Bilbo

Rock covers gig. We got told to turn down. I've still got it

There is a bluesy rock LP coming out soon on my which I play Fretless throughout. Watch this space.

Put simply, notes are not defined necessarily by their individual location or specific sound but by their context. A flat fifth is not a sharpened fourth even if they are both an F#. It is the notes AROUND the note that tell you what to call it.

I remember being told by a guitar player that 'fretless was dead' in about 1988. I have played one since 1986 (the same one, as it happens). Rock, Blues, Funk, Latin and Jazz, duos, trios, quartets, big bands etc - and all with barely a mwah!. It is an instrument that you make music on just like any other. The music changes, the sounds of the effects added to the instrument changes but the core instrument is no different to the other fretless instruments: double bass, cello, viola and violin.

Here we go. I tried to capture the fear I felt as a child watching those 'Duck and Cover' type adverts of what to do if there is a nuclear bomb falling within earshot. Scared the s*** out of me and ruined an otherwise idyllic childhood. https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/threads

http://youtu.be/6vzZWAd-k_I Listen to this. At the end of Herbie Hancock 's piano solo, Branford Marsalis picks up the closing phrase and constructs an entire solo by buiding on that four note phrase, moving it around his horn. Listen to it closely. That is what a Jazz solo should do.

You are entering a whole new universe with your playing when you start playing Jazz. A solo is not a pretty prepared thing but needs to exist IN CONTEXT. Playing along with backing tracks of any kind is useful but, yes, you need to be able to make it work in real time. You need to get your head around theme and variations, question and answer phrases etc. I recommend you find some real Jazz players and have a chat about what it is you are trying to do.

Strangely, I am currently reading The Massacre of Mankind, an authorised sequel to WOTW.

And we're off again. This one works!! [URL=http://s283.photobucket.com/user/bilbo230763/media/DSC_0133_zpsixwj2e7r.jpg.html][IMG]http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/bilbo230763/DSC_0133_zpsixwj2e7r.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[quote name='markstuk' timestamp='1491659253' post='3274623'] More reliably the last chord but a little late if you're jamming.. [/quote] Even the first chord from the bar before the last one

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1490865157' post='3268566'] Well I'm not sure about violin corners and you don't have them on it [/quote] We are of a like mind!

Try listening to other instruments like saxophone, trumpet, piano etc. Copping your licks off bass resources will provide a fairly narrow outlook.

Them Hereford boys can't read English, never mind music

Tab is not always correct. Best to work on your own fingerings.

I think that this is what they call a first world problem.

Just dropped it off at a DFS place. Won't go until Monday but that's OK. Thomann have agreed to replace without any problems so I just have to wait a little while longer for the dream guitar.

53 and playing the best gigs of my whole career. I arrange most of them myself and am very selective about who I play with. I am almost always the worst player but it's generally well received. I have also started working on my guitar playing again so there is always something to enjoy. I do get where people are coming from with regards to the physicality of playing.

Naah. It's a deader. Off to Deutschland it goes.

I have me more option to try courtesy of the interweb but I have emailed Thomann for advice prior to asking for a replacement. I understand that replacing the preamp is easy so that may also be a possibility but, yes, it's a ball ache.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1490738716' post='3267624'] You wouldn't care to expand on that, by any chance..? A bit cryptic for an old beggar such as I, and I'd be interested to have any ambiguity resolved. [/quote] Just busy doing other things. I seem to have less time than ever and am tending to practice and study rather than compose. If I am honest, I have also found some of the recent images uninspiring. Crowd surfing speaks to me of the kinds of music that leaves me cold.

Just to add, the Harley Benton HBO 850 SB e acoustic guitar costs £98, I can't recommend it enough as an entry level option.

After playing it acoustically for a couple of days, I plugged it in. Dead as a dodo. Changed battery. Nothing. Different leads and Amps. Nothing. XLR connection. Nothing. It appears that my electro acoustic guitar is entirely acoustic :-D Buggery bollocks. It's now got to go back to Germany for a holiday.

Yep. And the picking technique book, three different books of solos and several Piazzolla charts. Hours of fun.

I am known on here for advocating reading of music and have seen dozens of threads about the importance or otherwise of the skill. I have recently started working much more intensively on my reading and am now reading treble clef as well as bass. What I am finding is that by slowing myself down, I am learning quicker. I cock about with a chart for days and then, all of a sudden, I am playing it. More importantly, I find that new charts are becoming easier to move around as I become more and more comfortable. I am looking at Al Di Meola stuff, some Piazzolla, two Ravel pieces and some Scarlatti. I stress that I am NOT sight reading these pieces cold but studying them through the learning process. It feels like 'more haste, less speed' as the saying goes. There is so much material out there now, it's wonderful.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1490790186' post='3267984'] Hope you've had better luck with them than I have. [/quote] My favourite is the Cielo De Terra book. I can only play one track all of the way through (Enigma of Desire) but the bits I can execute are getting longer and smoother. I guess it is about realising that you don't have to be able to do the whole thing for it to be a valuable learning experience. I also have some of my own transcriptions of his stuff that I revisit occasionally.