Bilbo

I have actually reached the point where I won't work with some people because of these kinds of problems. If a player makes rudimentary mistakes, I will tell them. If they don't 'deal with it', I won't book them again or take a gig that they are on. There are plenty of good players around so I don't need to book those that can't deliver a musical performance. I have done too many bad gigs 'for the money' and my self esteem has been undermined by it so I decided to take affirmative action. Less gigs but better quality music. I win!

This is a tune off the Wynton Marsalis Septet 'Live at the Village Vanguard' 7 cd boxed set. Its a blues in C. The tune is on Spotify if you don't want to buy it but I urge you all to go to iTunes where you can get this 7 CD boxed set as a 63 tune download for £8.99!! (Watch it, though as there are compilations of the 63 songs for the same price. Make sure its the full set you are getting for £9). Its a great set by a great band at a phenomenal price. The line is by Ben Wolfe (Reginald Veal plays on most of the tunes) and its a straight swinging blues (which is is what I am looking at now as I need to nail straight time playing on the double bass as a stamina building exercise). Its also an easy read, which is nice!

Another guitar! I swapped an Ibanez AR300 solid body guitar in the mid 1980s and still regret it. Wish I could get it back but I have no idea where it is!!

First jazz gig I ever had was a Leeds graduate (Dick Hamer - Cardiff). Great player and even better mentor to young players.

[quote name='lowdown' post='989147' date='Oct 15 2010, 01:13 PM']I see you got hold of it then.... Garry[/quote] Yeah. Downloaded it last month. Its pretty.

I got a great sound recording with a mic (Rode NT1A) just in front/off centre to the bridge. My big issue, which is such an important part of this, is the getting of the best sound you can with your hands! I find that, when I start playing, I can be a bit inconsistent but, as I carry on, it tightens up, improving the sound greatly, before, a while later, the hand positions collapse with fatigue and the sound quality goes with it. Its all about building up the stamina. Gettign a good sound that is consistent over an evenings performance is my goal. All my (K&K) pick up is really doing is amplifying the inconsistencies in my playing!!

Something like Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden's 'Jasmine' cd.

[quote name='lojo' post='988335' date='Oct 14 2010, 07:33 PM']I guess its like me not wanting to play mustang sally, but amplified greatly in your case to cover alot more music[/quote] Exactly.

[quote name='crez5150' post='988314' date='Oct 14 2010, 07:15 PM']I write loads of original songs and instrumentals, spend hours recording.... I never perform any of it live though cause I'm too busy with my function band playing covers[/quote] That sooooo sucks. But that's what the Macdonaldsisation of music has done to us all.

You are wrong, but not for the reasons you think. When I gig with a function band and play something that involves straight root note quavers and its locked in, I get a little buzz, the same as everyone else. But I have been doing this for 30+ years and that little buzz is not enough and hasn't been for a long, long time. Its better than nothing but its like watching the same movie 1,000 times. Even if you like the story, knowing the outcome limits the pleasure gleaned. Its like those old records that you used to love. You still love them but familiarity breeds its own ambivalence and you like to listen to them less and less frequently. I find most covers, particularly the usual crowd pleasers, are in that area; uninspiring through overuse. When you find yourself doing something fresh, inventive, provocative and intense, the buzz is that much greater.

[quote name='lojo' post='988265' date='Oct 14 2010, 06:41 PM']music does not become obsolete when the original artist has stopped gigging or is to massive to see play live in the local bar[/quote] Yes, it does

Words? I write instrumental music that never gets performed. The music I play live is generally the same sh*te everyone else does! So its Lerner and Loewe, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, George Gershwin, Sammy Cahn, Stevie Wonder.......

The 'I haven't got time' argument is an interesting one! My own take on it is similar. I haven't got time to spend learning how to play Victor Wootenesque party pieces of no intrinsic value. I am going to die one day and would rather leave a single original song/piece of music than go to my maker knowing I nailed 'Rhythm Stick'..... So I spend my limited time (I am not a pro and have a day job) exploring composition and improvistaion, not learning other people's stuff. I also think that 'learining new techniques' by playing other people's music is legitimate but there is an argument that this is what practice time is for not performance time. I have always learned bits of other people's stuff to explore new techniques/concepts, we all do, but these never appear in covers as most of that stuff was stuff I processed up to 30 years or more ago. PS In case anyone doesn't get where I am coming from, I argue these points as an ideal to aspire to and not as a model to which I am able to adhere. Please don't make the mistake of taking me too seriously. Even I don't do that!!

[quote name='Legion' post='987972' date='Oct 14 2010, 12:52 PM']What I want to know is when I click on "View [b]New[/b] Posts" why does this one keep appearing...[/quote] Because it matters more to some of us than which batteries people use in their pedals.

[quote name='lojo' post='987866' date='Oct 14 2010, 11:33 AM']..... its fun and fairly easy fun[/quote] Its not enough for me. That's why I stopped reading Janet and John books, why I stopped watching Play School or listening to Ed Stewart's Junior Choice. Easy quickly becomes boring, shallow, unstimulating, tedious. And yes, I do include folk bands, symphony orchestras, opera companies, jazz bands, blues bands and church organists in the mix. Not all music is made for dancing and entertainment is a personal as any other aspect of life. As a player, I get that people like what's familiar but I don't accept that this means that they won't like that which is not. I have said elsewhere, my most popular gig, audience reaction wise, is a Brazillian band playing all Brazillian tunes with the singing done in Portuguese. Noone knows any of the songs and yet, by the end of each night, the audiences are deeply engaged and singing along. I find polite jazz standards bore people whereas full on hardcore Coltranesque material, performed well, gets people to sit up and take notice, even if they have never heard it before. The obsession by working musicians for the value of covers is a justification that allows them to feel ok about the music they play. It works because it is seen to work and often. Writing and performing your own stuff is harder, riskier, takes more courage and is ultimately more satisfying. It fails more often because it is a high risk undertaking. 'Perfecting' a realistic performance of another band's material is, for me, a shallow victory and, whilst it is not futile, is not even half way to where I want to be as a musician. But its not all about me

