Bilbo

I blow hot and cold with Jeff Berlin stuff, Dad. I think his Low and High Standards albums are icky and there are certain tracks on his recordings that do nothing for me but every now and then he does something that I can get excited by. Whatever else you can say about it, you can always hear the bass parts!

A head chart for the tune 'Chasin' Jason', from the 1997 Jeff Berlin album, 'Taking Notes'. It stops three or four bars into the solos but the bass part gets too knotty from that point and would take to long to put together what would, ultimately, be an unreadable chart. It's a really challenging chart but great fun to play once you get a handle on the detail. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/chasin-jason-jeff-berlin/

Just reviewed to stats and the website has had 16000 hits since it passed the 100,000 mark. That's an average of 2,000 hits a week. How cool is that? People want to read!

Complete set of pdfs for 'Signals'. Enjoy. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/signals-full-album-rush/

Last one. Geddy's bass part for 'New World Man'. Complete album set to follow. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/new-world-man-rush/

Have finished New World Man. Will post tomorrow. That's the whole album done.

Nearly there. Geddy Lee's bass part for the tune 'Digital Man' from the 1982 'Signals' album. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/digital-man-rush/

You absolutely won that argument, tauzero 😊

Of course it does. The caveat is that humour in any form tends to only work once, unlike beauty which works every time. Probably an over simplification, but a beautifully crafted lyric bears endless repetition whereas a funny lyric tends to wear thin quite quickly. All IMO, of course.

Complete accident, Dave. Just try not to use the same image too often.

'Countdown' from the same album. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/countdown-rush/

Bish Bash Bosh - Geddy Lee's bass part for 'Chemistry' from 'Signals'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/chemistry-rush/

I worked out that, if I didn't have anything else to do, I could probably knock out several a day of the easier ones but definitely one a day of the long, complex pieces. That's hundreds a year. I have done 46 so far this year, a lot of them fairly easy. I do actually use them for reading practice so if anyone else gets any use out of them, that's just a bonus.

Might as well do the whole album now. Only three left

Still on a Signals-fest, this is the Geddy Lee bass part for the tune 'The Weapon'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-weapon-rush/

While we are on the Signals album, here is my version of the bass part for 'Losing It'. The part of actually a hybrid of Lee's bass parts and the bass synth parts. There is no bass for the 11:8 violin solo section (it is all root bass pedals, if I am not mistaken) so I have left it as 11:8 rather than alternating 6:8 and 5:8 which is what it sounds like to my ears). https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/losing-it-rush/

Another Rush track, this is a complete transcription of Geddy Lee's bass part to the tune 'Subdivisions' from the 1982 'Signals' album. I was there in the front row for this tour! https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/subdivisions-rush/

Another beautiful Steve Morse tune, this is Dave LaRue's through composed bass part for the tune 'Delicate Balance' from the 1996 Morse Band album, 'Stressfest'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/delicate-balance-steve-morse-band/

Dave LaRue's bass part to the tune 'Busybodies' from the 2002 Steve Morse Band album, 'Split Decision'. If you like Bach, you'll love this. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/busybodies-steve-morse-band/

It works. Keep at it.

If I could play 'authentic' Brazilian (or Cuban) music with a full percussion section, I would drop the Jazz like a red hot brick Joao Bosco, Marissa Monte, Dori Caymmi, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Hermeto Pascoal, Airto Moriera, Plora Purim, Roberta Sa....love it.

When I was a teenager, it became apparent to me that forming a band was impossible because there were never any singers available. I got into instrumental music and Jazz was only a short walk away. Since then, for much of the time, I find lyrics/singers a complete turn off. Even when I book them for my Jazz club, it is with a certain reluctance and simply to keep the punters happy. There are exceptions, many of them, Joni Mitchell being one obvious one but the reason I always loved Jon Anderson's lyrics was precisely because they sounded beautiful but didn't mean a thing (they were part of the music not words to understand). 99% of lyrics are inane bollocks, pseudo philosophy (as a Prog fan, I often wince at the 'meaning of life' content of some lyrics). Even Neil Peart can make me cringe ('as a hawk goes soaring by....') - some great lines but a lot of A level poetry.. I have to admit that the presence of a singer on a recording is often a deal breaker for me. I do have albums with singers of them but I generally prefer it when they don't.

Another Dave LaRue part, this is the complete transcription of the track 'Derailleur Gears' from the 2000 Steve Morse album, 'Major Impacts'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/derailleur-gears-steve-morse/