Bilbo

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='212591' date='Jun 4 2008, 04:30 PM'][b]Q: [/b]Do you like the tunes you play, and are you enjoying the gig? [b]Yes: [/b]Shut up and play your bass. [b]No: [/b]Find another gig. This, my friends, is as complex as it gets.[/quote] How about Did you write the tunes you play? Yes - Shut up and play your bass No - Then just shut up! I wish I had that much integrity!

[quote name='ianrunci' post='212493' date='Jun 4 2008, 02:08 PM']So where does that leave us then? we have all pop and rock music which is shallow nonsense, Classical music which is mostly people playing covers, and Jazz music which is mostly people playing covers and a few people playing out of tune nonsense and calling it aventgarde. So whats left that actually has any integrity at all?[/quote] Errr.... that's my point. If its all covers, the whole thing dies, pop, classical, jazz, country, zydeco, reggae, folk.... all dead. There IS a lot of creative music out there, even some people playing out of tune nonsense and calling it avant-garde, but it rarely gets an outing because of all these covers bands clogging up the gigs! Let me make a point. I do a regular jazz gig in Bury St Edmunds, been doing it for 4 years. We do covers under the guise of jazz standards and, due to the generally conservative tastes of the bandleader, most of what we do is not particularly challenging. Our audience are not really listening; they look over in our direction once in a while and occasionally clap politely but it is what many call 'background music'. The standards we play are mostly the obvious Top 100 (the jazzers out there will know what I mean) but this audience demographic wouldn't know All The Things You Are if it walked in and bit them. Anyway, occasionally, someone pulls out a composition of their own and, because they have done a bit of work, written out a decent chart and have something resembling an arrangement, these compositions stand out and people notice them and comment positively. The great thing is, the farther 'out' we go, the more the audience responds. These people are mostly 20-30. What is apparent is that they respond to the ENERGY not to the notes. When we play something original, there is something less tired and stale about it. I just think if people stopped accepting covers bands, people would realise that their audience is more accommodating than we think and have more brains than we give then credit for. If the material is strong, they will get it. Remember, every song they ever hear they had to hear for the first time!

[quote name='ianrunci' post='212471' date='Jun 4 2008, 01:39 PM']Bubblegum? but then again thats down to personal taste isn't it? As I said one mans cheese is another mans masterpiece. Personally I can't stand any of the new rock music thats about (Artic Monkeys, Zutons, Kaisers etc ect) to me it all sounds like rehashed punk done badly but to other people it obviously has its merits. Original bands are great and there should be more of them. Like I said, not everyone wants to write and perform original music and to me that doesn't mean their artistry is superfluous. Their art comes in the way they translate thier own view of a particular line. A prime example of this is when well known bands recruit a new musician eg: Steve Morse with Deep Purple. Would you say that his versions of the old material are artisticly superfluous? Its all relative to any one individuals point of view[/quote] I would class the Kaiser Chiefs & the Zutons etc as another form of shallow nonsense but that's not my point (most rock music is as corporately sponsored as most other bubblegum music; the fans hate to acknowledge it because they like to think their artists have integrity but the 'brand' that is Marilyn Manson is as much a 'product' as the Kaiser Chiefs). My criticism is of OTHER PEOPLE playing the Kaiser Chiefs material. Steve Morse in Deep Purple is still Deep Purple doing Deep Purple material and their decisions regarding arrangements are their own so I won't criticise them for it. But if Steve Morse left and started a band called 'Smokey and the Waters' doing a DP tribute, he would go down in my estimation!

With respect to ianrunci, a great, complex and technically demanding bass line does not make a song great. Nor does a simple, 'boring' bass line make a song boring. Its a complex relationship between harmony, melody, rhythm, arrangement, timbres, lyrical content etc etc. 'Wake Me Up' may have a 'great' bass line but, as a whole, its still bubblegum. Pino may have ripped it up on 'Lady In Red' but I won't be rushing to iTunes to snap it up! I have said the same about a lot of James Jamerson's stuff. I worked through half of 'In The Shadows Of Motown' before realising that, whatever the merits of his lines (and they are 'interesting'), the songs they related to were pretty naff (IMO, obviously, before accuses me of lacking objectivity). So I stopped. A great groove or a great bass line is like the chassis on a car; whatever its merits, its only part of the whole picture. My problem with covers bands is, whatever their merits, they are artistically superfluous! Like photocopies of a piece of artwork. Don't mean I won' t play them, gain some limited degree of pleasure froim the process and take the money but, as I said, its a shallow victory. I know I am an idealist but it helps me cope with the world!

I jammed with Ritchie Haywood of LF once, when he was in Monmouth working with Robert Plant. Nice guy, GREAT time, even better moustache!

