Bilbo

Hello from Felixstowe - the Suffolk contingent is growing. Maybe the next Bass Day will be in Grundisburgh?

Like many of us, as a developing player, I have looked at the solo bass videos and listened to the solo bass cds, just exploring the potential of my chosen instrument. I once recorded a short Vivaldi piece (Concerto in D 2nd Movement) on double tracked (fretted) bass – it kind of worked – and learned Jeff Berlin’s ‘Dixie’, Hamm’s ‘Country Song’, a solo by Jerry Peek (Steve Morse Band) and a thing by Dave Pegg (couldn’t do any of them now). But, over the years what I found was, however hard I tried, I could never make any of the music in question sound better because it was played on the bass. To me, it always sounded like it’s only value was as a display of motor skills; acrobatics not aestheics. So I stopped. Having an eye on the world of bass, I have heard most of these soloists over the years but have found only limited successes within the ‘solo bass’ genre. Michael Manring, for instance, is a genius. His concept is entirely unique (due to his use of open-tuinings and dedicated technology) and his compositions are sophsticated and musical. He uses the specific tone of his instrument(s) to create a vocabularly that is integrated and entirely congruent. What is more, if you listen to his work with Montreux or Michael Hedges, he is a mature, professional musician, perfectly capable of playing the gig and taking a back seat when the music demands it. Wooten I like less – his technique is astonishing but I don’t buy anything he is on because I generally don’t like the music he plays (I have one Flecktones CD I listened to twice but I have never gone back to it). But he is a great player, that cannot be denied. My feeling on the ‘solo bass’ genre is that it is an attractive place to go if you want to draw attention to yourself as a performer (not necessarily as a musician) and for pointless grandstanding (pointless unless you are selling gear!!?). I am not saying the genre itself is pointless but I do think it is full of misguided intentions – all glamour and no content. For me, as I have matured, studying music is about the music as a whole and not about the bass and, as a result, I have found myself listening more and more to the timbres of instrument and the way they interact, harmonically and sonically. The specific sound of a trumpet in unison with a soprano saxophone or a trombone line doubled by a flute presents the composer with opportunities for expression that are matched only by the listeners potential for delight. The colours available are far reaching and multi-faceted. That is not to say that the bass has no such potential: Manring has proved that. But many of the solo bass pieces I hear would sound better on the piano or classical guitar – even if they would be unsuccessful or, at best, unremarkable compositions for either instrument. In a nutshell, when looking at a performance, I always ask myself, ‘is this music being orchestrated in the best way possible’? Playing stuff, however, melodic, on a solo electric bass, with 4 or 14 strings, rarely provides the answer I would want it to.

A wonderful trombone/bass/drums trio piece with Robin Eubanks and Billy Kilson respectively on trombone and drums. The chart needs to be interpreted as swing eigths not straight.

Here is Ron Carter's line off Wynton Marsalis tune 'Hesitation' from his eponymous CD. It is essentially a Bb 'rhythm changes' tune but the absence of a piano means that Carter can take liberties with the harmony as his ears guide him. It is a great line and his perspectives on the changes are really interesting. The chords are included but these are a guide only as Carter is thinking outside of teh box here. This is a great way to lok inot these staple be-bop chanes as, for a jazz player, a knowledge of these changes is essential (like almost every gig!!). I am including a chart for the head as well so that people can have it as a point of reference (it is in bass clef not Bb as it would be for tenor sax/trumpet). It is important to point out that Carter doesn't play for the first 16 bars of the first and final chorus, coming in at the middle 8, and watch that tag ending.

I spent the first 23 years of my life in Cwmbran (Llanyravon) from 1963 - 1987. Great jazz scene (not) !!

[quote name='lowdown' post='364470' date='Dec 27 2008, 09:18 PM']Good stuff Bilbo... I presume the 8'th notes are swung and not straight .. ? Garry[/quote] Yup, sorry, that's me assuming again. And as for the time signatures!! Doh! I guess I have got lazy and fallen into the 4:4 if not otherwise stated habit. I will address that too! These all make a lot more sense if you have the recordings but the Housed FromEdward tune is available as an MP3 download so that is an option.

Not a technique I have a lot of use for but I was wondering what it was all about and Youtubed it. I found this (it may have been posted here before) and was impressed by the fact that this player showed me what it was all about without uttering a word. Go to 0.54 and he takes about 20 seconds to explain it. I can now do it but, in the interests of musicality, won't [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnngPvedXEM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnngPvedXEM[/url]

Get Barry Green's 'The Inner Game of Music'. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Music-Barry-Green/dp/0330300172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230330370&sr=8-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Music-B...0370&sr=8-1[/url] You're talking yourself into being nervous. You just need to learn to talk yourself out of it!

That's one of the hardest things to get your head around but the secret is to understand that a bar of sixteenth notes is just four bars of quavers going past very quickly!!! Learn the quavers first and the semis will quickly follow, then the semi-demis and so on. Incremental learning - its the only way. Trying sixteenth notes s frustrating and can be disheartening. Get your quavers and semi-quavers sorted and the rest will follow.

