Bilbo

It's an important lesson. The great players save their wizzy bits and used them cautiously, its us lightweights that are all over the place all of the time. The groove is King.

The secret is to respond to the other players (not just the soloist but the drummer, piano player, anyone else etc) in an intelligent way, rhythmically, melodically or harmonically WITHOUT impeding the integrity of the walking line. The walk is the main skeleton of the piece, the interplay adds the colour. If in doubt, stay with the time. I have listened to 100s of hours of Paul Chambers and the amount of time that he spends playing an absolutely straight 4 to the bar is remarkable. His fills account for a tiny percentage of his rhythm section playing (i.e. when he is not soloing). Also, unless I have missed it, PC never went above the octave G on the top string. I have seen pictures of him playing thumb position but never HEARD a single note of it.

Its a great way of doing it; hiring I mean. I was loaned a bass for six months and its turned me around. Can see a time when I leave the electric alone (a way off yet ) but, in a nutshell, everything I play sounds more convincing. I still can't play for hours without losing the energy but, each time I gig, I get a little further before the muscles collapse! Anyway, I hope you experience with the new bass is positive.

Wow. A tough nut to crack! Here's my third attempt. There are sections that are lovely to play over and others that are a beeeech! Its another work in progress. Not as hard as Giant Steps (still not happy with that one at all) but its worth spending time with, if only to get yor ears around maj7#11 chords. [url="http://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/inner-urge"]http://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/inner-urge[/url]

See. Leemarc agrees so I must be right. Off to grit my teeth at a Bach Cello Suite now.

I remember 1,000 years ago when I was a new player and soaking up everything I could find, watching a Weather Report video of the Domino Theory tour. I was watching Victor Bailey play and was aware that he was playing stuff at the bottom of the neck, then adding fills at the top before coming back down to the main groove without missing a beat. It was apparent to me then that, to get around the bass properly, you needed to know how it all worked and what was where. It came back to me recently when I was playing a gig. We were playing Waiting In Vain and the sax player stuck a little improvised theme in there which he was playing every time there was a change from G to C. I clocked this and, using my knowledge of theory and its relationship to the neck of my bass, I was able to hear the theme, re-frame it and harmonise in thirds and octave higher. I hit the thing spot on without dropping a note. The sax player turned with a big grin on his face that made all thoue hours of scales and arpeggios worthwhile. I don't know if anyone in the audience noticed but he did and that's enough for me.

My reponse wasn't to your post, mate, I just find it funny that sometime explanations can be more confusing than the actual problem. I had a mate who wrote an instruction book on how to wash your hands and it went to 400 pages (with illustrations ). Its only 4 strings. I can't believe people find it so hard to learn!.

[quote name='topo morto' timestamp='1321481557' post='1439833'] I guess you can divide music theory into a number of areas - - science (acoustics and psychoacoustics) - cultural knowledge, like 'a minor chord sounds sad' (to most people) - terminology - notation - 'recipes' for writing and playing music in certain styles - (probably more I can't think of) [/quote] I have been looking at this stuff fairly diligently for over 30 years and still have so much to learn. Don't expect it to be handed to you on a plate. If you want to thump away behind the local blues hero, then you can do so without any real investment but, if you have any ambitions to be a rounded musician, start thinking, reading, listening, learning. The sooner you start (and you already have), the sooner you will start seeing incremental progress. No epiphanies. No lights on the road to Damascus. Just one step at a time. You will have plateaus and moments of accelerated learning; its all part of the process. Its a journey not a destination. Enjoy it. When you have learned it all, let us know.

[quote name='wal4string' timestamp='1321479161' post='1439788'] There is no great secret to learning the notes on a fretboard. Its just a case of remembering a few simple facts, 1. The notes E and F are always a fret apart [a semitone] and B and C also. 2. A sharp [#] raises the note and a flat [b] lowers a note. 3. A sharp note also has a flat equivilant which is infact the same note.ie. an F# is the same as a Gb. There are only 12 note names. Often students find this simple fact hard to grasp, not through stupidity but because they beleived it was far more complicated. With this in mind and remembering fact 1. if you play an open E [bottom and thickest string] and then play a note on the first fret, this is an F. On the second fret this is an F# or a Gb. The note on the third fret is a G. The note on the fourth fret is a G# or an Ab. On the 5th fret is an A, which is the same note as your 3rd string. Still remebering fact one you can carry on a note per fret up to the twelve fret which is the same note as the open string only an octave higher.If all this still seems complicated then you need to put your logical thinking hat on. The trick is to realise that the higher up the fret board you go past the 4th fret more than one of the exact same note and pitch is available. For example the note on the twelve fret of the E string, an E is exactly the same note and pitch as the note on the 7th fret of the A string plus on the 2nd fret of the D string. How do you remember where all these notes are? Practice is a plus, but, lets say you are use to playing a tweve bar blues in E starting on the 2nd fret of the D string, the first 4 bars can be played without having to change position but when it comes to playing the next 2 sections for the A and B chord then you have a big shift in position. But if the whole piece is played starting on the 7th fret of the A string then only a two fret shift is needed to play the B section. All this is a lot harder to explain than actually play but I hope this helps. Being able to read music will make playing any song so much more enjoyable. If you don't and are content to just dive in to any musical situation so be it but you will no doubt limit yourself to a narrow field and genre which, at the end of the day most likely will limit any work offers. [/quote] Chr*st on a bike! I never realised it was this complicated. There are 4 strings with 12 notes on each (After 11th fret, they repeat). That's 44 things to remenber (55 or 66 on 5 or six string basses). If you can remember the lyrics to the first section of Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (up to 'doesn't really matter to me, to me...')that is 57 things. I bet you know all the words so that's about 379 and, what's more, you probably never sat down to 'learn' them! You are making a mountain out of a molehile. Practise more.