I guess my point is this: Weddings is weddings - play the gig, do the first dance she wants (trust me, he don't give a s***), play to the crowd, get 'em up dancin' etc etc. Shows - you gotta play the dots. Simple as. The problem I have, I guess, is with 'the scene' as a whole, with the way things are going generally. Most of the gigs I see advertised (and most of the bands I play in) are bands doing ALL covers (I have no problem including jazz standards in this, they are covers, dress it up as much as you like). Not a problem in itself. But when you/I/one looks for something fresh and creative, its hard to find anything. When I started out in a HM band, we did the whole gig without stopping (none of this two sets with a break stuff), did 95% originals and, wihlst we DID do covers, it was two tunes which were heavily arranged (a Led Zep medley (2 tunes) and Hawkwind's 'Silver Machine'). In the 80s and 90s, I used to play in jazz trios/quartets etc where we played 90% originals and threw in a few standards. Its not the concept of covers that bothers me, its this overwhelming excess! I struggle with the idea that tribute bands are not covers bands - of course they ARE! And this thnig about dressing to LOOK like the band that is being copied is excruciating! The last time the scene felt this tired, Punk happened. I hated it but (and I can't believe I am saying this) I wish it would happen again. It sparked off a decade or more of creativity, most of which I didn't like but at least it was MEANT something! RECLAIM THE STREETS!!

[quote name='OldGit' post='211890' date='Jun 3 2008, 04:05 PM']Ah that old chestnut.... Bilbo, you speak a lot of sense which I agree with but ... If you don't entertain, you don't get an audience.. and, of course, the corollary, if you don't pull an audience, you are probably not entertaining (or you are keeping your gigs a secret) You have to to earn your right to play a gig in a popuar venue and then displace the million other things that your audience could be doing. Tribute bands are perfectly valid, they tend to pull in audiences to live music who may not have bothered before. 1% of that new audience may then discover Jazz so be grateful ... [i]They[/i] don't stop you getting that gig. Pull as large an audience in the same venue and you'll get the gig. It's economics. In fact a healthy crowd watching a trib, party or covers band every Friday or Saturday night may well keep the venue going through the week when your jazz band can get a go to play to a smaller audience. You have to be realistic though. The audience for your creative noodlings from within your very soul is a lot more limited than that for a Pink Floyd tribute band, or even someone playing Mustang Sally and Lady In Red ...[/quote] Good points well made.

[quote name='crez5150' post='211876' date='Jun 3 2008, 03:54 PM']bums on seats i guess[/quote] The absolute bottom line

I have never seen a tribute band but can easily understand why someone would want to go see someone perform like their favourite band either for a 10th of the price or because they don't exist anymore, don't tour anymore or don't tour in the UK. I have seen several tribute bands advertised that I would be prefectly willing to go and see. But the evidence suggests that, if these things take off, they will clog up the venues (e.g. the Railway in Ipswich, Spa Pavillion in Felixstowe) and replace anyone trying to do anything creative or new (like 'classical' composers or contemporary jazz musicians). Turns the whole world into cabaret!

[quote name='alexclaber' post='211856' date='Jun 3 2008, 03:31 PM']It made me realise that there is huge value in some tribute acts. Incredible.[/quote] I know that mine is fundamentally an indefensible position but surely this kind of perspective is what is killing jazz and classical music? It was all perfect yesteryear so lets recreated the Golden Era? Its a false economy, isn't it? It drives me nuts....

[quote name='P-T-P' post='211832' date='Jun 3 2008, 02:55 PM']...which subjectively hints that you consider your opinion to be a little more than simply a personal perspective and more an absolute truth applicable to all. Hopefully that's not the case, or if it is, you'll need to practise harder at avoiding those kind of slip-ups before your plan for world domination will be a success! You're talking about your "creative" playing as being original in the sense that it came from within you, of the moment, derived from influences etc. but then criticise a perfectly good lyric. The subject matter may be as old as the hills, but the fact is, no one had ever expressed the boy meets girl story in the way that lyric does. The writer, in the moment, from within, etc. Ring any bells? You're unjustifiably attaching more importance to what you're doing, even if you're not making a direct link from one to the other. That's where opinion slips into pretension.[/quote] All perfectly valid points. My use of 'you' as opposed to I 'is' is, as you correctly point out, grammatically incorrect - I should probably have said 'if [b]one[/b] plays too many etc' but, culturally, I would be unlikely to use that term, like. Re: criticising bubblegum lyrics - it was a dig at tBBC, a mischievious joke, a bit of banter! Hence the emocion. (Still don't like those lyrics, tho') Re my opinions slipping into pretension - that's where they like to spend most of their free time. Hence my plan for world domination In terms of attaching more importance to what I am doing, it is it's importance to ME that I am referring to - isn't that what integrity is? My best gigs are always in front of the smallest audiences (but not beacuse they are the smallest audiences). Ellis Marsalis once said to Wynton 'If you play for applause, that's all you'll ever get'. God, my life is complicated.