Perfectly reasonable request, Mike. I didn't bother on this one because it is a straight blues but, as you rightly imply, assuming knowledge is the best way to alienate those who lack it. I will address the issue in any future transcriptions. Thanks for the suggestion. Rob

My wonderful wife got me a bass clef copy of The Real Book - 6th Edition (it looks like the original illegal book but is fully copyrighted and contains a lot of different tunes). She also got me a Dan Morgenstern book, 'Living With Jazz' [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Jazz-Dan-Morgenstern/dp/037542072X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230322441&sr=8-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Jazz-Dan-Mo...2441&sr=8-1[/url] and the 'Trio of Doom' cd with Jaco/Tony Williams/John McLaughlin. She's a diamond. But my best Christmas present was the Christmas Eve news that my Paul Chambers biography book proposal has been accepted by a legit publisher!! Early days yet, in terms of the thing appearing in print, but, nevertheless, what an affirmation and what timing!!!!

Here is my transcription of Milt Hinton's lines on Branford Marsalis' 'Housed From Edward', the opening track from his CD 'Trio Jeepy'. The track is a conventional twelve bar F blues as follows: F7/// Bb7/// F7/// //// Bb7/// //// F7/// D7/// Gm7/// C7/// F7/// //// It is a great transcripion for early reading practice as it is almost entirely quarter-notes/quavers but it is, nevertheless, interesting and cool for learning your way around a jazz 12-bar. I left out a key signature and wrote it out using accidentals (sharps and flats) as a way of improving reading (it is a chart I have used with students several times). Enjoy!

And a Merry Christmas to you to, Jake. There will be lots more of these coming soon!

Wow - it appears to have worked so you can all look forward to loads of other transcriptions I have done (when I get around to putting them onto Sibelius and converting them to PDFs. Much more use to all of us than a list of favourite effects pedals

I am posting this mainly as a an experiment to see if I can actually do it! The transcription is of a Steve Swallow solo on 'Wrong Together', a tune on his CD 'Real Book' Swallow's full catalogue of lead sheets is available free on [url="http://www.wattxtrawatt.com/leadsheetsswallow.htm"]http://www.wattxtrawatt.com/leadsheetsswallow.htm[/url] so I suspect none of us will be sued for posting this transcription!

Less juvenile?.....you're in for a shock Welcome!

A Rush tribute band!! Fanbloomintastic!!

Aren't human beings wonderfully complicated (except tBBC). Even I like the look of that bass, IncX. Get it recorded and post some links here! Have a great Christmas, if they have that in the Phillipines!!

I have loads of transcriptions I have done over the years and was thinking of posting some here for people to use as learning materials but I have a question the someone may have some thoughts on. I understand that a lot of music publishers will frown upon transcriptions like this due to the obvious implications for the potential commercial sale of transcription books. The issue is that most of the stuff I transcribe is probably never going to get anywhere near commercial production (John Patittucci's bassline on Manhattan Transfer's 'Sing Joy Spring', for instance, Ron Carter's lines on Wynton Marsalis' 'Hesitation' or the opening solo on 'Mbanga Kumba' by Richard Bona etc). As this is not a commercial site per se and noone is going to earn any money off this, would I be compromising the site by posting any transcriptions like this? I have just learned how to convert a Sibelius document into a pdf so am intending to transfer some handwritten transcriptions onto pdfs that can be posted or sent. Seems a constructive thing to do!

+ another one - its either laziness or a pitiful attempt to hide the fact that they don't actually KNOW what key the song is in.

Sibelius for me. So versatile. I had one called Music Publisher when I was just getting into IT but that is notation only and cannot play stuff back to you.

It happens a lot in jazz ('I'll start, you join in. You'll pick it up' ). It works sometimes and crashes and burns badly at others!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='355634' date='Dec 16 2008, 09:14 AM']Y'know, I don't think I've done any gigs recently where I've been given a chord chart. Usually, they run around the chords a few times or, if I'm lucky, I get a demo to listen to beforehand.[/quote] High production values, eh?

I did an audition once for a London band. After a first run through of the tune I was to play, I asked, 'it's in C, isn't it'? 'We don't bother with that muso s***' the guitarist said. 'We just play what we feel' I smiled at him, made my excuses and left.

Professionally self taught Really, tho', I am primarily self taught is as much as I have had very few lessons (3 or 4 in 28 years of playing) but I think there is a serious point to be made here. Firstly, finding a good, inspirational tutor, someone who can give you weekly sustained tution over a period of time, is not as easy as I would like if you are living in in a rural area (as I have done all my life) and the better you get, the harder it is. I could travel to London and have a lesson with someone like Lawrence Cottle but add £30 traveling to the cost of the lesson and its harder to justify when you are making your way in the world. Secondly, and this is my main point really, the cost of tuition is actually prohibitive for many ordinary working class people. £30 an hour is the current rate and I would consider that to be too expensive for most parents or young people trying to make ends meet. Some of these college type environments are increasingly iffy, due to the way they are funded, and there are some colleges where the tutors are only mediocre, even if you can afford to attend (either by paying for the course of by affording to live while you attend). The kind of intensive learning that is available out there is actually a fairly middle class indulgence, in my opinion. (I can't afford it and I earn well above the average wage). I suspect most people are self taught through necessity. Also, a lot of valuable learning is done through rehearsals, jam sessions, gigs etc., any time spent with more experienced musicians outside of formal lessons - stuff that money can't buy. I genuinely believe that everyone is fundamentally self-taught because I know many 'students' who have lessons but fail to progress significantly because THEY don't do the work (i.e. their tutor keeps them fed with things to work on but they chose not to and, as a consequence, fail to get any better). A tutor can only give you direction. You'll only get good if you work at it, teacher or not.