Someone here has a Fodera Anthony Jackson 6 that the 17 year-old in me could use and any of the 5 string Wal's that are lying around would be good too. But, to be honest, I am happy with my own kit.

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1321377994' post='1438465'] I think the difference is that the vinyl has been sped up slightly and is consequently not in concert pitch (but it's jazz, innit?) whereas the CD is as recorded. [/quote] One side of the original LP recording was mastered at the wrong speed, IIRC. Noone noticed for decades, apparently, and the issue was corrected only realtively recently. Must have really p***ed off the pianists who were trying to copy Bill Evans'/Wynton Kelly's stuff.

Thanks, Simon. That helps.

This mastering malarky.... I have heard it said many times that good mastering can make or break etc and ha ve see the difference but what I am not clear on is what do you need to provide to the mastering studio? Is is a cd of a digital copy of the final stereo mix, an MP3, a CUbase/Pro Tools file or the full 120 tracks with all of the plug ins and what not? I have done an audio course and know what the principles of mastering are but just don't get what it is that you actually present to the people who are going to master your stuff.

Download cost me about £2 (can't remember where but itunes/amazon/emusic are the only possibilities). Its the music that matters, not the format!

DO more harm than good, I reckin...

I have bought 5 copies of Kind of Blue over the years; LP, Cassette, CD, CD with dvd and now a download (cheap as chips). INteresting thought; has it really sold 3 million copies or have 600,000 people bought it 5x like me

Got hold of a great download this week: Marcus Strickland 'Idiosyncrasies; featuring bassist Ben Williams and drummer E.J. Strickland. Not heard of Ben before but he's a monster player and has a cv that includes Terence Blanchard, Wynton Marsalis and Stefon Harris. The Strickland album includes a bizarre rendering of Portrait of Tracy on sax but is generally a really hot little recording in the vein of Branford Marsalis' Trio with Jeff Watts and Rob Hurst. Recommended.

Having felt iffy all evening at a jazz gig in Berkshire, I had to put my bass down mid-tune to run out and projectile vomit all over the toilets - sink, floor, mirrors etc (I was told I could be heard). Then, feeling like s***, had to clean it up. I then went to sleep in the van, convinced I was dying. Food poisoning (I don't drink or do drugs). Band finished without me and, to their credit, I still got paid.

Klein is a great player. I remember working out a great intro line he did on Wild Things Run Fast but I can't remember the track title (may be one of the above but I can't listen here). Also have him on a video from around that time (Refuge of the Road) but, again, can't watch the video as I no longer have a VHS player!

Uploaded Inner Urge onto Cubase last night, Mike, but not had time to try it yet (looked at the head, though. Slippery little sucker, isn't it? )

Keep the left hand wrist straight. Whatever else you do!

Whatever else it s, its yours, Johnny. Good work.

Good book I came across: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321003617&sr=8-1

+1 for piano/vibe/percussion samples. Ususally pretty useful now. I sometime do the same but by writing out the composition in Sibelius, saving it as a midi file, exporting to Cubase and then changing the VST instruments in CUbase to something more convincing (Edirol Orchestra, Halion stuff, FM8 or Massive synths etc etc) or jsut replacing the midi instrument with real guitars/bass etc.

Because of the nature of my set up, I tend to record one instrument at a time. Sometimes its drum machine first, sometimes guitar, sometimes even bass, although usually to a click. Depends what I am trying to achieve. My recordings tend to be simple sketch demos for my own compositions but I have had some success with recording whole bands (see Clandestino on my soundcloud page). My favourite recordings are live recordings of great players playing great, particularly acoustic instruments. Hours spent knobbing about with sequencers etc are, in my experience, pretty unrewarding and I prefer proper mic placement and real players anytime. I do enjoy recording solo bass though; me, a double bass and a Rode NT1-A microphone. Simple