Bilbo

I agree with Hector 100%. One of the rarely talked about 'skills' required for your progress as a musician is the development of a 'critical sense' that allows you to recognise the difference between things that are of value in helping you develop and things that are 'snakeoil'. I don't think there is much in the Galper book that would require you to completely reconfigure your learning, just some ideas that you may want to think about. It isn't chock full of musical exercises but includes some ideas that you can apply to the other stuff you do to make it work a little better. I think there are some books like Effortless Mastery and The Inner Game of Music that are not so much about scales and theory as they are about thoiught porcesses and application. The most fundamental learning tools seem to be listening to and learning other people's solos/lines/comping etc, the mainstream theories of music (scales, chords, modes etc) and learning the reprtoire. Everything else is about concepts and application as defined by your won ambitions as a player/composer. It is not in finding a magic system that will see you improve but in finding a way of staying disciplined in your approach.

It astounds me how few fo these I have heard of!! I am listening to the Jimmy Guiffre Trio with Jim Hall and pre-electric bass Steve Swallow

Don't take any solos. It really is that simple. After every gig I find myself thinking 'I am never going to take any solos ever again'. And then I get the chance and it's 'I can do this, I know I can do this.....'. And then,After every gig I find myself thinking 'I am never going to take any solos ever again'. And then I get the chance and it's 'I can do this, I know I can do this.....'. And then, After every gig I find myself thinking 'I am never going to take any solos ever again'. And then I get the chance and it's 'I can do this, I know I can do this.....'. And then, After every gig I find myself thinking 'I am never going to take any solos ever again'. And then I get the chance and it's 'I can do this, I know I can do this.....'. And then,

I have tried three avenues of exploration to fate but nothing was happening. Something came to mind again at the end of a two hour session last Saturday and I know where to take it so, here's hoping.

[quote name='fatgoogle' timestamp='1402500032' post='2474175'] A friends cello had the top cut off by TSA. They even put it back in the case and she didn't realise till she left the airport. A 70 K cello ruined. [/quote] Did she sue? I just wondered if they get away with it?

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1402499722' post='2474171'] "Jazz" music, records "mainly for film"? Admit it, It was a porn film soundtrack, wasn't it? [/quote] I think it's more likely to be Lady and the Tramp or The Aristocats, Rhys!! He does a lot a animal history programmes for National Georgraphic Channel and the like.

I just got paid for my session. The producer (an old, old friend I was in Art college with in 1982/3) is thrilled with the performance ('very, very happy'). The payment worked out pretty cool on an hourly rate basis so everyone is happy. He has told me I am now his first call Jazz bass player (I don't think it will need it to be NHOP standard!! ). Buzzing! Interestingly, my friend records mainly for film so the 48.000 sample rate for DVD would mnake sense.

Not read the whole thread but I always think that religion is best when it informs how you live your life rather than it becoming the reason you live you life. i.e. A Christian baker, a Christian plumber. Why not a Christian musician. You serve your God by being the best person you can be not by being all pious and worthy!! NB I am a Humanist if I am anything, so don't listen to me.

Apparently, they once destroyed a concert pianist's grand piano because the glue 'smelt funny'.

Just came in on facebook http://thejazzline.com/news/2014/06/airport-tsa-instrument-damage-john-patitucci-bass/

I saw this the other day and forgot to comment. There is a lot to commend it but can I suggest you included the head in the performance next time? It gives the listener a handle on where the harmony is going and, without that, it is just finger wiggling. Although I know the tune (played it on a gig last Sunday, in fact), I struggled to hear the chords you were playing against. Anyone who doesn't know the tune would be lost.

I haven't even started yet (got something developing in my sick and twisted mind but, so far, nothing on paper or on virtual tape)!

I think they just show this weeks episode from 79, so you get what was on, not an edited highlights.

They may have been great musicians but that doesn't make the end results any less irritating. Like Jameson playing My Girl; it don't make it any less a turd.

I sawed the end off the old one and insert the new one in the space made available. It is held in with the endpin screw on the existing assembly. Simple. The end of the old endpin is still in there as I have not pushed it through and have not had to fish it out through the f-holes. It makes no noise and does no harm so there is nothing to worry about.

That's it. I got a recording of the track the producer was working on and he told me it was 90 bpm. I copied the audio file into cubase and recorded my bit (defaulted to 0.00 on the clock so he can line it up when I send it back to him). The learning point for me was that he wanted it recorded at a sample rate of 24bit/48.000khz but I could only do it 24 bit/44.100 khz (Cubase defaults to 33.1 for some reason) so he sent me a copy at 44.100 so I could work with it (if you record at the wrong sample rate, the thing is not in tune). He also asked me to record the thing as dry as humanly possible and he would add the EQ and effects at this end. The recording I sent him was horrible because it was what I really soound like warts and all.

