Bilbo

It gives me the arse, this 'let's ride on the back of the kudos of a Jazz festival without actually playing any Jazz. It's bad enough when VAn Morrison and Jools Holland get headline slots but Wilco Johnson? Ridiculous.

The whole subject is, to my mind, an indicator of what the reality of being a musician really is. There are two extremes. Learn everything by rote and work in a set band playing with the same people who learned the songs with you and nailed every detail and nuance or use professional readers who read the impeccable charts you have written out beforehand. The reality is usually somewhere between the two. The problem is that everybody starts out playing with like minded mates so spending hours learning your favourite tunes is a buzz. Later on, you start having to balance real life, maybe work, etc with your musical ambitions are comprised. I am never going to learn 30 songs I probably don't like very much for one gig. Give me charts or book someone else.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1493187469' post='3286246'] The Mrs has a [s]bed[/s]bowlback Ovation. It's been in the inlaws loft for the past 5 or so years. Fine if you're standing up, but try playing it without a strap whilst seated. It wants the strings to face your chest! [/quote] Tell her to try one of these. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002GOHD9Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493455776&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=guitar+foot+stool&dpPl=1&dpID=41PIvPEGV4L&ref=plSrch

My electric piano and soprano saxophone. I bought them with the best of intentions but never actually touch them.

Bloody well bump.

I think it is worth saying that there comes a point in all of this where there is insufficient frequency or consistency in the use of certain theories to allow is to use terms like right or wrong, normal or conventional. There are idiosyncratic approaches to notation in every situation and it often falls to the musicians and MD in any given case to seek to establish consensus regarding the intentions of the composer or transcriber.

I found phoning more effective than email. Phone response is immediate.

I love doing shows. I don't learn them but read them so low input high return stuff.

I think Little Mix should have won. One of them wore a beret once.

Yes, mate. One out, one in. No regrets. I have played this one more in one week than I did the 175 in five years. No exaggeration. I am finding the gigs I am doing are fewer and fewer and need something to keep me interested.

I am so enjoying this guitar.

Also, it depends on how you define learning a song. I have songs where I can play the bass part perfectly but couldn't name a single chord whereas a Jazz musician won't define a song as known unless you can play it in all keys and improvise over the changes.

Depends entirely on what it is. I am working on the melody lines of Fugata by Astor Piazzolla and it is taking forever as the lines are really intricate. Recently learned Most Precarious by Blues Traveller and it took five or ten minutes.

[quote name='Yank' timestamp='1492681605' post='3282215'] In bygone days, jazz was vibrant. Today, IMO, it's mostly self indulgent and derivative. It's dead and rigermortice has set in. Send flowers. [/quote] Depends on what you call Jazz.

It has the new contours. I find it perfectly stable and comfortable. I know a lot of people don't like the roundback design but I have never had a problem with it.

That's when it comes into it's own, RhysP. I tend to think of electro acoustics for recording rather than live but I may be going out as a duo playing guitar as well as bass so it's all good.

[quote name='Chris2112' timestamp='1492384770' post='3279861'] He did alright for someone who never considered his playing to be as good as he wanted it, and didn't really want to play the guitar. I'd say his voice as a guitarist is the most identifiable out there. He was a magician. [/quote] I guess it was in striving for that which he didn't find that he found what he did.

First heard him on Bruford's Feels Good to Me. I loved Road Games. One of the absolute innovators. Identifiable after two notes. Irreplaceable.

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.