Bilbo

I think a lot of us mention bands like Gillan and Maiden etc as, in those days (late 70s, early 80s), bands did 40 date UK tours and played Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea etc and everyone could afford to get there and see them. Remember the t-shirts with the dates listed on the back? It was affordable, a lot cheaper (not just because it was years ago and a gallon of petrol cost thruppence but because it took up a lot less of your disposable income. You could see one or even two of these touring bands every week in clubs and theatres like the Cardiff Top Rank, Bristol Colston Hall, local student's union bars etc). Now its three dates at the O2, two at the NEC and one 'oop North'. They used to bring the music to the people and the people came. Now the people are expected to go to them and pay at least £100-200 (inc travel, parking etc) for the privilege. No wonder computer games are more popular than music and live music is struggling.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1346359402' post='1788412'] Was that in the Top Rank on Queen Street? I was there too. [/quote] Yup - I was the guy with long hair, an afghan and jeans Didn't see you, Rhys?

Mahogany Rush as a first gig!! You RRRRROCK! Probably Paul Harwood on bass. I saw them at Port Vale football ground supporting Motorhead - Ozzy was on the bill with Randy Rhodes and Rudy Sarzo on guitar and bass respectively. My first was Gillan with John McCoy on bass, Bernie Torme on guitar, Colin Towns, keys, and Mick Underwood on drums. Support were two bands called Quartz and White Spirit, the latter having a young Janick Gers (now Iron Maiden) on guitar.

Some truth in that, Garry, but it is a good discipline to think of a solo as an arc with a beginning a middle and an end. Coltrane had to do it over 45 minutes

You need to pace youself more. Start somewhere and go somewhere else. Tell a story, as Lester Young said. You hit the ground running with your best licks and them just played some stuff that bore little relationship with what had gone before or what was going on around you. You can obviously play, now you just need to play something that matters. I am being harsh. Your stuff is better than most of the stuff on here by a country mile but you could be a lot better if you focussed on the music and not on the instrument. The secret is not to impress but to express. Try again and play about 40% less. Actually, if you want to really try something difficult as an exercise, try and play a meaningful solo with only eighth notes, no sixteenths. Or try something like only playing a maximum of 7 notes a bar of any note value.

As moderator of this forum, I must insits you get dressed before recording videos of yourself fusing and posting them.

It is 'Invitation' off Jaco's 'Twins' lp.

John Coltrane - Live At Birdland.

I guess this kind of chord theory/voicing is taking players away from 'bass' playing and into the realms of guitar playing. As such, I would suggest you don't use bass books but look to guitar books or plain old theory books like Mark Levine's for the concepts and then start exploring the details on your bass. Hellborg's book was one of the first to cover this kind of chord work and is, IIRC, based on the idea that the player is using a 4 string so it should be approached with that in mind. If you want to go to the cutting edge, you can't expect to find all of the answers neatly laid out in theory books. You may nave to dig around and make links to develop your own concept. For me, chordal work on the bass has very limited applications and fails more often than it succeeds, simply because the timbre of the notes militates against clarity. Playing chords high up on a six string neck is just quasi-guitar playing so, in my view, doesn't really count. PS I think I got to the age of 49 before I heard of 'triple stopping'

The essential Jaco cds are: Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius Jaco Pastorius - Word of Mouth Jaco Pastorius - Twins (US version, released as Invitation in the UK with half the good stuff missing) Joni Mitchell - Shadows and Light, Hejiera, Mingus Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life Weather Report - Black Market, Heavy Weather, 8.30 (live), Night Passage Flora Purim - Everyday, Every Night Good tracks to download as single tracks: Mood Swing - Mike Stern Suite Golden Dawn - Al DiMeola Natiivity - Airto Ones to avoid unless you are looking to complete a collection: anything with Brian Melvin or Birelli LaGrene on it, Paul Bley's 'Jaco', Albert Manglesdorf 'Triologue'.

Something was posted on here recently saying that pop music was increasingly homogenised. Is it any wonder that the musicians playing it are equally homogenised? Its the difference between art and craft. You can 'learn' how to be a craftsman but being an artist takes a whole different set of disciplines and investment. Faster, higher or further is just the mechanics . I remember talking to someone about studying composition in university and they said that it tells you how to develop stuff but it won't give you the ideas in the first place. Kind of covers it in my view. Great chops is the starting point not the end point.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1345797937' post='1781588'] You might get more gigs if you could read tab [/quote] I can. I just don't.

