Bilbo

[quote name='chris_b' post='215649' date='Jun 9 2008, 07:42 PM']This is why you don't have any integrity and why I believe your opinion on the integrity of others is irrelevant. You took a gig you knew you were going to hate. You were disparaging about the audience, the venue, the other musicians and the numbers you played. You probably smiled at everyone while you were despising them and I bet you didn't refuse to take the money! Yet you seem to think you have integrity!! With such a vitriolic attitude towards other players, it beats me why you want to play a musical instrument at all![/quote] I appear to have offended you. That was not my intention. I think you have misinterpreted my perspectives on that gig (and the dramatic licence added for effect) and I feel that I shoudl respond. I have acknowledged at least half a dozen times here that my decisions re: gigs indicate that, in my mind, I have little or no integrity - my reasons for arguing FOR some degree of integrity revolve around the fact that it is a trait I envy and feel that I should aspire to. I do not make my points from a position of authority or superiority. I fail to see how I could be accsued of being disparaging to the audience at the yacht club - that would appear to be an interpretation on your part for which I can't be held responsible. The nature of the venue was unknown to me until I arrived and its astonishingly boomy nature may have contributed significantly to the poor playing (it is difficult to play properly when you collectively sound awful and can't really hear the detail in your colleagues playing). I said the music was poor not the musicians; the people involved are nice people; that is a completely different point. My Dad was a lovely guy but I'd never have booked him as a drummer! And, yes, I did take the money - I did my job for the alloted time, incurred expenses for travel etc and the bandleader was perfectly happy wih my work - I wasn't. As for smiling - sorry, but I had a face like a slapped a*** all night. Oh, an if it makes you feel any better, the drummer was the same guy on both gigs and someone who I have played with twice a week for the last four years. He also knows the difference between a diamond and a dog.

There is intelligence and there is wisdom. My brother has written two books and has all sorts of letters after his name yet he is one of the most closed minded, concrete thinking numpties I have ever met. I have met MANY people who have natural wisdom, people who have what is sometime referred to as 'an old soul'. I know who I would rather commune with.

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='215379' date='Jun 9 2008, 12:49 PM'], thus far at least, everyone has behaved with dignity and - dare I say it - integrity. [/quote] Ironic, huh? I think there is something in what Huggy & The Bears says - if your external world and your internal one are at peace, you have integrity. Mine aren't. So I don't. Although I did ditch a residency on the weekend because it was undermining my sense of purpose. Maybe I do have integrity after all but its in the loft and I need to get it out an polish it!!

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='215064' date='Jun 8 2008, 07:40 PM']get a PowerBall to keep your wrists strong[/quote] Waste of time. Your wrists and fingers were strong enough to play the bass when you were about 4 years old. You need grace not power. I'm with jakesbass - sight reading rhythms is also a great skill to develop.

Absoflippinlutely! But it rarely masquerades as art!

dlloyd is right - or it could be a A maj 9 (no 3rd) - by leaving the third out, you can create an 'open' feel whose ambiguity creates a texture all of its own (its subtle but its there). Coltrane often played minor chords without thirds to create a similar effect.

[quote name='chris_b' post='215284' date='Jun 9 2008, 10:57 AM']No, your integrity went out the window when you started writing these negative, grumpy, elitist and tedious tirades.[/quote] What are you trying to say! Whilst I would not consider my perspectives to be elitist or negative (although I cannot claim they are not tedious or grumpy), I fear for a forum where expressing an honest, if unpopular, opinion can be viewed as indicative of a lack of integrity. I think thisnameistaken's point is valid: [b]"We may eventually reach the conclusion here that there are very few professional musicians who haven't sold their souls to be professional musicians" [/b] There are many examples of musicians staking their own claims to integrity over those of others (HM, I know, is full of these people) but, the minute one starts to change your art in order to increase its market value, you are compromised. There are many musicians who didn't and don't; Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Olivier Messiaen etc and there are others who have take the decision to terminate their relationship with lucrative acts in order to persue more artsitically satisfying avenues; Francis Dunnery, Peter Gabriel - this is not about one genre being more valid than others. A commited Country & Western singer is as noble as a commited Serial Composer. But the minute you seek to manipulate your product in order to render it marketable, you are risking a compromise. I guess thisnameistaken is right and that music is either art or commerce but rarely both.

I thought everything Stanley Clarke does sounds familiar?

Did two gigs this weekend - one was to a yacht club function. 250 people all eating drinking and being merry. They loved it; some singing along, some dancing, lots of applause. But, yes, you guessed it, the music was dross. Didn't swing, didn't groove, weak players, dreadful sound (massive warehouse type room - think Stafford Bingley Hall but smaller). Earned £100 - hated every minute except the breaks. 2nd gig - jazz trio (piano, bass, drums). Great sound, real piano (for a change) - appreciative, attentive audience including a retired American pianist and his party who were thrilled to hear jazz played so well in the UK and kept saying so - he kept asking for requests, most which our pianist (Chris Simmonds, Norfolk) knew and I could credibly busk. Great evening - spiritually, socially, musically. Earned £50. When I start turing down gig 2s to play gig 1s because it is more money, then I will know that the integrity has long gone.

I used to get problems if I did too few funk or Latin gigs but I eventually noticed that, ifyou use your amp correctly and don't dig in too hard, you can pretty much cope with anything without too much difficulty. I guess bassplayer spinn worked it out sooner than most of us.

[quote name='OldGit' post='213751' date='Jun 6 2008, 11:38 AM']Absolutely! It's just not always the most pressing need.[/quote] Agreed. I guess I am asking, do we delude ourselves when we act without integrity in order to fool ourselves into believing that we have it?