'Shadows and Light' and the Mendoza album are my favourites but anythnig Joni does is fine by me. Exquisite artistry from the forceps to the stone. And a great painter as well.

Something is getting mashed, that's for sure!! Just another point I wanted to add. The end-pin arrangement Ben's pin's involves means that every time you use the pin, the bass is at EXACTLY the same height that it was teh last time (I always found the old system worked on a kind of 'in the ball park' basis. I am finding the absolute stability of the set up is a major boon in helping me regulate my intonation. Matt Wates this week!

I did a gig last Sunday with saxophoinist Julian Siegel and pianist Dave Gordon, both absolute monster improvisers (Julian's trio features Joey Baron and Greg Cohen and he has played with Steve Swallow and others - top drawer stuff). We opened with There is No Greater Love and I played an absolute blinder, great groove, great solo. I had fitted my new Ben Bastin Wooden End Pin and the bass felt stable and sounded great. I was elated. We followed it with All The Things You Are which I have played 1,000,000 times. Biggest pile of bollocks you have ever heard! What's THAT all about What was great, though, was playing a later tune (I cannot recall) at a furious tempo whilst Siegel played chorus after chorus of astonishing Jazz (he likes to explore a tune and I have known the performance of single tunes to go on over 20 minutes - that is longer than Close To the Edge ). I was playing in my normal frantic 'oh, sh*t' kind of way when something happened that had never happened before. I became aware that all of the tension in my hands and body (and teeth, oddly enough) was self imposed and I forced myself to relax all of those tense muscles and to focus my energy on the task in hand. All of a sudden, playing a walking bassline at the this mad tempo became relatively easy and I was able to focus on the content of the lines and not the 'execution' of the thing. No solo but it was fairly Zen-like and I felt like a weight had being lifted. Brilliant. I just hope I can find that 'zone' next time. And no more hand problems.

Did some random downloading last week and found a great album called Oye by Miguel Zenon and the Rhythm Collective. It features a lovely bass player (electric) called Aldemar Valentin . Worth checking out.

One note at a time.

Speak to the pianist. He will be able to advise you re: keys etc. Summertime and Fever are both relatively simple but played as Jazz standards they are not simple like Mustand Sally is simple. You don't just learn the part and play it by rote. Best advise I can give is to listen to Ella/Peggy Lee's versions of the songs and absorb them but don't 'learn' the versions you are listening to because when you play them for real, what you think you have learned will be pretty much useless.

LSOH is a relatively easy pad. Lots of rock n roll cliches, nothing overly taxing, just a lot of fun. Feed me, Seymour!!

You put your left leg in and your left leg out, you do the okey cokey and you turn about. I can imagine the RHCP guys agonising over whether to include the pentamerous supertonic in the chorus as they sit there having their tattoos waxed.

[quote name='bassist_lewis' timestamp='1401915845' post='2468356'] Haven't read the whole thread so apologies for any repetition. If you subscribe to Victor Wooten's belief system then everyone is self taught (see the Music Lesson) so wether you go to uni/college or not is almost irrelevant, especially nowadays with the internet providing all the information and lessons you could possibly want for free. What a degree does give you is time to focus on your craft and to gain contacts. On my degree course there was definitely the feeling among students that marks we're awarded arbitrarily, I knew people who worked 12+ hours a day for months in their final year on projects and performance exams and got mediocre marks while others threw stuff together haphazardly in the 3 days before the deadline and got merits. In my opinion music is too subjective to grade in any meaningful way (aside from the basics like technique, professionalism). Your music degree is what you make of it. [/quote] I agree with this. I think there is a lot to be said for being able to focus on the musiking for a few years to see where that level of focus can take you but, ultimately, the 'truth' will out and a lazy student will not progress as fast as a hard working one (when I work with 'celebrity' Jazz musicians, there is often a clear link between the amount of study and practice they do and their ability to play). There are those savants we all hear about who can play without doing the work but I don't really believe in the hype. Pat Metheny was apparently offered a teaching post at Berklee after only six months studying there. In playing terms, if you do the work, the qualification is kind of irrelevant and there is plenty of evidence that independent study can offer rewards that are equal to formal study (all the Royal London College of Music degree students that I play with are sharing the bandstand with me, aren't they?).