Bilbo

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2blyaechv0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2blyaechv0[/url] Bob being all wavey.....

Can't really hear it but it sounds like chromatic passing notes held over a little longer than is ordinarily accepted (that's a posh way of implying that the notes are poor choices, if not wrong). Can't say anything else other than 'accurate' transcriptions of wrong notes are more common than most of us would like!

Not heard it. What's the line-up?

A lot of this is why I prefer to play KJazz because, if you do it properly, the predictability element is minimised and every gig is different. I can do rehearsed sets but I do bore easily and it comes out in my face and pisses people off.

Thanks, Jake. Will have a look at that next chance I have.

I am the same; odds and sods. Love doing it when it comes around, though. Daflewis is a member here and he is (or was) doing Wicked in the West End.

The way it links the last six 16th notes with one beam. I would want to see it as 2 16th notes and then 4 seperate ones. Coralling them as 6 notes makes it harder to read, IMO. But I can't amke Sibelius stop doing it. The only option would have been to write it as 5 bars of 3:4 which, for me, wasn't how I heard it.

The thing is, I see the ornamentation elements of a players vocabulary as just that and, used sparingly, it can be the loveliest enhancement. When I listen to the greats, however, I hear about 5% ornamentation and 95% straight playihng. Its a bit like slapping in funk; 'less is more'. The more ostentaious the bass player, the more the swing is vulnerable to collapse. But for me, that 'DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM' thing, when it locks in, is the best feeling in the world. Its not the only facet of Jazz that I love by any means but its one of the most viscerally exciting.

Ps I don't like the format but Sibelius defaults to that and I can't figure out how to stop it doing that!!

Just thought I would post my transcription of the main riff on Phronesis' 'Abraham;s New Gift'. A real tounge-twister. Its a monster riff but, like everything else, playable if you slow it down and work it up to speed (I am at about 70%). Great exercise for string crossing on double bass. It is only two bars long but one is a bar of 3:4 the other 9:8, (or possibly 6:8 and 9:8?). Have fun. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly8KniNgkXo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly8KniNgkXo[/url][attachment=104176:Abraham's New Gift - Phronesis.pdf]

The fact that people get paid is not the problem here. There are a range of drivers like creativity, self expression, talent, applied study, motivation, money, the need for affirmation, the desire to be noticed, to get girls, so you can get pissed and stoned at work etc. Each of these and 1,000 more will have some bearing on the end product. Some of these motivating factors reflect socially accepted traits and others are potentially more destructive. The question is always what percentage of the motivation of the indivdual is simply financial and what is more about self expression etc. Joni Mitchell, for instance, would never be heard if she didn't record and sell her stuff and clearly has an investment in selling her stuff but her prime driver is probably not commercial. Miles Davis was an enigma. He wanted to keep moving forward but he also wanted to be admired and his latter stuff was about trying to attract the audiences he had seen attending rock concerts. His later stuff is much more commercially driven that his early stuff and a lot of people recognise that in the music and are critical as a consequence. The only way to judge whether something is Artistically successful is to define what that means and, by concensus, 'it sold a lot' or 'its great to dance to' doesn't cut it. The rhetoric of 'the artist' is used in commercial circles all of the time (I always laugh when some 19 year old girl band talk about 'wanting to express themselves as artist' as they wiggle their way through this week's bubble gum) as a means of enobling their craft. If an individual doesn't buy into that idea, then the discussion is ended. Music can be a commodity first and foremost but it isn't all that it is and it isn't the main purpose of most of the music I listen to.

The whole Art vs Commerce debate has probably been around since, well, Art and Commerce began. Mozart was reportedly (and repeatedly) annoyed at being told what was good and what was not by his employers. There is an established theme in ethnomusicology on the issue that essentially revolves around the concept of Art music as opposed to Popular Music (much the same as that which exists in the visual Arts; Hirst vs Constable etc). People use music for different things and people write/perform music for different reasons. Personally, I write/perform because I like to. If someone pays me for it, all the better, but, if they don't, so be it. The issue is simply whether or not the motivation is the music or the money. If it is the music, you are likely to end up with something different that if it is the money. History tells us that the most interesting/progressive/experimental/challenging etc stuff is written when money is not the driver. It also tells us that that, when money is the driver, the quality is often (but not always) compromised. Other things can compromise a piece of music, such as the need to time it to a visual image ('I need 1.24 of music for the car chase scene'). Great movie music is rarely great Art music but not never. Our individual and, by debate, collective experiences tell us whether, as audience members, any of this matters. My experience (and one shared by others, bearded or otherwise) tells me that the stuff written to sell is generally, by my standards, derivative, predictable and shallow. By the standards of others, which are different to mine (not better or worse, just different), this is not the case. A great pop record is a great pop record. Its success is measured by sales figures or by the number of people dancing. Art music is not measured in that way but in others, sometimes by concensus but sometime not. So, play it at a wedding and it will mostly fail. Doesn't make it bad just being performed in front of the wrong audience. Its no more or less personal than preferring The Beatles over The Rolling Stones. There is great rock music that is Art music, its is not genre specific.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1333545509' post='1603283'] Blimey. [/quote] We're getting into the Art vs Commerce debate, aren't we. Its a continuum not a case of absolutes. Few would consider music written for an advert to be Art but Art used as backing music for an advert still has integrity. The problem with people like Jesse J (I know only one song by her) is that, as 'artiists' they don't need to be told what to do by the industry because industry has already screened out the folk who would not 'do the right thing'. So, whatever she does, they will be happy because it ain't gonna be free jazz, is it? I would love it if she came out and did a prog rock cd for its own sake because, as an 'artist', that is where here muse took her Why do I think that to be unlikely PS none of this matters a jot.

