Bilbo

Those stadium gigs are a real turn off, aren't they?

Being blunt, it is pretty much all there in the Levine book. It is one of those things where a simple concept that takes 10 minutes to learn can take a lifetime to explore and to master. If you nailed everything in that book, you would be more knowledgeable than 99% of the musicians you meet. The art of it is not necessarily in the knowledge but in the[i] application[/i] of that knowledge. [i]That[/i] is what takes the time. Just keep listening and learning. I knew a great teacher once who said 'we all seem to think that the answer will be in another book and just keep buying theory books and filling our homes with ideas we don't fully udnerstand. But the answers are in the thorough exploration of the first book you ever bought'!!

I just passed the 10,000 mark on my SOundcloud page!! And some of them weren't even me!!

That Dave O'Higgins trio gig is this coming Sunday. Scary stuff as I fear it will show up my 'inconsistent' intonation. Can anyone lend me a double bass with frets??

Played with singer Georgia Mancio yesterday. Beautiful gig; heart-warming. Great ballads and bossas as well as the usual swing and standards.

The answer is probably but, with double basses, it is much more of the case that you need to try it to see if it works for you. You can get a great sounding bass that turns upo for £50 (Steve Berry's did!!) or you can pay £6K for a dog. Double basses are not like electrics and can be less consistent. What seems apparent is that this one has not been mistreated so that may be an indicator of something. Best have a look at it and, if you can, take someone who plays well with you so that they can give you an opinion of its playability and sound.

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1394717646' post='2394351'] ...dont forget to enjoy making music! [/quote] Careful, sunshine!! This is Jazz we are talking about!!

A couple of points from me, I think there is a tipping point where a starter instrument starts to hamper your improvement rather than aid it (I am thinking about general things like noisy pick-ups, poor fret work, machine heads that slip out of tune etc - whatever snags you can think of). Some get lucky and find cheap instrument that doesn't have the 'issues' that others do but, for a lot of us, there can be problems. My first bass (Hondo II Precision copy) had an action you could limbo under whilst the second, an Aria SB700, whilst a lot more playable, was a little noisy and it's knobs fell off. More to the point, there can be a point where you need something more robust as you start gigging more frequently and that bass starts to become a tool rather than a toy, so to speak, and, like any other craftsman, a cheap screwdriver from a B&Q 'pack of ten' is no good if you are hammering away with it all day every day. I remember once playing a Epiphoen Joe Pass (essentially an ES175 copy) which was nice but, when I played a 175 (4 x the price), it was immediately obvious that it was a much better instrument; better tone, better intonation, quieter electronics etc). If you know enough to notice, it is time to up-grade. I guess the day you 'out-grow' a cheap instrument is the day when you realise that the problems you are having with the cheap kit are problems.

This is where a knowledge of theory becomes extremely useful. Examples could be learning a line from a tune you like that is a funk groove in C major. Now, theoretically, everytime you play a funk groove in C, this line could work (never that simple but work with me). In fact, if you understand how the note relationships work and how they fall on the neck of your bass, you can use that lick against any Major chord, not just C Major. More to the point, if you REALLY understand the relationships between notes, you can take that C major lick and transpose it to C Minor, which you can also use on any Minor chord, not just C Minor. So your one lick now has a minimum of 24 applications. YOu could also take the rhythmic elements of the lick and reframe them entirely; a lick that starts in 1 can also start ofn 2, 3, 4 or on the off-beats of 1, 2 3 and 4. Each option creates massively different levels of tension. If you really want to get clever, take a line that is being double by a piano players left hand and, on the fly, play the line a third higher (I do this all of the time, always an octave higher than the original line as it sits better up there and stands out nicely - it is effectively 10ths not thirds). This is where you really need to know what you are doing up the dusty end. You can think of rhythmic variations of your line's main 'theme'. Dave HOlland does this a lot, taking a riff and chaniging it minutely every time he plays it, creating endless variations whilst still effectively playing the same riff (listen to 'The Oracle' on his Extensions album). I could go on but the point is simply that any line can be used in a myriad ways to create new and fresh perspectives on the original idea. THe more you know about the music, the more you can use these ideas in improvisations and in settings where the instruments are interacting rather than playing parts. For me, this is where all the magic lies.

Ian Shaw - Alone Again (Naturally) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8UbNFnYWw8

They may already have been posted but for me it's Greenslade 'Time and Tide' (Animal Farm), Rush 'Hemispeheres', all early Yes (Yes, Time And A Word (when it comes in at 0.46 on Dear Father), The Yes Album). They may have been posted already but I cannot see most of the attachments/links posted above.

I have been gigging my electric through my AI Clarus and Ten2 Ex and it is fine for what I call 'quiet' pop/rock/funk gigs (yes, they do exist) but, when welly is required, I am not 100% happy so am thinking about the Markbass discussed above as the next 'targeted purchase'!! Good to see people are generally happy.

