he saw the sheet. Just like the Technical Manual example above there will be many phrases (words) that he can do easily, maybe even 95% of the tune and then there will be something that is brand new to him, or has a pattern/progression that he's never seen and is outside his personal prediction vocabulary for that key signature so he'd really like to practice before getting on stage.

It appears to be for sale https://www.business-sale.com/companies-for-sale/musical-instrument-retailer-supplier-fast-sale-asset-sales-fast-sales-south-east-670506

I forgot about that. I have it too. Great book.

This is why there are different expectations of playing ability linked to the grade the player has achieved. For example, a grade 6 player ought to be able to play grade 6 pieces with practice and that includes memorising / being familiar with them. It’s the difficulty of the piece that makes it grade 6. A grade 6 player would not be expected to sight read a grade 6 piece to performance standard the very first time they see it but they would be expected to be able to do that with a grade 3 or four piece. There is always memory involved. Just like when you are reading a book you are not reading individual letters or even phonetics anymore because you have a memory of how the word looks as a single piece of information. That happens in Music as well. As for the question, how do you know if you are playing it correctly? If there is no access to a teacher, there are some apps available that will scan standard notation and play it back to you. They are not always the most accurate things in the world but certainly for simple pieces they do very well.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/25036732.brighton-shop-gak-music-emporium-north-laine-closes/