Bilbo

I know nothing. But what I have worked out is that, unlike electric basses, each double bass seems unique. I know people who have had a great sounding bass that cost £50 and others that have been unhappy with their £10K bass. I also know that spending time with a bass will have some impact on its projection etc. Personally, I would rather just buy one and spend time playing it instead of driving around the country looking at them. But that's me and I know nothing.

Its your call. You can send them on trust. When I traded here, I met the guy, we both tried hte basses out and exchanged but there are other ways if the distances are prohibitive. Use the feedback section to see if someone has traded before and it may put your mind at rest. Most people here are cool and its only gone horribly wrong a few times and we have been able to intervene to resolve the situation. But, in a nutshell, it is up to you to make sure you only take risks you are prepared for.

Music theory is mostly just theory and not really 'genre specific'. A major scale is a major scale etc. You can certainly get some pretty useful stuff under your belt by having a look at the basic theoretical concepts around chord theory and scales. Guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robben Ford sound so fresh because they don't just stick to the basic scales. But never underestimate the value of the basic blues scales. There is a world of music in there (Jazz/fusion pianist Chick Corea is very blues scale orientated, as it happens).

I would warn against them. They are cheap, an attractive trait obviously, but they are very small and lack credibility as professional instruments. Also, if you are anywhere near average height it will look a bit silly. I had one for about 18 months and it was pretty hopeless. The bloke who sold it to me (a dealer) should never have let me buy it. I ended up with CTS and a very long delay in getting properly started on the instrument. What is your budget? There are starter instruments to suit most budgets without having to buy a half sixe.

Playing metronomically will not swing and many electric bass players are particularly 'on the beat' and, consequently, don't swing (in my early days as a jazzer, I was criticised (behind my back) because my timing was 'too perfect'. Took me a little while to figure that out but the guy (Rob Smith, Cardiff's Heavy Quartet) was right. The nature of a double bass tone, the fact that it gets louder before it gets quieter, is certainly refelcted at least a little in fretless bass playing but, fundamentally, it is a distinctive element of the acoustic instrument that is specific to what defines swing. Anything that detracts from that will undermine the swing. There is a great track on Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' cd, called 'Countdown' where Coltrane plays a duet with Elvin Jones. Paul Chambers comes in at around 1.52 and WHAM! THAT is what the double bass does! As for not being able to hear the double bass; that is an intersting point in itself. Miles Davis once said 'noone knows what the double bass does but everyone misses it when it is not there'. Its presence', with very few exceptions, is not the same as an electric bass which tends to be more to the fore; brighter and louder. Steve Swallow's playing tends to get lost in the same way in the sense that it is a part of the ensemble sound not a seperate element. I guess its like the double basses in a orchestra; you only know they are there because the sound gets heavier.

I look forward to it.

After 40, any rock/pop music Seriously, though, I think there is always the potential for old rockers to look a bit 'sad' if they overdo the teenage angst angle of rock and roll. I guess its about learning to grow old gracefully.

Don't know Lee's work at all. Any recommendations?

This 'start on alto and move onto soprano later' malarky is a bit frustrating. I have little enough time as it is without playing the wrong blooming instrument. But is it a case of 'more haste, less speed'? I have looked at hire and it seems that sopranos are more expensive to hire that tenors and altos. Bloody typical; the smallest costs the most. Story of my bloody life.

[quote name='spike' timestamp='1332433619' post='1588354'] This is the one you need Bilbo, very reasonably priced too [url="http://www.sax.co.uk/acatalog/Selmer-Series-III-Soprano--125th-Anniversary---Solid-Sterling-Silver-226135846.html"]http://www.sax.co.uk/acatalog/Selmer-Series-III-Soprano--125th-Anniversary---Solid-Sterling-Silver-226135846.html[/url] [/quote] I'll have two of them.....(they are nice, though)

[quote name='Ed_S' timestamp='1332413275' post='1587842'] Mauriat..? [/quote] Mais oui....

I'm still using Cubase but my approach is not as sophistiacted as some here. I just use it for sketches rahter than 'proper' recording. If I ever find it doesn't do what I want it to do, then I will have to consider and upgrade but, so far, it has been fine. I tend to only record real instrument and am not that into midi/sequencers etc as performance tools (takes too long and bores me. Sibelius is my home turf. Love it.

Not sure if I ever learn any. I learn them, write them down and then forget them. The most recent one was Henri Texier's Soweto Sorrow (a year ago?) but I couldn't play it now if my life depended on it. I guess the only lines I learn now are the ones I write for my own compositions. If I don't learn those, nobody will BUt if I write them, I am not learning them, am I? I am writing them....

Ghost notes, muted notes and grace notes are, for me, one of those elements of playing that really define the 'feel' aspect of playing. I think it applies equally to electric and double bass. When I try to write melodies and bass lines into Sibelius, the kinds of nicks and knocks makes so much difference to the overall feel of the piece. I guess its like the difference between a great actor and an oik reading from the written page. Its not the text that defines the performance but the nuances of the performance. Same with playing. Its not the actual notes that define the experience but the way they are played.

I'm lovin' it...... Did this tune with my first jazz/funk band, Dick Hamer's Rhythm Method in Cardiff 1988/94.

It makes me laugh to think I could be GASing for software but I am!!!

Bass as in ass? Never heard it called that before anywhere. Bass as in face, grace, case, lace, mace, pace and race.

Noone is looking down on anyone, mate, just sharing what worked for us in an effort to help someone else move forward. I spent hours working on my car when I was a kid and was always grateful when older/more experienced guys could save me time and aggravation by pointing me in the right direction. Same with DIY. 'Just do it' is a great way to waste a million hours getting to where you could have been years ago.

What you need is a cassette player where you can move the tape back and forth in tiny increments and pick out each individual note and learn them that way.......oh, no. That wa 1974. I recommend Transcribe from seventhstring.com. Its about £30-40 and allows you to slow down cds and audio files without the pitch changing. I currently use it for examining sax solo phrases rather than basslines as bass parts are pretty obvious to me in most cases. But you really need to learn to write and read music on a stave. Not because you are going to do reading gigs but because it is a great way of recording stuff and it really helps you make sense of the music you are playing. It is not nearly as hard as everyone thinks and really is time well spent.

Haven't read all of this but I am forming the view that one of the barriers to a definitive concept of authenticity in this case is the broad range of uses to which popular music is put. There are those who live eat and breathe the stuff and those for who it is merely a soundtrack for their lives. To some it is merely the noise that occurs between the interesting talky bits on the radio and to others, it is the soundtrack to their shopping experience. SOme use it as a soundrack to their XBOX activities and others as a soundtrack to their predatorial 'man/woman hunting every Friday and Saturday night. Each audience will have its own perspective on authenticity depening on the purpose to which they put the stuff. The commercialisation of it all via Cowell and his predecessors is entirely legitimate if you 'use' the product the way you would a ready meal or a air freshener. It is only if you are looking for the Art element; self expression, the voice of a generation etc that authenticity becomes relevant. The ethnomusicology of popular music is getting more and more complex and Popular Music is now as diverse as other genres like Classical and Jazz. You get these authenticty arguments in Jazz (where some think it stopped at 1935), classical (the 'period instruments' brigade) and folk (not electric instruments, only play geographically relevant instruments etc). Pop music has become a varied field and someone who considers Eminem authentic will be shouted down because he doesn't play conventional instruments etc. My beef is calling DJs 'musicians' but am I the authority that determines authenticity? Of course not.