Integrity is, by its own nature, subjective so I make no apology for having my own perspective on it. I have played with many musicians who are genuinely able to enjoy playing anything equally, whatever the genre, location and band. I don't, not really. It's what I call a shallow victory. I CAN get a basic (bassic) degree of satisfaction out of knocking out a Tower of Power line, or a James Jamerson line or whatever, but its 10% of the satisfaction I get from doing something creative (original in the sense that it came from within me as a consequence of decades of influences, conscious or unconscious, and the muse of the moment as opposed to learning someone elses dots by rote - I do not mean original as in 'never been played before by anyone else in the universe ever' - how can I know that?). Bottom line is, speaking frankly, why have a covers band at all, why not book a disco and play the records? That's what most people do now, isn't it? As for quoting 'Pretty Woman' lyrics, BBC - boy meets girl he fancies and she fancies him right back? - WOW!! Now THAT's original!!

[quote name='P-T-P' post='211706' date='Jun 3 2008, 12:20 PM']And there, in a few simple words, is the prime key to success in choosing songs for a covers/function band. A full dance floor makes such a difference to the band's perspective on the songs they do. Even the most done to death and/or cheesiest numbers become enjoyable if the punters are lapping it up. It also helps if you're a fan of songs. Just because something like Pretty Woman gets butchered up and down the country hundreds of times a week, it doesn't take away the fact that it's a great song. If you play a song like you have to play it 'cause it's what the punters want, you're just a butcher. If you can tap into the song in some way though - the groove, the soul, the spirit, the mood etc. - you're going to help make it fresh again and get so much more enjoyment from playing it. When all's said and done, a live band is at it's peak when making a connection with their audience. Are the audience there specifically to see you? If so, congratulations you're doing something right and don't need to be reading this. More likely for most of us though is that most of the audience is there either because that's where they and their friends always are on a Saturday (Thursday, whatever) night or because they happen to be attending the function you're playing at. They're (hopefully) there to have a good time and the fact your band is there is, at the outset, not of great importance to them but most will happily open the door to the possibility of you entertaining them. If there's an area for dancing, as there surely will be, there's your meal ticket. It's a bit simplistic but if you play songs that make the girls want to dance, the girls will have a good time. If the girls are having a good time, the guys will have a good time. And if, at the end of the night, you play "Lady in Red" and there's couples melting into each other everywhere you look, you've helped make that happen. Whatever they are feeling is, in that moment at least, real. And as every note you play intertwines with what they are feeling, you become part of that moment too. You can't tell me there's no integrity in that.[/quote] Can't argue with this but that's not the point, for me anyway. If I could write a book, one book in my life, would it be Jeffrey Archers 'Cain and Abel'? No it wouldn't. It would be something profound, of lasting value, something I could be proud of as a piece of art. Playing in covers bands (and I do) is low input, (aesthetically) low return stuff. Its the difference between making high quality, hand crafted furniture and knocking up an IKEA flatpack. It has its place, as lots of people have said here, but, in my experience, as a jazzer, I find that too much of this bubble-gum stuff takes the edge of your 'proper' art. When I do a jazz gig, I need to be listening and responding VERY quickly to the stimulae around me and I need to execute considerably more sophisticated lines in real time. With most covers bands, you can effectively coast for the whole evening (and still play killer grooves). I find that, if you do too many 'lightweight' gigs, when you go back to the more cerebral music, you feel stale, sluggish even, and it takes a while to get into 'the zone' again. Your brain just slows down. The problem is, does the proliferation of low brow gigs undermine our collective potential to excell? I think it does. If I had absolute integrity, because of my stated position as outlined here, I would knock these commercial gigs on the head and focus my energies on the music I have a passion for. But I don't because, if I did that, I would do about 1/3 of the gigs I currently do. Its a dilemma I wish I didn't have to live with but I do. I guess that means I lack integrity. PS for my money, musicians in the LSO playing Tchaikovsky for 1,000th time DO lack integrity and 'Pretty Woman' is NOT a great song, harmonically, melodically, rhythmically or culturally

Then Zappa rocks!

