Bilbo

Played one for a whole evening recently and will never do so again. After the intial 'wow, it does sound like a bass', you quickly begin to find its limitations in terms of its expressive potential. Vibrato is clumpy and unmusical, right hand technique is all over the place because of the excessive flexibility in the strings (like tryin to play a hammock!!), and the smallness is a real barrier to digging in (its like a 6 foot man riding a five year olds bicycle). IMHO, they are toys and of limited use in real musical situations.

Haven't done more than a handful of gigs on fretted bass since 1986 (and they weren't by choice!). People are right; you have to be able to hear yourself or your intonation will be impossible to guage accurately.

[quote name='jakesbass' post='471237' date='Apr 24 2009, 02:18 AM'](eg Bilbo, I can now play Grasshopper note for note)[/quote] Me too (or at least I could a long time ago!!) - bloomin' marvellous! I love the way Flim uses the whole of the 5-string and not just the low B when he builds his lines. He is, for me, THE 5-string player.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='470423' date='Apr 23 2009, 09:49 AM']Don't have time and have never played with another musician who can read.[/quote] Wonder why that is?

I did a trio rehearsal last night, (guitar/vocs, bass and sax), the second of 2 for a Brazillian music gig this Sunday. We have to play 35 tunes two of us don't know. Because myself and the sax player can read, we went through them like a dose of salts and they sound really great. Can't wait for the gig. START NOW. LEARN TO READ. IT'S BRILL!

Patience! 10 months is not as long as you think! If you are still having trouble after 2 or 3 years, then maybe you need some other help! In the meantime, don't fret I tend towards three fingers at the lower end of the neck although can move to 1234 if the line demands it (which is not that often). If you are low on the neck, the options created by open strings are greater and you can use them to make stuff happen. In reality, with practice you can move from fretting a low F to a high Eb without it sounding like there is a gap between the notes. Its a matter of phrasing.

[quote name='lowdown' post='469598' date='Apr 22 2009, 01:53 PM']'Things that musicians do that are a waste of time!, We all do it but we shouldn't....' Endless hours of posting on Forums?.... Garry[/quote] Depends on whether you could be practicing instead. If you are posting with a bass and amp next to you, I agree. But miost of us are not. If I was at home, I wouldn't be typing this

Neither do I. Someone just moved my keyboard 1 cm to the right at just the wrong moment.

I am not critical of people learning other pwoplw's basslines at all. Its an essential part of the process of development. Its the hundreds of hours spent learning pieces that are hard because they are hard but which are, ultimately, a very inefficient way of learning stuff. Weather Report's 'River People' may be a 'great' way of learning octaves but why not just learn octaves and waste less time?

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='467473' date='Apr 20 2009, 02:18 PM']I wanna do Bach's Prelude for Cello like John Patitucci. I started to learn it but the stretches are so huge on a 6 string bass that I'm probably never going to play it with the smoothness of a cellist.[/quote] You can do it on a 4. I did - as do most cello players And I never played it again - complete waste of time!!!!! Actually, its not but why that one. WHy not one of the other Bach pieces. Or some other composer? We all do the same ones!! Baaa, baaaa. baaaaaaa

[quote name='Oscar South' post='467442' date='Apr 20 2009, 01:46 PM']I got them from the local library, just dealing with the pianists woes of trying to turn pages as I play.[/quote] Teeth? Toes?

I was reading the thread from the guy that wants to learn Bakithi Kumalo's line on 'You Can Call Me Al' and noted a few people said it was something they had learned/wanted to learn. Having a perverse sense of perspective, my immediate thought was 'why'? We all do it. There is a list of bass lines that seem to be essential learning for bass players; 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick', 'Teen Town', 'Amazing Grace' by Wooten, that thing by Stu Hamm - you know the stuff I am talking about. It's all over YouTube. So we all go learn it and what? We only ever play it to impress people who aren't musicians (if it looks harder than it is) or to impress other musicians (if it is harder than it looks). We waste hours of study time learning a chunk of Stanley Clarke, or a wodge of Les Claypool, a modicum of Mark King or a pinch of Jaco or Flea. We should be studying music not musicians licks. These are just party tricks not core skills. I think its probably fair to say that the kids that don't do these things and focus on the core knowledge are probably going to be better that those that can execute the party pieces but can't really play music. For the record, I haven't learned Kumalo's line but did do Teen Town, Berlin's 'Bach' solo, 5G, Motherlode etc and a couple of bits of Stu Hamm! I am as bad as anytime in this area of wastage but urge developing players not to waste time on juggling and 'play the damn music' Listen to the grooves and don't worry about the fills; they're not important! Jeff Berlin is my guru - just don't make me listen to him playing!

[quote name='Oscar South' post='467360' date='Apr 20 2009, 12:08 PM']I got an email this morning saying "Can you play bass for our performance of Rent, rehearsal is 7:30 tonight gig is tomorrow". Does anyone know where I can get hold of the piano scores or bass charts for this? Thanks, Oscar,[/quote] Nail it cold, ya wimp!!! Seriously, you could try your local library if you are near a reasonably big one. Or can the MD get them to you by hand/courier?

Just be aware that the famous solo slapping lick in the middle was played by the bass player and then the engineer flipped the tape so the second half of the lick is the first half playing backwards. You can't play it as it is because it wasn't as it sounds!!

I go pre - if the engineer is a numpty with cloth ears, me eqing the bass before s/he gets the signal is not going to disguise the fact

One of my bands supported Kool & The Gang at the Hammersmith Apollo about 5 years ago. They were great. Get Down On It!!!!