Scales: Major Minor Melodic Minor Diminished Augmented Chromatic in all 12 keys for two octaves. Then in thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths Chordal arpeggios Major, major sevenths, major 9th, major 11th and major 13ths Minor " " " " " " " Dominant sevenths " " " " " dlloyd has a thread with all of this in somewhere. Work with the notes and a lot of your technique will develop simultaneously. [b]Study music not technique.[/b] And buy 'The Jazz Theory Book' by Mark Levine - its ALL in there.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='213444' date='Jun 5 2008, 07:58 PM']Yeah the audience might enjoy it but is that enough?[/quote] 100% agree. I say again 'If you play for applause, that is all you will ever get' - (Ellis Marsalis). I guess you could also substitute 'money' for 'applause'. I do care if the audience enjoys it but I did a jam session gig last night and it was utter twot but the audience enjoyed themselves. I like that they liked it but its not enough. Just throwing in a curve ball - I wonder if integrity needs, by definition, to be hard won. It is easy to have integrity, for instance, if you have £1m in the bank but a lot harder to do it with an overdraft. There are still people that do. There is a telling story in one of Paul Bley's books (I think its called Stopping Time) where he recalls living next to Steve Swallow and, when their electricity was cut off, each would run an extension lead to the others apartment so they could have power. Their commitment to their art was that strong. There are 100s of stories of jazz musicians (big names) roughing it in these kinds of ways just to keep it real for themselves. Admirable, stupid or both? Also, is integrity a noble state that we all aspire to and, accordingly, a state that forces us, consciously or otherwise, to justify our own decisions in order to maintain a self-image that allows us to retain some degree of that sense of nobility. Do we need to feel that we have integrity in order to feel ok about ourselves?

[quote name='Tinman' post='213620' date='Jun 6 2008, 06:56 AM']Are you honestly telling me Pete Docherty has integrity?[/quote] I have no idea. I have never met him.

And boy will we share it with you!!! Welcome to the world of Basschat!

Too much.

I don't know. What do you think?

Or is that an oversimplification?

Legitimate point but what are the criterion you are using? I was under the impression that this was a thread about function bands and integrity. I would, thus, from the comfort of my own a***, consider that, in terms of integrity, musicians that play their own music (in the broadest sense) are a cut above those who imitate others, however accurately. Those that do both are obviously compromised but I am in no way critical of them because they are living in the real world and not that of aesthetic theory. If the discussion were function bands vs staying at home a doing sod all, which it often is, function bands would win hands down. Or if it were function bands vs djs, I would vote for function bands every time. But the debate is about integrity and I don't think people who play in function bands (myself included - did I say that already?), as opposed to doing originals, can win any arguments on integrity. To attempt to do so is little more than a justification.

[quote name='Bassmurf' post='213159' date='Jun 5 2008, 01:04 PM']Well, I currently play with some old friends in a Status Quo cover band as they were desperate for a bassist, I'm not a fan of t'Quo but can appreciate the music, I find now having done it for nearly 3 years now that I've been getting seriously bored with the material as probably in any type of "boogie" band, the rhythm section can't really deviate from what has been written (and our drummer agrees!). I've never made so much money from gigging but have finally decided that I'm gonna quit at the end of the year as I can spend 2 hours doing the gig and it could go really well but I just don't get the buzz from playing the stuff as I would if I played songs by bands that I genuinely like/love.[/quote] Find another tribute band and swap gigs with the bass player

But that denies us the cut and thrust of debate!

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='213028' date='Jun 5 2008, 10:39 AM'][b]Definition of a typical jazz gig:[/b] Musicians playing 300 chords to an audience of 3 (and possibly a dog). [b]Definition of a typical rock/pop gig:[/b] Musicians playing 3 chords to an audience of 300[/quote] Although I did once do a HM gig to two people and a dog (in a pub in Harrow). Apparently, the dog was the mosher, his owner was dragged in off the street.

'boring self indulgent noodlings of jazz musicians' I'm gonna let that go. This time.

Yup, thass bubblegum! A good arrangement of these kinds of tunes is generally polishing turds. Nice and shiny but still fundamentally stools! Seriously, tho', I am not as much of a nazi as I appear. I can see why people like this stuff. Its low input, undemanding stuff. There is a shallow sense of satisfaction in seeing a room full of punters dancing to the stuff. But I fear that, if all anyone ever get is bubblegum or nostalgia, they will cease to expect anything more. Whilst there is a place for fast food, it would be a shame to see every decent restaraunt close and the only thing you could get to eat would be KFC.

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='212601' date='Jun 4 2008, 04:46 PM']If you approach the "standards" with a mindset that you're [b]churning them out to people who aren't really listening anway [/b]then guess what, they [b]won't[/b] really be listening. LOL I remain convinced that it's more down to the perception of the player than the perception of the audience. Music is, after all, a craft as well as art and there is surely pride to be had in executing a tune/song/bassline well?[/quote] I can perfectly understand the value of doing a professional job well and have never had any complaints (quite the opposite, in fact) - I would not consider the performances of most of the bands I play with to be poor/lacklustre by definition (sometimes they may be for other reasons but that is the nature of live music, particularly improvised music). I just think most covers bands are entirely predictable, as are many, many jazz performances. Live music should excite. Watching most covers bands just doesn't. I find it to be an increasingly tired concept and I think it has the potential to undermine itself in the longer term. I don't demand anything of an audience but I think the audiences should demand more of the bands it pays (directly or indirectly) to see.