Bilbo

A + in a chord refers to an augmentation (i.e. sharpening the note). If you can sharpen a note, you can also flatten it so a chord can have both a flattened and sharpened note in it, although it is generall not named that way. It generally relates back to the melodic minor (as opposed to natural minor) which is a major scale with a flattened third. The V chord in a major key is a dominant 7 chord. In a melodic minor scale, the V chord is a 7b9 but can also b a #9 (both work). A +chord can also be a +4 (+11) or +5 which relates to a lydian dominant (CDEF#GABbC). The really interesting one id the altered scale C C# D# E F# G# B C, the 7th mode of the melodic nimor scale. This is quite advanced sh*t so stick with it. Oh - the arpeggio choices are I III, V VII bIX or I III V VII #9 but they are only ways of understanding the arpeggio and rehearsing it, you would not play it that way very often if at all.

[quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1325709743' post='1486546'] I can send you the Sibelius or music XML file if want bilbo, just send me you email address. [/quote] PM sent. Many thanks

F### me sideways. That reads as good as it sounds! I am going to convert it to bass clef for easier reading (I can't get it all on my 4 string so will need to tweak). Shame the transcriber didn't put the chords in as the study value is reduced. Without the chords, learning potential is a less.

Start with the major scale and the chords that make it up and everything else will come from that. Learn the language of intervals (the distances between notes) as these are the backbone of most theory. once you get the principles, a lot of it is transferrable to other scales and chords.

I am also gradually learning to play without clenching my teeth! (seriously, its a bad habit I am trying to break))

[quote name='Gareth Hughes' timestamp='1325602386' post='1484935'] Hey Bilbo - I can't seem to open the file on my Mac. First time I've come across an ipb file. Any ideas? EDIT - Just found the file on the miguelzenon.com site. Thanks for this. [/quote] For anyone else with problems, I uploaded this as a pdf, it is the Basschat website that turned it into an ipb file. Don't know why it does it and I wish it would stop but it's not up to me! If anyone wants the pdf and can't get it off miguelzenon.com, PM me and I will send it by email (it is free on the website so assume there are no copyright concerns).

Jimmy 'Flim' Johnson of Flim and the BBs/Wayne Johnson Trio/AllanHoldsworth/James Taylor fame was playing a 5-string Alembic in 1975. He got the idea from his father, also a bass player, who played a 5-string double bass with a low B (long established as the 'industry standard in Germany, I believe). I know that Anthony Jackson is credited as 'the' pioneer of low B six strings but I suspect that this idea was a pretty natural development and several people may have explored the option simultaneously. But Flim was definately recording with a low B 5 in 1975. As for range, the 5-string bass goes two octaves below middle C and one and a bit above (depensint on range) so we are talking around 3 octaves in toal. So the piano goes a lot further in both directions

Did two double bass gigs this weekend, both 3 x 45 minutes sets. THe first, New YEars Eve, was a duo gig, again with Chris (see above). Nice gig in a restaurant in Thetford; nice sounding room, lovely people etc. I got through it and only picked the electric up for the last two tunes due to the impetus being lost in my double bass playing. I was a littel concerned as I got that tingle in the ends of my fingers that made me think 'uh-oh'. But, during the following day, that tingle seem to disappear and I got to the NY Day gig feeling ready to play. The second gig was my own trio of sax/bass/drums and it was a new drummer I hadn't played with before. Well, the shiocker was that I found it so easy to play the gig that my DB playing was more expressive and 'open' than it has ever been. I found that I could hear my ideas forming and could execute them without 'fighting' the instrument. I could get around in the bass more freely and, as a result, my lines and solos were more musical than they have been to date on the big bass. I did go to the Wal for the last two tunes but that was a musical choice not a 'physical' one. What was funny was that I ripped seven bells of s*** out of the electric bass for that 10 minutes or so because it was so 'easy' to play after three sets on the double. It felt good to be playing more musically, though, and to have my note choices come from the same place that they always have instead of from a 'pseudo-callisthenic' perspective!! Inshort, my mind was playing the bass not my hands. Another level reached.

There are now thousands of transcriptions out there that you can use to keep you reading skills together. Get a bass clef Charlie Parker omnibook, the Bach Cello Suites, stuff like that that keeps you playing outside of your comfort zone. It is really hard to keep improving when you have no regular reading gig but you will find, as the years go by, that whenever you return to to reading, the skills come back quite quickly in real time. Also, work on transcriptions of your own (and post them here ), write out some of your own ideas etc. Just keep working with the written note in mind.

The DL guy has really upped the bar for pop/funk bass. Some of these lines are really out of the box. I would love to be able to play like that but, I learned a long time ago, if you keep trying to 'keep up' with the fastest guns, you can waste a lot of time not finding your own voice. As a jazz player that is wasted time but, all that aside, I wish anyone who wants to nail this the best of luck. And if anyone does get it written down, I'll be the first to download it!!

Brings back lovely memories. It was one of the early lps I used ot get into jazz and I worked this tune out as an early transcription (Egan is hotter on this video than he was on the LP). Egan studied with jaco and you can really hear it in the closing stages. He found his o wn voice later on. Note the toothbrish holding Metheny's guitar strap on. He broke the strap button and used a toothbrush as a temporary repair and there it stayed for decades!!!

