Bilbo

Another Sibelius user here

I don' t go into music shops. Actually' I never try gear and bought all my gear without playing it first. What am I like?

Sounds like Canterbury scene prog rock from the 1970s.

I am a jazz musician. It' s what I do.

After discussing my issues on here, I got the loan of a double bass (Jake Newman) which has resulted in me starting my own trio and writing my own material. I have heard loads of new stuff, heard some players I did not know, met some people, bought and sold some gear, and aired some villainy. Marvellous!

Can I respectfully ask how many copies of these projects you guys sell? I know how many cds an average UK jazz release sells (max 500) and just wondered what kind of turnover projects like yours creates. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to discuss this on-line. Or feel free to tell me to f*** off and mind my own business

I have a Morley volume pedal I got years ago. Useful but I find it' s all in my hands.

Loughton Library has one. It' s where the National Jazz Archive is based.

Amazon have sold out but you can still get it at Waterstones http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/rob+palmer/mr-+p-c-/8845560/ It is interesting to see how these things move forward, though. I still get the impression that the world of book doesn't quite know what to do with a Jazz bass player's biography! 'Best order 3 copies and then see what happens' kind of thing. I know of about 7 copies having been purchased which makes me about 35p richer!! Watch out Vinnie Fodera, here I come!

Sometimes you have to go backwards to move forwards. Hope it works out.

I am rapidly becoming a ' my book is out' bore.

All of 'em. Every single one. http://www.alembic.com/info/fcvault.html

I think it is in the inaccuracy of the notes Seriously, though. The warmth of a string section comes from the fact that each of the individual players is minutely out of tune with the others, creating a natural and welcome chorusing effect (if you tape the same string player 20 times, it doesn't sound like a string section). There is a 'human' quality that this inaccuracy brings to the table that adds considerable character to the notes played on the fretless and which is missing in a fretted bass. Also, if you listen to a double bass soloing, when they go into thumb position, the inaccuracy in their intonation brings a huge amount of tenion into the note, like a singer reaching for a note that is out of their range. This tension, which is less obvious in an electriv bass but is still there, adds colour to the performance and, when it is missing, it is noiticeable. For me, there are several fretless players whose intonation is SO accurate, they lose this human quality to the detriment of the music. All of this sounds like a justification for bad intonation and it is important that we understand that I am talking about barely audible inaccuracies not 'wrong' notes. My intonation is by no means perfect and I struggle with it every day but, the use of a fretted bass (with its built-in 'stabilisers' ) is, for me, a 'safe' option that has its attractions but, in the end, is not worth the price of that lost 'human' quality. Does that answer the question? For the record, I use fretless in rock, blues, funk, function bands, shows, big bands, small jazz trios and latin music. It always works. The only areas I see it losing out to fretted are in chordal work, tapping and slapping, none of which are a feature of my playing.

Alt chords are slippery little suckers and a lot of the choices come down to personal taste and experience but ambients starting point is a good one. If you think of the associated scale as a a melodic minor starting on the 7th, and build the chords from there, you will start to see how it all fits together. There is a LOT of jazz in there.

there is a real book app for £1

That' s just wrong .....

I usually buy and have Spotify premium as a last resort but I do download freebies on occasion because it is sometimes the only way of accessing obscure jazz recordings that are pre-cd era and which have never appeared (it amounts to about half a dozen lps in mycase although there are others that I am looking to try and get for that same reason). To be fair, though, when I was a kid, we would all be copying stuff onto cassettes etc . I think the main difference then was that, if we really liked it, we would buy the lp because the cassettes were so poor and deteriorated so quickly and there was always the lp covers whcih were part of the deal. A downloaded mp3 nowadays is, in relative terms, just as good as the 'original' download or cd and there is no cover to speak of except the cd sleeves which, frankly, lack the romance.

I just got told that Mr. P.C. Haas been nominated for the 2012 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. If I had any idea what that meant, I would be thrilled!

I guess that is true but I think there is more to it than buying a pair of drumsticks and hitting things...

You (the OP) are certainly a type of musician. Not educated, not sophisticated, not massivley informed etc but none of that may matter in the context in which you are operating. Of course you are a musician, just not a particularly rounded one (and please don't take offence at that as none is intended). Some of the world's most successful performaers have been no more informed than you (and some of the least successful have been geniuses - go figure).

I haven't ordered it so wouldn't have got that email, Len . But it is nice to know that the whole process works!

It is now 44 years to the day since Paul Chambers, bass player on Kind Of Blue, Giant Steps, Skteches of Spain, Porgy and Bess, Tenor Madness, Milestones and hundreds of other sessions for Blue Note, Riverside, Savoy and Columbia Records, succumbed to tuberculosis in a New York Hospital. And he remains one of the most influential double bass players in Jazz. To quote Malcolm Cecil, bass player who spent some time with Chambers when Miles toured the UK in 1960; 'God bless you, brother Paul'.

It is on Amazon at last.... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-P-C-Chambers-Popular-History/dp/1845536363/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357290599&sr=1-1