I agree 100%, Mark, but I don't think he is there yet. I always remember my third year O level biology teacher, a Dr Suter, who started the year's biology class by saying 'remember what I told you last term about photosynthesis? Well, it wasn't strictly true'!! I recall this lesson because it remained with me as an example of the need to pace learning so as to make informtion digestable. If you gave a beginner Rimsky Korsakov's 'Principle's of Orchestration' at their first piano lesson, s/he'd run a mile!!

I had this trouble once over dog barking. The prat next door (who was one of the most irritating territorial gits I have ever met - and he was only in his 20s) wrote to the council, they wrote to us saying they were monitoring the situation. We did nothing because we felt the complaint was unreasonable. That was the last we heard of it (2004). The world is full of what are called 'vexacious litigants', inveterate complainers who have nothing better to do than seek exercise power and force their values onto others. They usually do it anonymously because they lack the social skills to do it to your face. These people are ill-equipped to live in close proximity to others and should go and find a cottage up a mountain somewhere where they can live in silence and without someone invasing their vast acreage of personal space. You have a right to make reasonable noise and it sounds to me that you are being reasonable by stopping at an reasonable time, not playing there every day and not playing too loud. Most councils would agree with me. I wouldn't lie awake worrying about it.

I think people are talking about different things here and you are both right. An interval is an interval. The melodic difference between an C and an E is either a third up of a sixth down. Whatever else is going on, that is a given fact. If you change the harmony by adding a third or fourth note, you are changing the context not the interval. The OP asked about hearing notes and intervals, not harmonic contexts. Obviously, the addition of a different bass note changes the context/sound of the overall chord but it does not change the interval between the first two notes, only their relationship with the new note. The relationship between C and E if C is the root is obviously different if C is the fifth and E the seventh of an F chord but the interval between C & E remains the same. Learning this stuff is about increments. If the OP is learning the difference between and 3rd and a 4th, throwing a melodic minor chord scale reharmonised in all the keys and asking him to play it without a bass in his hands is probably a bit much and will intimidate rather than facilitate learning at this stage.

Not bad, just naive....

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='464353' date='Apr 16 2009, 08:04 PM']I give up.... you're all weird and I don't know what you're talking about - Canteloop?? Are you seriously suggesting that I go to a Jazz jam and ask to play? I'm a covers band player for gawds sake. I've never played a note that I haven't copied off a record in my life (no, really!!)[/quote] Then you have a way to go before becoming an out and out jazzer. There are, however, several riff based tunes that you could play be learning the two/four bar riffs/ostinatos that constitute the arrangement; Canteloupe Island, Watermelon Man, Sidewinder, Song For My Father, Chameleon etc. You could easily sit on on those tunes without looking like a idiot. You just start there and build. The fact that these tunes bore me beyond belief isn't your problem; it's mine. For me, if someone has the core skills; time, intonation etc, then they are welcome at jam sessions and I agree they are a great place to start. My beef is with people that come along and take up valuable 'stage' time who actually can't really string three notes together that are in tune or in time, never mind play anything genuinely worth hearing. Sadly, it is often the case that these 'non-starters' outnumber the more credible contributors and, for me, can undermine the potential of the occasion. This is not about elitism but about saying there are some basic principles that you need to deal with as a player before you go on stage in public. There is another side to that as well. Some of these people are so bad that all we are really doing is allowing them to make fools of themselves in public. X Factor auditions at a local level.

Too much competition. I am told that PC/PS3/X-Box gaming is now bigger than music and film. AT £40+ a game, this is money that previously would have gone on music. There are musicians out there that earn a better living composing for games than they ever did for playing live. I guess a lot of these gamers are also less likely to go out to watch bands. When I was a young developing player, I could go out and see name bands doing 40 date national tours and each tour would present you with a new support band (or two). There also seemed to be more festivals etc. Nowadays its a night or two at the big, big venues. Ticket prices are prohibitive (£100+ for some gigs - what the hell is THAT about). My point is not that the opportunities to see live music are not there, simply that they take up a lot more of your disposable income than they did when I was a kid. I used to go out 3/4 nights a week watching live bands, many for free. Now, despite earning more than 90% of the UK public, I can't afford to go and see the major bands (tickets plus travel). Rock is no longer the voice of youth but the voice of corporate America. If you don't sell big, you don't sell at all. This process only serves to homogenise things (like tv; hundreds of channels all basically targeting the same demographics). All this is, however, changing and new options are presenting themselves but, as has been said, it is no longer enough to be a passive consumer. You have to go looking. Like all art forms, the avant garde becomes mainstream and then conservative before assuming its righful place as a minority interest. PS - I saw Mungo Jerry at The Cartoon in Croydon in 1988. They rocked.

How disappointed was I when I opened this thread?

What made you the bassist you are today? Years of playing, practising, listening, thinking, reading, arguing, watching, wanting Who do you think had the biggest influences on how you play now? Me – not as arrogant as it sounds. I believe that the information necessary to make you a good player is out there but it is you, how you think, where you focus you energies, how you process your experiences etc and what makes you tick that most defines what you become as a player. Where do you think you want to go from here? I want to make great music and don’t really care what part the bass plays in that. Why do you think you want to go there? Because I have listened to a lot of music and consider the music to have moved me most to have been created by great composers and great musicians not great instrumentalists. Do you believe you have a "personality" on the bass? Yes – I have a sound that is mine alone – whether anyone else likes it is another matter!

Reading this thread, I have just realised that, whilst I know the theory, I refer to the interval in question as a whole tone above or below and don't start talking about intervals numerically until its a minor third or greater - major or minor seconds are not generally in my vocabulary. Flattened ninths, yes, but not minor seconds. Odd that.