This chart is performed on YouTube (I posted the video on a 'Jazz for the uninitiated; thread. Monster chart. This is the bass chart but the full chart is available for free download (with others) on miguelzenon.com

I actually know a woman who, at school, wanted to play the double bass but was told 'No, you can't. You are a girl and it is too physical for you'. So she didn't. THere a hundreds and thousands of female DB bass players (some of them quite good )). Same as the woman I knew who was told BY A CAREERS OFFICER that she could not be a Probation Officer because she was TOO SHORT (height was never a requirement). She is now a Senior Probation Officer, thank GOd, having got better advice but it goes to show how much damage can be done by not questioning the advice you are given.

He made my Wal. RIP.

And a great article on rising Jazz star Ben Williams by our own award winning Mike Flynn (urb).

Avishai Cohen: The Trumpet Player - stonking player. Came across him as part of the SF Jazz Collective. (AC is not the bass player of the same name. Apparently Avishai Cohen is the Israeli equivalent of John Smith)

Double bass is great for acoustic work but there are different kinds of acoustic music and, depending on what you will actually be playing, the big fella may not work. I have worked for may years an achieving a live sound on my Wal that has a 'acoustic' ambience and I think, in many ways, I have succeeded. What that means is that I can play nicely integrated lines but, if necessary, can tweak the sound to bring it forward a little in the mix. As long as you keep it musical, there is no reason why an electric bass shouldn't sound perfectly suitable.

I have had various experiences with drummers and totally agree with the OPs premise; a drummer can make or break a band. Now I play mostly Jazz or Latin (about 90% nowadays) and both genres have the reputation for flamboyant drums/percussion but, in truth, anyone who knows anything about drumming will know that its not about keeping it simple per se (although that can be a factor at times), it is about maintaining the core pulse of the music at all times. If a drummer can fly around all over the place and maintain the pulse, then there is little to complain about. The problem is that many developing drummers try to be clever AT THE EXPENSE OF the pulse. I have reached the point now where I won't play with bad drummers. I don't need to (I have about five or six I will go to before I need to compromise) and, if I know the drummer is not going to deliver, I know that the music will be poor and I can't do that any more, even for money. When I play with a new drummer, I know within seconds whether it is going to work 'timewise'. After that, there are other considerations (a lot of so called jazz drummers are basically pop and funk drummers with a s***load of chops who have great time but who don't quite understand the idiom, thereby compromising the end product not because of poor time but because of contextually inappropriate ideas - I am not communicating that well). The Holy Grail for me is finding the guys who can play the stuff creatively, musically, idiomatically correctly and consistently. There are a surprising number of guys who can do it and, since I have been running my own band, I have never needed to book a dog. In a nutshell, when I worked with bad drummers, I used to leave gigs thinking it was me, that I couldn't 'do' it. Whenever I worked with a good drummer, I sounded great. So I stopped working with bad drummers and, consequently, have massively reduced the number of negative playing experiences that I have.

I have known Nigel for 15 years. He swings so hard because he practices an astonishing amount. What a lot of people don't know is that he started playing quite late, after a stint in the Army. He just worked and worked and worked.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1324116569' post='1470902'] This is a San Francisco based jazz collective featuring some of todays leading new young players. They recently did a double cd of arrangements of Stevie Wonder tunes. So, have a listen to the one we have all played taken in a different direction. Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBZ-2PzSgY[/media] [/quote] If anyone is interested, there are charts (inc a bass chart) for this arrangement available to download for free on Misguel Zenon's website miguelzenon.com. Look for the 'music' tab and scroll down to 'charts'. They are presented under each of his cds and there is a full arrangement for Superstition as well as individual parts. I spent some time with it yesterday and its a doozy!

Most genres are a series of developments over time rather than one epiphnay. Mark King was influential but he had his predecessors on Stanley Clarke and Larry Graham, for instance. Geezer was not innovator, just took a lot of what had gone before in rock. I think genres are defined not by instruments/instrumentalists but by the relationships between instruments. A walking bass is seen as a jazz thing but idea of a walking bass appears all over the place in other genres but is not heard in the same way due to differing relationsips with the other instruments in the various enselmble. Latin bass is the same as a lot og power ballad bass playing but isn't heard in teh same way because of the other stuff; arrangement, instruments, song forms, drum rhythms etc

Buy a copy of Jazzwise or Jazztimes, follow the reviews/articles/adverts/websites and get onto Spotify to put some names in. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue, Workin', Steamin', Cookin', Relaxin', Miles Ahead, Birth Of The Cool, Nerfertiti, Miles Smiles, Sketches of Spain, Porgy & Bess John Coltrane: Blue Train, A Love Supreme, Giant Steps Sonny Rollins: [color="#ff0000"]Saxophone[/color] [color="#ff0000"]Collosus[/color], Tenor Madness Duke Ellington: almost anything Count Basie: The Atomic Mr. Basie Wynton Marsalis: Standard Time, Live At Blues Alley, Citi Movement Chris Potter: Gratitude Joe Lovano: Landmarks Dave Holland: Anything Marc Johnson: Bass Desires Chick Corea: Trio Music That'll keep you entertained for a few days

[quote name='fatback' timestamp='1324637392' post='1476456'] Since taking up upright I've been totally GAS free on the principle that my shortcomings are way beyond anything that can be fixed in a shop. Quite relaxing, really. [/quote] You wait....... http://www.worldofbasses.de/index.html

Looks pretty heavy to me.....