I don't think anyone has a problem with corporations booking bands for a gig like this. I suspect many of these big players take the gig for £1m and give the money to charity. My only problem starts when the corporate dollar starts to define content or when the artist (or whoever is being paid) starts 'promoting' a product to their fans; that feels a little manipulative, especially when the fans are kids. Its the same with big budget movies that are just toy adverts. It happens and will always happen but I think it just shows what these kinds of artists are about. Maybe artists is the wrong word, in such cases; 'sales people', 'promoters', hawkers'?

The bass is tuned in fourths (going up) and fifths (going down). As the cycle of fifths is at the core of a lot of theory, its a bit of a gift, really. Makes everything accessible with minimal movement. I think you are over complicating the issue. Learning the notes on the neck is one days work, if you apply yourself. If you know the full sequence of available notes i.e. C Csharp D D sharp E F etc, its all laid out in front of you. YOur list is in fourths, mine is chromatic but the notes on the neck aren't going anywhere. Third fret, A string is always C....

Less and less as I get older (48). I just find the whole scene so depressing sometimes. All these bands regurgitating the same old s***e year in year out. Most venues have different bands every week but they all seem to be playing the same sets I am tempted to knock everything on the head and stick to my originals trio but I know that would mean 4 gigs a year but I do find playing stuff I am ambivalent about harder and harder and the list of musicians I will play with is getting shorter and shorter. Find me some great musicians doing some great music and I am there but there are so many 'conservative' players around now. No balls.

I love live music and never go because I can't afford the cost of travelling/tickets etc. I last saw a 'big' band in about 2004 (Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Hammersmith Odeon (or the 'Mothercare Appollo' or whatever it is called this week). I love recorded music and can't find a single recording I would want to buy in any high street shop. The industry has made its product(s) inaccessible to me other than via the internet. Can't see how that is good business.... Fortuantely, the net allows the little guy to get out there. I had an email from Miguel Zenon the other day, not a circular, one to me. Have spoke to Eric Revis, Ben Wolfe and a raft of other players on-line without the intervention of a corporate giant. I say f*** 'em. Let them rot in their boardrooms and leave the real deal to them that cares.

Of course there has always been an element of that but what the corporate world does is take something that it finds and packages/sells it for profit. No harm in that. It then seeks to maximise its return by manipulating the product for the best possible financial return. FOr instance, in the late 60s/70s, a lot of bands were taken on by record companies. In the 80s, howver, these compnaies realised that the only people in the band that really mattered in the marketing sense were the singet and the songwriters so we had more and more bands like Go West or The Eurhythmics which were essentially two people and a backing band of session guys. in the 90s an onwards, the songwriter is no longer part of the act and the only thing you need is the voice and the face; everything else is off the peg. Its great for business/profit but not so great for Art as we have lost the creativity of courageous record companies, adventurous managers and agents, risk taking bands etc (how many great bands would never see the light of day now?). I grew up when bands like Iron Maiden etc did 40 date UK tours in small 3/4k seater venues. Now these top acts do 3 dates in massive stadium type venues because the overheards are less and the profits greater (some folk now do their first ever gig in s stadium, FFS!!). Great business but the product is poorer. To use a food metaphor, its not about integrity but about whether you prefer you music from Tesco/Sainsburys or from a local organic farmer. The big players have the flash and the sparkle but the taste of 'real' produce is always that much better. Or Carslberg lager vs a small independent brewery... MFI or bespoke. Do get what we want or take what we are given? Most get what they are given and are grateful. Go figure.

I am not sure how to articulate this but, when reading 16th notes, I find that thinking about the bar as two bars of 8th notes helps. For me, doing this means stuff that is hard to read becomes much easier. It kind of means that the learning you have done to allow you to cope with 8th notes is transferrable almost instantly. Does that make sense?

Keep practising. It will come. What you are describing is something everyone goes through in the early days, Some get over it quickly, others take longer but all it requires is practice. No quick routes, only increased familiarity.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejaQ-YA4tz0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejaQ-YA4tz0[/url]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faK8TxS-D1w"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faK8TxS-D1w[/url]

There is a difference between composing and arranging. If composer comes in with fully written charts with all the parts written out, you are playing his song. If someone brings in a sketch of a composed song and then everyone else chips in their own parts, you would expect a token royalty (main composer gets 40%, everyone else 5%). If it is brought in as a set of chords and the singer adds a melody, the bass player a middle eight and the drummer an istrumental break then it is more likely to be a band song with 4 even shares. But its all open to negotiation and legal challenge. Best sort it out before you write Bohemian Rhapsody: The Return. In jazz, it used to be very common for agents or bandleaders to get a share of the royalties of songs they had no part whatsoever in writing. Its a difficult area and fraught with pitfalls.