Bilbo

I once did a wedding with Bobby Orr. Who? says everyone. Bobby had, amongst others, played with Benny Goodman, Joe Harriot and, at that time, had done every Bond soundtrack since Dr. No. He could even play Donna Lee on a PENCIL....... (Yes, I saw him do it. He put it in his mouth, against his teeth, tapped the pencil with his fingernails and shaped the notes with his mouth. And it swung like the clappers

In broad brush terms, I would break it down into chunks of key centres. If you are playing Oleo in Bb, the A sections are essentially in Bb major, the first two bars in the B section are in D mixolydian, the next six are in two bar sections of G mix, C mix and F mix respectively before returning to the final A section which is, again, in Bb major. Everything else is substitutions and passing tones. After that, its a question of practice, familiarity, taste and experience.

Well, I did it. My first double bass gig. Three 45 minute sets of jazz standards in a piano/sax/bass trio (the b******s made no concessions to my limted skills - I played faster and longer last night than I have since getting the bass in December!!!). Exhausting for me and my playing was not exactly radical but everyone was happy and was offered another gig on the strength of it. To be honest, I had the Wal with me but only turned to it for the last two tunes having started to get the beginnings of a blister on each hand. I have managed to avoid those developing. More importantly, no hand pain after the fact - a bit sore (like if you have been shifting bricks or something) but, after a nights sleep, no problems. Technique was not perfect but whatever was wrong with it, I wasn't doing any harm. Lots to think about, to process and more learning points that I can count but, quiet victories, I did it.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81903&hl=manu"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81903&hl=manu[/url] I like the sound as a generic 'double bass' thing but am very much still developing my own perspectives on playing so, like most of us I guess, its a work in progress.

THey are all as good as each other really. Its the doing of the thing that is hard and takes focus. The concepts are quite simple.. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Reading-Rhythms-Workbook-Instruments/dp/0793573793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269608981&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Readi...8981&sr=1-1[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Music-Scratch-Neil-Sissons/dp/0851622682/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269609014&sr=1-3"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Music-Scratch...9014&sr=1-3[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Read-Music-Mysterious-Symbols/dp/1845282787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269609091&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Read-Musi...9091&sr=1-1[/url]

It a question of mental discipline, oggy. A lot of learning to read is about learning to apply yourself to the discipline of looking at the page and playing what is written and not what you THINK is written or what you expect to have been written. The best thing to do is to find scores that are not based on anything you know but on pieces that are unfamiliar to you. You read them once and then put them aside before you learn them. Playing a piece of music off the written score is a very different discipline to playing by ear but, nevertheless, you will use your ear whilst you are reading to tell you whether your playing of the chart is correct. THe converse of that, however, is that you will sometimes unwittingly trick yourself into believing that the right note, as written, is wrong because you can't 'hear' it as the composer did. Its tricky but it is just a part of the discippline of learning. My advice to you is to look for some dots that you don't know the tunes off (there are loads here under the Theory and Technique thread). Make it so your natural ear can't help you.

[quote name='Wil' post='784244' date='Mar 24 2010, 12:32 AM']I was about to say, what this is lacking is a room full of drunken revellers, and then pow, half way through, there they are [/quote] Both of them!!

Something we knocked up in two hours last Sunday!! We had fun!!

[quote name='lanark' post='783655' date='Mar 23 2010, 04:45 PM']I still fully intend to become comfortable reading dots for bass though.[/quote] Ok, I'll let you off then. This time

[quote name='cheddatom' post='783618' date='Mar 23 2010, 04:11 PM']Fair enough if no pros use it, but it seems perfectly acceptable to me. What am I missing?[/quote] The universality of the system, ct. TAB only works for guitar. Dots work for an infintie variety of instruments. If I have to write a part out for a sax or, alternatively, need to learn a line written originally for a trombone, flute or harp, I can do so without any real difficulty. Also, and more importantly for me, my study material doesn't stop at bass/guitar music but can include everything up to and including a full orchestral score. That's what I mean by it being good for getting you out of a rut. Learning a Coltrane sax solo or Marsalis trumpet part is far more challenging (and useful) than learning a Victor Wooten circus trick any day .

