Bilbo

Love doing shows.

It was MEEEEE!

Learn to read music. Now

I did JCS for a school a few years back. The bass pad is nuts (changing time signatures almost bar by bar in some tunes). I am told (by someone on here who did the show with ALW) that the touring groups get a couple of weeks of rehearsal in before the show hits the road. I think, with that amount of time invested, it would be relatively 'easy' to nail it, given an acceptable level of competence.

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/83558-a-remark-you-made/

It's the old packaging versus content argument, isn't it. To be fair, we have now reached the point where content is simply not enough and the packaging has to be exceptional [i]as well[/i]. A lot of great musicians make it because they sound good AND look good, whereas sounding good is just not enough. Looking good and being surrounded by credible musicians in order to create the illusion that you sound good has always allowed people to 'get away with it' for a few albums (look at the Motown back catalogue), as has the increased use of auto-tune, but, in my experience, those acts tend to fade quite quickly. Sounding good but not 'looking good' (what does that mean anyway?) usually condemns artist to a long career as a 'cult figure', carving a niche market like, say, IQ or Marillion do in prog. But 'success' is a subjective term and a lot of 'successful' artists i.e. artist whose ART is successful (as opposed to those whose PRODUCT is successful), make their mark in ways that cannot be measured in unit sales. Van Goch was unsuccessful during his lifetime but does that mean his work lacked merit? Of course not.

C. No question (they don't do a bass clef version). For the sake of completion, the reason other keys are available is for what are called 'transposing instruments'. In short, some horns play a whole tone higher than concert so when you play a C, they would play a concert D so, in order for it all to work, the sheet music is transposed down a whole tone to Bb so, when they play a note 'as written', it sounds a whole tone lower than the note would normally indicate were it not a transposing instrument. Other instruments are a minor third lower so, in order for it to work, the music is transposed [i]up[/i] a minor third to Eb. There are other transposing instrument but, in popular music, C (treble and bass clef), Bb and Eb usually covers it. What came as a revelation to me as I became more and more familiar with writing for horns (I polay a saxophone but only at a VERY rudimentary level), was that reading a Bb clef and and Eb clef does NOT require new learning like, say, a treble clef and a bass clef would. A C on a Bb chart requires the saxophonist to put his or her fingers on the same notes which they would a C on an Eb chart. The chart does the transposition, not the horn player. It's all quite simple really, it just sounds complicated.

I woudl say 'It's Tush, man. It doesn't matter'.

We have already been paid for NYE. Three days in advance of the gig

Can't wait to get back to it. Great entries, this month. Dad got my vote but 4 of these were [i]really[/i] good.

We are all many things. To some, I am a bassist, to others a Probation Officer, trade union rep, son, brother, neighbour, writer... I am a bass player when I need to be.

Duraglit did it for me.

How lovely. Good luck with your studies and use the time well. It will never be wasted.

Yes. For C# it is C#CWAE#(OF)ITB - harder to find a mnemonic for.

Mostly but sometimes it is about the bass movement (D, D/C, D/Bb etc) and sometimes it is a lot more sophisticated with polychords etc but, as a rule of thumb (and if you are trying to get a handle on the issue), the assumption that it is effectively an inversion is generally a useful starting point. This is where a knowledge of theory becomes useful as you clearly already know that the E is the major third of the C chord and, thus, the chord is inverted. If you see thirds, you will know that is what you are dealing with. For soloing, you play to the chord in front of the slash but remain aware of the root movement so you can sound hip.

Dudley Phillips played bass with BW. I had a couple of lessons with Dudley. Lovely player.

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1388001434' post='2317830'] That's very interesting Bilbo. Was it when Malcolm Cecil was a member of 'The Jazz Five' that he toured with Miles? [/quote] Yes (p. 229)

I saw him just before he died, Brecon with Jackson and Gadd. It was funny because the hall was full of drummers and Gadd did literally one 12-bar solo break in the whole gig . Lovely night's listening.

Malcolm Cecil made a significant contribution to my book 'Mr. P. C. the life and music of Paul Chambers'. MC toured the UK in the quintet that supported the Miles Davis Quintet (Vic Ash, Brian Dee et al) and spent a lot of time with Chambers over that period, sharing a seat on the bus, soundchecking each other etc. Lovely guy. He gave me the quote I used to close the final chapter.

There are several ear-training apps which can be fun but the best way is playing along with stuff where you don't know the changes and trying to 'find' them by ear. I have done whole gigs that way with appalling results

Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington's version of Mack The Knife. Can't do a link but it is on Youtube.

No brainer for me: The Pat Metheny Group.

Couple of things Firstly, I just downloaded the Complete Blue Note recordings of Michel Petrucianni on Amazon for £5.99 - 55 tracks over 7 cds. Astonishing value and some great, great music.... (featured bass players include Gary Peacock, Eddie Gomez, Anthony Jackson) http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Complete-Blue-Note-Recordings/dp/B001KQMW7M/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&sr=1-1&keywords=michel+petrucciani ..... especially the 1986 live 'Power of Three' trio recording he did with the recently deceased guitarist Jim Hall and the fantastic Wayne Shorter. No bass but a wonderful recording of three master musicians in one of their finest moments (was it really that long ago??)

Can't listen to it here but do they mean A7#5 as opposed to Bb5? In all my years, I have never seen a chord listed as X5 so A#5 looks to me to be an incorrectly labelled A7#5 as opposed to an A# chord with a 5 (as major and minor chords all have a 5, it is ambiguous. Unless it is just a power chord root, five, octave? But even they tend to get labelled major or minor in terms of their implied status.

Lovely.