I have one of these and have found it great (but I am no expert).. [url="http://www.stringemporium.com/carbon-fiber-upright-bass-bows.htm"]carbon-fiber bass-bow[/url]

Dood's video reminded me of the sound as I recall it. Yeeeeeuch..!! Red striper's video is more convincing but as it is a simple riff (didn't listen to it all), it doesn't really 'test' the instruments potential (or lack thereof). I'll stay with what I have

[quote name='redstriper' post='987042' date='Oct 13 2010, 03:30 PM']I had a Wal and hated it and I also don't want to read music - ever.[/quote] Freak!

There is a lovely story where, early in their career, Van Halen were touring in support of Ted Nugent. Eddie Van Halen's sound was the talk of the town and Nugent asked to try his gear. He picked up EVH's guitar without touching a single knob on his guitar or amp and sounded exactly like Ted Nugent. I find every bass I play (which are few, to be fair) sounds more like me than it does the label on the headstock and would not buy a bass on the basis of a website 'sample'. But, then again, I have cloth ears and can't hear the difference between basses the way some of you guys say you can. I don't know what a 'classic' Fender Precision or Jazz sound is. I can recognise players but not the basses they play.

And, ironically, I have that soundtrack album......

Hate them. Sound is interesting for a 'wow, that's clever technology' moment but I find them unplayable in any real sense. Can anyone provide a discography of the important recordings that involve Ashbory basses? No? Thought not

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='986928' date='Oct 13 2010, 01:33 PM']Just a quick question to the guys who get reading gigs: do you have any things that really get the pulse racing when you spot them on the stand? For me (on bass at least), it's any more than four flats or five sharps in the key signature, and any 8va sections. I have to concentrate extra-hard for those, but I'm getting there.[/quote] I have rarely, if ever, seen an 8va section in a chart on a gig. The things that throw me are the occasional chart in piano bass clef (written an octave lower than the bass guitar so out of range). Key signatures and key changes are also be a drag but that depends mostly on the nature of the written passages. I had one recently where we had syncopated sixteenths in F sharp - a nightmare. But, with good ears and a run through, you can pretty much get your head around it. The most important thing is to read regualry so you don't lose the ability to concentrate on the chart and start seeing what you [i]expect[/i] to be there rather than what [i]is.[/i]

I think the comment about sight reading is a defensible one. I think there is a difference between being able to read music and being able to make sense of it as, for instance, an aid to study or for transcribing, composing etc and being able to read fly sh*t on toilet paper in the studio or in a pit orchestra. My own reading ebbs and flows depending on the frequency with which I use it. On shows, I find I can read 80% of the material without any difficulty, 15% after a couple of run throughs and about 5% eludes me every time. Experience tells me, however, that that 5% is usually the least noticeable and easily discarded without any real detriment to the integrity of the performance. Being unable to read James Joyce' Ulysses out loud to an audience doesn't mean you can't read enough to use a cooking recipe, a train timetable or the instructions for a dvd player. Reading has more than one use and reading a chart cold in a live/recorded performance is only one of them.

I think that Jake has made a good point. The motivation to play and the professional requirements of contemporary players have changed dramatically over the last 40 years, on all instruments but the bass particularly. The Stones were never great technicians and, like many of the bands of that era, got away with murder musically because there were so few bands around. I mean, have you actually LISTENED to George Harrison's guitar playing? Whilst there are always weak musicians around, the average bedroom bass player nowadays could technically knock Wyman into a cocked hat. If you want to be good enough to play in a good band, you would probably, but not inevitably, have to develop skills at a higher level than Wyman - even the punk era bassists (who were all 'anti-muso') were more advanced. Even McCartney and Sting are not great technicians but use their basses to play their own songs (how many BASS ONLY sessions have these two done for other acts? I don't know of any at all but, if it is, it is a tiny number compared to, say, Pino, Flea, Miller etc etc). If you want to win a place in a band on the basis of your bass playing prowess, doing a Wyman probably won't get you the gig. It certainly won't get you much in the way of session work. And so, if a teacher can't take you beyond that level, they are probably not worth the investment!!

This is a massive subject that rarely gets talked about here. My own take on it (and I speak as someone who has written things (not songs) but for whom the process does not come easily) is that, like playing the bass, you get better at it if you practice. Some of the options I have explored have included: Using the skeleton of an existing song as a framework (e.g. writing a new melody over the chords of a jazz 'standard'); Writing a melody and then adding chords; Developing a chord sequence and then adding a melody; Trying to reproduce an existing piece of film music by writing a similar piece of music, mirroring techniques that have been used by the original composer (try one of these interlude pieces that are about a minute long); Using Band in a Box to reframe some things I have already written (play a rock song as a bossa or a jazz standard as a string quartet etc); Writing a melody using the shape of a skyline to determine the direction of travel of that melody (a Gil Goldstein exercise); Writing a string quartet from scratch (its now 1.40 long); Recording improvisations to see if anytnig presents itself as a potential hook. The options are limitless but, as I said, don't expect the first song you write to be 'Imagine' (unless you are Steve Swallow who wrote Falling Grace first)