Bilbo

I use my computers 5.1 surround sound speakers. I use Transcribe software so I can isolate, loop and slow down parts that need closer attention. Works for me.

Not read the whole thread so sorry if its a repeat but I don't like 99% of Alembic basses. There! I said it! I liked the series 2 shape that Flim Johnson uses (and love his playing) but, having trawled the net recently looking for examples of Alembics, I found that most of them were plug ugly and, more to the point, most of them I heard sounded really icky to my cloth ears. Wouldn't say no to trying some out but, from what I have seen/heard to date, there are very few Alembics that I would cross the street for. I am willing to be proven wrong, though.

Did a paino/sax/bs trio gig with a first year music student. Ok player but short on a few of the basic conventions of playing jazz live and so starts and endings were a bit ropey (read: train wreck) and his pacing of the sets was poor (too many tunes at teh same tempo etc). Did 2 sets on double bass and one on electric. Mostly the usual suspects but some new tunes I had not heard before . Noone died.

Scroll through the Theory and Technique section here and you will find a load of pdfs of transcriptions of all sorts of stuff done by BC members. I have put a load of jazz on here, from straight walking lines (good for note recognition) to complex solos and simple funk lines and rock tunes. There is even some Bach on here. Others have put similar stuff on here so you shoudl be abel to find loads of useful material to work with. It sounds to me that you need to practice reading, the doing of the thing. Knowing what all the marks mean is step one. You then need to link them up and the only real way to address that is to do it. Again and again and again and again. Good luck.

[quote name='KevB' post='1291871' date='Jul 4 2011, 10:24 AM']Looking at Briley's wiki entry he's not even really known as a bass player, more guitar and keys. Obviouisly a talented guy too.[/quote] Yeah, but if you can play guitar and keyboards, bass can't be that hard.....

Not [i]the[/i] Skeffington Lutwidge of the Boston Lutwidge's? Small world!! Welcome, by the way.

I have all of their LPs (yes, vinyl) and love them all. Reeves was great (have transcribed some of his stuff in the past as well) but I just liked the noise Briley (Sorry, Martin. Should have checked the spelling - I last read the sleeve in about 1986) made and, in many ways, the T&T LP is the least dated of the catalogue. Because noone ever mentions him, I thought I'd give Martin his 5 minutes of fame. Then I found this on Wikipedia!! [i] Briley has received orchestral commissions, and has written songs for such artists as Céline Dion, *NSYNC, Dream, Michael Bolton, Mietta, Kenny Loggins, Pat Benatar, Jessica Andrews, 5-Star, Jeff Healey, Rebecca St. James, Nana Mouskouri, Willie Nile, Gregg Allman, Nightranger, David Hasselhoff, Patrick Swayze, Michael Monroe, Chastity Bono, Peter Tork, Nikki Webster, Hope Partlow, Natascha Sohl, Ballas Hough, Phil Stacey, Orianthi, The Maine and Barry Manilow.[/i] BUt, yes, Tony Reeves is great. I also think Dave Lawson was one of the most underated singers of that era (and he played keyboards alongside Dave Greenslade). Great band, lots of talent.

This was another early favourite of mine..... Follow the links to the other tracks on that LP. Some great sounding bass (not flash, just gutsy). The drummer, Andy McCulloch was a monster too but he left the music biz and now charters yachts and teaches sailing somewhere hot.....

One of my earliest bass influences was Jack Bruce's performances on Cozy Powell's Over The Top LP (yes, it was that long ago). I just looked it up on Spotify. The LP isn't on there but most of the tracks are there. An early transcription was 'Sweet Poison' which I just played for the first time on probably 30 years and I remembered every note! Great sound, great ideas. The tracks are: 1."Theme One" - 3:36 (George Martin) 2."Killer" - 7:16 (Don Airey/Gary Moore) 3."Heidi Goes to Town" - 2:57 (Cozy Powell/Don Airey) not on Spotify 4."El Sid" - 5:09 (Bernie Marsden) not on Spotify 5."Sweet Poison" - 8:24 (Max Middleton) - a real favourite!! 6."The Loner" - 4:50 (Max Middleton) (Dedicated to Jeff Beck) 7."Over The Top" - 8:39 (Don Airey/Cozy Powell) - Rock largess personified!! Every one a winner (there are some 'odd' moments but I loved it when I was 17 or so). I also heard a live session they did on Radio One which included Bruce's Tickets To Waterfalls which I had a cassette of which is long gone. Shame. It was a great gig.

Enjoy! I've got a proper gig

I just got an email from my publisher 'The book is well written....' and here are 50 pages of amendments... Its still moving forward (and his observations are entirely credible).

Some guy called Walter Smith on tenor, I discovered . Not heard of him. I thought it was an alto at first (I went straight to the middle of the track to hear the blowing). Nice player and worth looking out for.

All sound the bl**dy same to me.

Remember, tho'. Obsessive little kids are going to keep going back to that video again and again so 40 million views is not 40 million viewers. Jamiroquai fans are likely to be older and will have less time to spend watching favourite videos over and over again.

For me, it is about understanding how those subdivisions work. If you understand where each note shoudl be, you can focus you attention on the relationship between the notes you play and where they occur. If you focus on the notes simply as a sequence of noises, you will lose the momentum. If you think of it as a sequence of noises that have a relationship to a pulse, you will start to see where each note is in relation to that pulse. If I were you, I would spend some time worrying about the rhythm and not the notes. I recommend this as a start and endpoint for reading AND UNDERSTANDING rhythms. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=reading+rhythms"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u...reading+rhythms[/url]

Have mostly played fretless since 1986. The fretted used to come out occasionally but I got rid of my last fretted bass last year and now have not got one. My position is that the only bass playing that sounds better on a fretted bass is slapping and tapping, neither of which I do. Chordal playing is also easier on a fretted bass but as I am not a fan of the sound of chordal bass, that is not a problem either. Frets are for wimps

I was gigging around Cardiff when you got started. Maybe we met. Welcome to Basschat.

Give yourself to the lesson with humility. Don't make the mistake of thinking you know everything and of wanting to prove yourself the fastest gun in town - its alarmingly common. It is perfectly possible for you to have a very productiuve lesson with NO bass, never mind which one you want to take although a teacher may wish to watch you play in order to get a sense of what you are doing right and wrong. But talking is good. Listening is better.

One of the few that carry the flag for arco soloing in jazz. Great CV.

I just don't get it. If anything is self indulgent and has no audience, there will be no gigs, no recordings, no videos....etc. If Steve Howe had an audience that consisted solely of Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Chris Squire, then he was not self indulgent. The fact that a zillion people also bought the records and went to the gigs is just further evidence that it was not self indulgence. It was a product, it had an audience. As for the 'students only liked it because their mates did' argument, the same could readily be said about any form of entertainment. Its all about communication. If Coltrane's 20 minute solo communicates to 1 person, it has purpose. Self indulgence is booking a venue to play to an empty room, making a video of yourself that noone else ever sees, recording your own stuff at home and never playing it to anyone. If it gets you one gig, sells one download or one ticket, or even if it is watched once on Youtube, it immediately ceases to be self indulgent. Even if the only person who likes it is your old Mum, its worth it. So can we leave the term out of criticism, please. Its meaningless.

Is there an echo in here here?