He is a wonderfully clever artist, like Zappa, Kim Mitchell, Jon Anderson, Prince, Gwilym Simcock and so many others. They do their thing and some like it and some don't but that is the nature of these things. Enjoy what you enjoy.

There is a lovely story I heard yers ago and reproduced here at least once before. When Van Halen were a young up and coming band, they toured with Ted Nugent. Ted had heard about this hot shot new guitarist Eddie Van Halen and was watching him soundcheck. On hearing this fabulous sound, Nugent asked EVH if he could try his gear. Eddie took the guitar off and handed it to Nugent without altering the sound in any way. Nugenet picked up the guitar and played a few licks, without touching the eq etc, and sounded just like Ted Nugent. Whenever I play a bass, any bass, after a fewn momnents orientation, I sound like me. I hate the fact but there you are.

You couldn't get the pirate stations where I lived in the Valleys!!

Just a thought but a lot of us of a certain vintage will remember the days when not only did we have just three channels on TV, they didn't actually start broadcasting until 4 pm. What this meant, apart from anything esle, was that the RADIO was on in the morning and afternoon and that the radio itself had, if I am not mistakem NO COMMERCIAL stations (Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 and then some obscure things like Radio Luxemborg that you could only get if the wind was blowing in the right direction and next door didn't have washing on the line)!! As a result of this, our collective experience of music was generally pretty universal. Everyone of my age remembers Sparky's Magic Piano because everyone listened to Junior Choice!!

Played with Alan Barnes last night. The band sounded great and our little Jazz venue thing had its best night since it started. Pretty much rammed. A jazz gig, rammed! In Felixstowe. On a Sunday. Who'd have thought it!!? Highlight for me was a version of Days and Wine and Roses each chorus of which alternated between the key of F and Ab. Scary but we got there and it worked surprisingly well. Played some tunes I had never heard before which is always nice.

Dad was not interested but Mum had some records and stand out albums were Frank Sinatra and The Seekers. My first band for me as ELO, then Yes Close to the Edge and Greenslade's Time and Tide (a friend's older brother played me the lps and I liked the artwork as well). HM followed (Maiden, Def Leppard - all really early in their careers with first singles on indie labels etc) as I started to get out to see bands live, then Magnum (Storytellers and Magnum Marauder were favourites), The Enid etc. Fusion followed (Weather Report, Bruford, Brand X) and then Jazz arrived. ,

What was interesting about PC was how rarely he played he broke the flow of quarter notes. That was why he swung so hard and had the best gigs!!

Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book but it ain't what you'd call portable!! There is a kindle version but I can't speak for it was I have not seen it and a lot of these theory books don't work well on kindles because the screen is too small, rendering the musical examples unreadable. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jazz-Theory-Book-Levine-SpiralBound/dp/B00BQ21LIQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394202575&sr=1-2&keywords=mark+levine+jazz+theory

It's all only part of the equation. A great groove won't make a s*** song great and a lot of the best music doesn't 'groove' in any commonly agreed sense of the word. To my mind, a great groove can be like polishing a turd. It doesn't make a song any less naff if it has a great groove. I always find it astonisihing that anyone rates that 'Good Times' thing by Chic. Great groove, I acknowledge, but the actual song is icky beyond belief

'My' tone is different every time I do a gig. The 'ideal' tone I look to is only every an aspiration that is usually foiled by the absence or otherwise of a carpet. Sometimes I get close, sometime its a train wreck.

I think the point is Bass 10%, strings 5%, pick-ups 3$, human being 82%. Of course gear makes a subtle difference but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the most significant element is the performer. The details created by the kit are barely discernable to the lay man and pretty much irrelevant in the overall scheme of things. As I always say, what ever my bass sounds like on its own, one ride cymbal and those details are completely wiped out.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1394037819' post='2387234'] The point I am making, Bilbo, is that the sound as it is mixed in the studio is not an accurate representation of the performance anyway, [/quote] I agree. I guess the end point, for me, is that, if the result is not what it was at point of origin, then it is neither better not worse, just different! I don't have any axe to grind here. I have an ok hi-fi that I rarely listen to because most of my listening nowadays is on the road. I think I probably do lose out in quality terms because it is all against a background of car noise, people noise etc and is mostly background rather than dedicated. A great sounding recording is a great thing, though. I accept that 100%

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1394028214' post='2387066'] This assumption that the point of hi-fi equipment is to try and reproduce the music as it was originally heard in the studio is[u] completely wrong[/u]. [/quote] I actually agree with most of what you say but, when it is broken down, hearing what it sounded like when the musicians played it HAS to be the whole point of it all. Not in the sense that no-one is allowed to make any alterations to the recorded sound but in the sense that the inherent VALUE of the art form is in its production not in its reproduction. Shirley?