[quote name='thunderbird13' post='783495' date='Mar 23 2010, 02:38 PM']Am I missing something [/quote] Your call. I guess it depends on what your musical ambitions are. If you only every play within your comfort zone and rarely play with other readers, you may not find it that useful. I rarely do a reading gig but I do use the skill a LOT on gigs (my fake books are in Bass clef so I can use melody lines as prompts for solo ideas etc and to make for more interesting arrangements). Here's a for instance: I recently took up the double bass (December) and, in an effort to find some inspiration over and above scales and improvisaed noodling, I spent last Friday evening playing the famous Bach Cello Suite in G Major (the wole thing, not just the first bit that everyone knows). I learned it (by rote but from the sheet music) in around 1986, before I could read properly, and last played it around that time. I read it through this week without any difficulty (its a relatively easy read, in reality) - how much time did that save me? That evening, I also played (IIRC) a Dave Holland chart, a Paul Chambers transcription (one of my own) and started another transcription of a Dave Holland piece. Had I relied only on my ear (which is good), I would still be on the sixth bar of the cello suite and probably playing it wrong. I have been to rehearsals where, in three hours, we have looked through You're Everything by Return To Forever, Aja by Steely Dan and The Goodbye Look by Fagen. Trying to nail all that by ear/rote would not have been possible in the time available. We could, of course, have played Fly Me To The Moon, Take Five and Autumn Leaves but I was doing that in 1988!! I get that people don't NEED it but all I am saying (again and again) is it is REALLY useful thing to be able to do. And, as I stress time and again, its not that hard. Why would you not?!!

[quote name='Ray' post='783321' date='Mar 23 2010, 12:44 PM']The truth is that I can only play these tunes because my technique is pretty good and I can remember where the Tab told me to put my fingers. I don't necessarily understand why I'm playing the notes I'm playing, I.E. the relationship between the notes and the chords they're being played over. Tab has made me rely on shapes and muscle memory which I find limits my playing. Unfortunately, it's a rut I'm finding difficult to get out of...[/quote] I think you hit the nail on the head, Ray. TAB is a tool, agreed, but it is like taking the wheel nuts off you car with a spoon. Its often the wrong tool for the job. The fact is that reading music is the Swiss Army knife of the music world. It is not just about sight reading charts in studios and at show gigs. It is one of the most tried and tested means of communication between composers and players, teachers and students, arrangers and performers etc. It is a fantastic aid to learning and can save you vast amounts of time if you can do it to a functional level. I can't read fly s*** because I don't read enough but I can get by on most gigs most of the time. What I can do is write things down for rehearsals so less time is wasted - or read things that others have written down. It is a tool that provides me with an infallable memory, unlike the 'learn by ear' players I often play with who struggle to remember the arrangements they thought they had learned last week. I may write out a whole chart or just jot down a core groove, unison line or scale for soloing. It makes you play things you would never have thought of by yourself and gets you out of ruts in a minute. It is not a perfect tool: it doesn't communicate many of the idiosyncracies of genre or groove, for instance, but it does give you a massively useful tool that can be used in all sorts of ways to make you a better musician. It is NOT just about sight reading on gigs. The man who persuaded my of the usefulness of reading and started my passion for the skill was saxophonist Iain Ballamy, one of the UK's leading [i]improvising musicians[/i]. Go figure. Don't listen to people who tell you its not useful. I agree its not 'necessary' in an absolute sense but don't let that con you into thinking its ok to be lazy because you can get away without it. Of course you can but you limit your options unnecessarily. Reading the dots well is a flippin' marvellous buzz (I still remember the feeling I had when I read 'Sir Duke' for the first time cold on a gig - you can't buy that feeling) and is a lot more useful that tab. People like tab because it makes sense on day one. Written music may take a week to get to understand. Big deal. It is time well spent. The irony is that, once you 'get' it, its no harder than tab anyway.