Now I have three this weekend....

I know that Eden amps were always sold on the basis that your starting point eq-wise was everything flat and them tweak for room acoustic. I find that 'awesome' bass sounds don't work in the context of most of the gigs I do so my Wal sounds nice and, errr, un-awesome when it is plugged in. But I find the flat sound using my Eden to have too many mids so I am either trying to add more bass/treble to counter or roll off the mids, depending on the room, the music being played, the band (horns/piano or el gtr/keyboard/vox), the volume etc. I guess I like the versatility of my set up rather than there being one sound. Regrettably, though, however hard I try, I always end up sounding like me.

I noticed a while ago that I was clenching my teeth when I played the double bass but a little bit of time focussed on 'not' doing so cured it reasonably quickly. The fact that you are now aware that you are doing this means that you will probably start to stop doing it soon enough.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx2lza1Rb0U"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx2lza1Rb0U[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6awGkbSfM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6awGkbSfM[/url]

That was fkcuin terrible.......

Can you read? That helps.

I've been whistling it all day.....

What's the chances of that happening?

I think its that losing direction you talk about that makes me think the self-taught route has done me no favours. If I had had someone who could say 'try this', 'do that'' etc, I may have made faster progress.

I was just reading a piece about a student of a US saxophonist and he mentioned that he went for lessons with a certain teacher for 7 years. I know Jeff Berlin was having lessons with Carlie Banacos right up to his death as, I believer, did Mike Stern. My own approach (which I don't really advocate) was to teach myself with occasional lessons - I had a half dozen lessons with a guy called Dan Quinton in Plaistow who played with Otis Grand and the Dance Kings, two sessiosn with Dudley Phillips (John Paricelli, John Etheridge, Perfect Houseplants, Womak and Womak) and one double bass session with our very own Jake Newman (Jakesbass) but that was it. The thing is, whilst I can readily see the value of lessons, I have never felt that I have been in a position to pay out £30+ a time. I think I could have advanced more quickly and still keep thinking about having lessons to plug some gaps in my learning but it always seems to get put to the bottom of the list of essential purchases. But it got me thinking. How do/did others learn? How many had weekly lessons like classical playing kids do at school? Was it money well spent? Just curious. PS the world I grew up in didn't have colleges doing popular music type training and electric bass was off the curriculum until I was well past that as an option.

Mark Levine's 'Jazz Theory', even if you are not a jazz fan, covers everything and I recommend it to everyone who asks this question. There are others, though, so please wait for other responses before you commit to buying anything.

Doug Watkins - Sonny Rollins, Blakey's Jazz MEssengers and a shed load of other hard bop horn players Marc Johsnon - why do people not talk about him? He is top drawer. His own Bass Instincts cds are exceptional but his work with Bill Evans and John Abercrombie is sublime. Charles Mingus - my man. Eric Reevis - monster player with Branford Marsalis. If you get a chance, go see him live. The other Marsalis stablemates; Reginald Veal and Robert Hurst. RV with WYnton MArsalis and RH with Branford's trio are both double bass 'must hears'. Mike Richmond - did a stint with Mingus Dynasty but has a much wider discography. Great technique. Gary Karr - potentially the top solo classical player Jimmy Garrison - lots of great work away from Coltrane that rarely gets heard and what about the free players: Buell Neidlinger, George Duvivier, Barry Guy, Barre Phillips, Gary Peacock (and with the Keith Jarrett 'standards' trio)...

Personally, I think a good player is a good player and a bad one is a bad one. Whether you are slapping or playing through a distortion, you can only fool some of the people some of the time. The whole punk movement was based on some pretty bad players but it didn't matter as the audience were not looking for instrumental virtuosity. But, in the cold light of day, raggy timing is raggy timing and most people will feel it even if they can't hear it. I think most mature adults on here will be able to acknowledge great players whose music they don't like but most of us can also recognise those youtube cowboys who think they can rip s*** out of something but can't. I don't hink slapping or distortion will hide anything.