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Everything posted by Bilbo
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'April' off Brand X's Product album (John Giblin). Giblin also plays some nice fretless on Chris De Burgh's 'The Getaway' album.
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The truth is that, if you are playing pop/rock/funk etc, you are almost never going to come across anything that needs and intimate knowledge of the altered dominant scale and its associated chords (there are a tiny number of exceptions but they are rare). Deal with the Major, Minor and Diminished scales and all their modes and you will pretty much have it (pentatonics are only major and minor scales with notes left out). THat is three scales (one of which only has two variants x 12 notes = 26 scales to learn. It's a days work.
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Romantic Warrior and Musicmagic were important early sources for transcribing for me. I did loads of transcriptions of each (only notes as I recall, not chords). I remember thrashing through the charts on my Aria SB700 so that dates it to pre-1986. A drummer friend turned me onto RTF (I already know of Al DiMeola and SC because of Tommy Vance (I remember Silly Putty being used as a link) but had not got as far as RTF yet) and I was amazed at this bass player. As I moved on, I lost interest in him as I found other players I preferred (Jaco, Jeff Berlin, Jimmy Johnson and Percy Jones mainly) but he was certainly there at the start of my relationship with Jazz and Jazz related music. I also have The Toys Of Men and there are some duff tracks on there but some of it is really great.
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I struggle to see how any of it would make any sense without knowing how it all fits together. TO be blunt, a lack of knowledge of scales usually means that a massive amount of music is unavailable to you and that just seems a shame. I find that, as an improvising musician, the more I learn, the more I hear and the more I recognise, the more I can respond to intelligently. Charts make more sense, improvising becomes more creative and I also enjoy listening to music more. Bludnering around with pentatonics got very tedious for me very quickly although there are those who can still make some beautiful music with those alone. But the edge that I look for in players is rarely found in the 'intuiitive' player and more often in the 'informed'. The irony is, the basics are not that hard to learn (the interestingly titled Neopolitan, Balearic, Constipated etc scales are VERY uncommon and are more often than not basic scales with notes added or left out so, if you knwo the basics, the rest is easily picked up in real time). Major, Minor, Dominant, Diminished, Augmented and Blues scales is about all you need. It's a week's work at most.
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Some of Clarke's best early work was with other people; Chick Corea's Return To Forever are the obvious example but there were others. I find Clarke to be like Jeff Berlin|: monster players that are great sidemen but, when left to their own devices are less satisfying. I think they are also both guilty of chasing commercial success instead of artistic success and that often manifests itself with poor product (there was a LOT of this thing going on in Jazz in the 1970s and 1980s) Clarke's stuff on Return To Forever and Light As A Feather is great (mostly double bass, not electric).
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YouTube - Virtual Reality for musicians
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I keep hearing people (not necessarily on here) saying that, because of the internet and all the new marketing methods associated with it, there is 'no longer any need to gig'. Now, I understand the argument in logistical terms and as a a legitimate business approach (blah, blah) but WTF??!! How can you not gig? That's the bit I like!! Without that we are all bedroom boys and girls, even the millionaires I couldn't 'not gig'. I just couldn't.
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JUst got hold of a great cd by Chris Speed called Really OK. It is a sax/bass/drums trio featuring a bass player who is new to me called Chris Tordini. Monster sound, great ideas. Makes me want to get my bass out and play (always a good sign). Check it out if you get the chance.
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So don't do funk. That is not the only way to inter pret the image (I am not)
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Great point, grahamD. I use his r/h muting techniques a lot nowadays so his has influence me but I just don't seem to want to listen to his records. Although I do love his song 'It's Only Music' off 'Bent'
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The 'too tall' argument was used for me 20 years ago when I applied for a gig with a name band. In short (see what I did there?), if the lead singer is a short-arse with a small ego, you are going to make him look tiny, a particular problem in genres like HM where the macho image is sometimes part of the deal. Interestingly, on the occasions when I meet celbrity musicians, I am regularly surprised at how short they are in real life. I guess this is more common than we think. For the record, I know of another musician (a drummer) who 'auditioned' for a Kylie video. The 'audition' was him being filmed from lots of different angles (he didn't actually have to play the drums). I guess it is easy to forget that the priorities have changed.
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Got half and hour on it tonight and this is where I got to. Not finished and very clunky but I wanted to show willing as much as anything. This is as far as I got and have abandoned it as time was up and, frankly, I know how much work is needed to get it up to par and I don't want to spend the time on it but thought I would post this anyway. I was thinking waltz of the dead kind of thing. https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/waltz-at-the-hanging-tree
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I loved the first two LPs, Spears and Dr Hee but, after that, I lost interest (I have owned several more lps/cds but let them go). I find Willis's playing a bit bland and predictable, despite his obvious virtuosity. I think he is one of those guys that needs to be produced by great writers etc. Like Jeff Berlin, all that technique but not much emotional content. There is a cd with Willis and Allan Holdsworth playing standards that says it all. It just doesn't work. He is a monster player, though.
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Tis what it is. But, once you have nailed it, you have nailed it for life. Time massively well spent.
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It does take time. The skill is hard won but hugely valuable.
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Voted. Struggling to get ot composing at the moment. Very time consuming when you haven't got time. I started something and got it off the ground but just haven't got back to it in time. Bugg**y b*ll***cks [size=4] [/size]
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Sax bass drums trio with Dave O'Higgins on tenor. I was in heaven. I played one of my best double bass gigs ever, really creative and interesting stuff (and more than a little wrong on occasion!!). Still, you can't make an omlette.....
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Those stadium gigs are a real turn off, aren't they?
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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'!!
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I just passed the 10,000 mark on my SOundcloud page!! And some of them weren't even me!!
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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??
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Played with singer Georgia Mancio yesterday. Beautiful gig; heart-warming. Great ballads and bossas as well as the usual swing and standards.