Its a Sibelius thing, Jake. Sometimes it just defaults in ways I can't fathom (or resolve easily). My version is old (version 2 or so, its now on 5) so I guess some of these bugs have been dealt with but, yes, I agree, its not the most readable way of presenting things. I also had to put a bar of 8:4 in there to get a 3 against 4 feel across a bar line. Technology, huh? Can't live with it, can't live without.

Go to his website and have a listen to his stuff. I have seem Scott play twice (Jim Hall and Joe Lovano) and he impressed me both times. Great sound, great feel. His two trio CDs with Chris Potter and Bill Stewart are excellent but anything he does is worth a listen. There are some music files you can hear on his site or you can find his stuff on itunes. His discography is extensive. [url="http://scottcolley.com/default.aspx"]http://scottcolley.com/default.aspx[/url]

Agreed - tha main discipline is the reading of things in real time. Practising reading anything once is like doing the gig with no rehearsal. That's the point. It doesn't matter if it is the sort of thing you play regularly because you are training your mind to DO the reading. As you get better, you find that you read in bigger chunks, eventually a whole bar is read as a certain rhythm instead of each note. Then it is two bars, them four and you are off. Most reading gets to be familiar as most complex bass parts are repetitive funk or latin lines that are two bars long and then repeated. An average big band gig has about 16 bars of difficult reading a night. Reading the rhythms is the hardest part at first but the easiest later on when the accidentals throw you off balance. The classical stuff you are talking about is good because, whilst a lot of it IS straight sixteenths, some of it isn't so you have to remain on your guard and play the lines that are written NOT the lines you think are written. Its the discipline of looking at the paper and playing the instrument at the same time that is the art of sight reading to professional standards (I can't do it. I am a nearly but not quite reader, I can do it but not if it gets too heavy. When you have regular reading gigs, it gets better quitre quickly so the do a bit every day idea is spot on.

[quote name='Mike' post='779960' date='Mar 19 2010, 04:22 PM']Hey Bilbo - have you thought about shooting Jeff a message either through Talkbass or via his website? He's very interactive with fans. I think when he sees what an immense job you've done, he'll be delighted to help out, maybe throw you the changes or something....just a thought! Kudos, as always! Mike[/quote] I sent him a message on MySpace (he sends me enough ) but no response (I know he read it). Guess he's too busy.

I heard the challange. I thought, why not? Have a go! says I. It'll be a good exercise. Ouch.

In light of cetera's Ambrosia post, I thought I would post an old favourite of mine. Its an old jazz rock outfit called Vimana. It featured Corrado Rusticci on guitar and vocals, Elio D'Anna (Sax,Flute), Renato Rosset(Key) our very own Percy Jones on bass, Narada Michael Walden(dr) and, Phil Collins on percussion. Let these ride: a kind of progressive rock/Mahavishnu/Brand X vibe but very melodic and great dynamics. Vimana is a great composition, The Princess and the Frog is great fun with a solid groove in 6:4 and Driftwood is more subtle. Rustici is a great voice on guitar and D'Anna avoids any bebop cliches. Never heard any of their other stuff - its impossible to find!! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVonc6gSg7Q&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVonc6gSg7Q...feature=related[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEIY6mv5SKc&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEIY6mv5SKc...feature=related[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4Q9b7WTjw&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4Q9b7WTjw...feature=related[/url]

That'a my take on Berlin most of the time. I am impressed by his facility but hate his sound and don't like the music he writes or plays. Simple as that. No soul!!

Lovely. Classic Miles use of space. Good work, time well spent.

Someone asked for this one after I posted my transcription of Jeff Berlin's 'Bach'. It is the whole of his '20,000 Prayers', solos and everything, but, after getting the dots down, I was unable to fathom the chords. I made a start and guess I could keep trying but, to be blunt, I don't really want to spend that much time on it. So I figured I would post it anyway so that, if anyone is of a mind to complete it, they can. Its a [i]really[/i] heavy one!! Hope its of use to someone.