[quote name='crez5150' post='209626' date='May 30 2008, 02:21 PM']Function bands are there to play to the audience.... the audience want to hear songs they know and love.....[/quote] D'ya think? In my experience, this is what the bookers and bandleaders BELIEVE but is not necessarily what the audience want. What they usually want is to dance. A really grooving band can play almost anything as long as it has a back beat and drive. The endless piles of sh*te that most function bands play (including, if not especially, my own) are swallowed wholesale by the punters who, as a collective, love everything, however bad. One of the bands I occasionally do gigs with (£120 etc) are awful but the testimonials they get are glowing (I do the gigs as I like the people (and the money) but they are awful). The problem I have with function bands, frankly, is that, despite the fact that they have 100 years of hits to choose from, they all chose the same old b******s. Chaka Khan's 'Ain't Nobody' (all beat and no groove), 'Mustang Sally', 'Angels', the aforementioned 'Lady In Red', 'Killing Me Softly' - you know EXACTLY what I mean. This isn't about what the punters want. This is about doing the thing as superficially as possible and still getting away with it. Two rehearsals and you're gigging because you've all done it 1,000 times before. If it doesn't change soon, the music industry deserves to die.....

Fourths and minor sevenths do present another problem in terms in fretless playing and intonation. Using the one finger per fret model is not as simple because your fingers are actually NEVER straight across the neck particularly at the lower end of teh neck (they are simply incpapable of being so, physiologically speaking) so you have to make subtle adjustments every time you move a note. I think, though, in a nutshell, you just need to stick with it, keep practising the changes you are looking at and develop a personal approach to the issue that lets you find a way to fluently execute your ideas using these intervals. As someone above said, theories advocated by Bailey, Berlin or anyone else are guidance and shouldn't be taken as gospel. As much as anything, there is the limitations of the written word. What is written in these books is often incomprehensilbe if you don't know what they are trying to say! I always find they make sense after I have already worked out the thing they are talking about!

Pete did a dep for me for a Latin in Ipswich earlier this year and delivered. The bandleader has tried to book him again since but he was busy so they got another bloke who just couldn't handle it. Bearing in mind that, when he got to the gig at 10 p.m., Pete had never played that kind of music before, credit has to be given for his sharp ears. He's now our first call dep for that (weekly) gig - even if he doesn't know it.

I think there is another factor in that many of the early exponents of the wonder of Wals were fretless players; Percy Jones, John Giblin, Mick Karn etc. For a LONG time in teh late 70s and 80s, Wal was THE fretless bass to have - still is for me. I have never played a fretless I like more than my own. Never played a BASS I like more than my Wal, come to think of it.

[quote name='Astronomer' post='209119' date='May 29 2008, 07:27 PM']Eventually she said, "I know you come up here and play bass, but I never realised you were a musician."[/quote] Don't be silly - you can't do both....

Your question is a bit like 'do you need spelling, grammer or language to tell a story'? You need them all and more. Most of all you need ideas and a context. Chord tones and scales give you both but you need to experiment to make sense of it. If you just used chord tones, you would need a lost of chordal movement to maintain interest. If just used a scale, you would need a sense of melody like a raga player to pull it off indefinately. You need a comprehension of both to make sense of it all. And then, when you understand all that s***, you just forget it and play. S'easy really..... In an nutshell, music is made of harmony, melody, rhythm and dynamics (I like to add silence to the list). Control them all and you are in heaven. Leave out harmony and you are in Asia, leave out rhythm and you are in Europe, leave out melody and you are in Sepulchre . Leave out silence and you might as well be on a train.....

I have been trying to play Charlie Parker's 'Passport' for the last 20 years. I never seem to get it to phrase properly. Soloing over the changes is relatively easy, its the head that still sounds wooden. I keep recording it but, to date, no joy.

And thereby hangs the problem. The question you are asking is that to which the greatest musicans in the history of the art form have focussed their individual and collective minds. You are asking for the Holy Grail to be sent to you Recorded Delivery. The only strategy is years of trial and error. Transcribing other peoples solos, preferably NOT bass players, will give you insights but, to sum it up simply, your choices of what constitutes a musical idea is yours and yours alone. Mine will be different. That's why all musicians are different. You make it musical using your experience as a listener and player and, gradually, over time, your ideas formulate and become coherent and carry their own form of internal logical. If you practice hard, your ideas will begin to appear. If you practice really hard, they will be good ideas, appreciated by other listeners. If you practice hard forever, you may have ideas that move other people and that amount to a voice of your own. Remember - its the journey that matters, not the destination.

Have you heard 'No Quarter'? Seriously, tho'. I have written elsewhere of why I think people get into more sophisticated genres. You just get bored with the predictability of simpler music forms. I still have a soft spot for HM but it is based on nostalgia and the genre holds few surprises for me, especially bass-wise. So I have, over a long time, looked for other things to get excited about and jazz forms a substantial part of that - although even I am bored of the head-solos-head formats that are a central theme of several of its sub-genres (hard-bop etc). Jazz is best when someone is taking chances! Same with most music, I guess.

NWOBHM B listers 'No Quarter' - featured on 'Heavy Metal Heroes Volume Two' and a Friday Rock Show Session in '82. One 12 inch EP, Survivors, now goes for £40 on the internet. My 15 mintes of fame.

Yik!