tauzero

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='701675' date='Jan 5 2010, 03:00 PM']The problem is that there is no one route through this, there is no one-way to go so you will never know it all in the right order. My advice is to start with the concept of intervals - the distance between any two notes, irrespective of which notes they are. Know a semi-tone/diminshed second (one fret), tone/second (two frets), minor third (three frets), major third (four frets), fourth (five frets), augmented fourth/flattended or diminished fifth (six frets), fifth (seven frets), augmented fifth/flattened or diminished sixth (eight frets), sixth (nine frets), dominant seventh (ten frets), major seventh (eleven frets), octave (tweleve frets). An awful lot comes out of this.[/quote] It's all annoyingly illogical. I mean augmented and diminished - easy enough, you sharpen or flatten the note. Major and minor third, fair enough, that's what distinguishes the major from the minor, although this is multiplying terminology, and if you know enough to know what augmented and diminished mean, you should know what flattening a major third does, so why can't it be a third and a diminished third? And as for the dominant 7th, that's really confusing. TBH, I really don't understand why it gets to be referred to as the 7th because to me that would imply it was the 7th in the major scale, but it isn't, that's the major 7th. And the dominant (when referring to notes in a scale) is the 5th, thus adding another nomenclative confusion.

No-one's mentioned harmonics yet... I don't use a capo on the bass but if we had to shift the key of the songs I use harmonics in, it would be preferable (for me, anyway) to using forced harmonics.

[quote name='endorka' post='702631' date='Jan 6 2010, 11:31 AM']Oh yeah. Drummers are good with words for these rhythms, one I work with uses "hippopotamus" (hip-o-pot-a-mus) for 5 in the space of four.[/quote] As in "I made a right hippopotamus of that fill"?

[quote name='Marvin' post='702048' date='Jan 5 2010, 08:06 PM']You know theory Clarky, what's a fifth? [/quote] 20%. You play the fifth once per bar and the root four times per bar. It can be a bit tricky fitting that properly to 4/4 time.

"Rocky Mountain Way" - always a big decision, do I bother fretting the A or just play it open so as to reduce my left-hand usage to about ten seconds... "Freebird". I make no excuses, I like it.

[quote name='Marvin' post='701540' date='Jan 5 2010, 01:11 PM']A simple example. C major scale. I read somewhere that the chords in C major contain 4 major chords and 3 minor chords. And that was it. Nowhere did it explain why in a major scale did you have even 1 minor chord (it highlighted Dm). Call me thick but I don' understand it: minor chords in a major scale chord progression. And that's why us plebs get so fu*ked off with theory, there do not seem to be any rules. They change, mutate and no one explains what is happening.[/quote] I didn't understand Bilbo's post either. I can, however, give you a quick and dirty insight into the chords in C major. C major = all the white notes. Chords in that key are made up of the root note (C, D, E, etc) plus the 3rd and 5th notes above it in the scale. So we start with C as the root and get C, E, and G as the three notes. Move up to D, and you get F and A as the third and fifth notes, which makes a Dm. Similarly E, G and B gives Em, F, A, C = F major, G, B, D = G major, A, C, E = Am, and B, D, F = something odd that Bilbo can tell you about. My grasp of musical theory is pretty tenuous - it means I'm more likely to find a good note to play than a bad one, and it also means I've got a basic palette of chords to use when writing a song. Knowing the rules and deciding to obey them slavishly are two different things, though, and I almost invariably use a chord or two which shouldn't theoretically be there. Given that I also can't read music, what purpleblob said is almost exactly my position.

[quote name='ped' post='692713' date='Dec 24 2009, 12:16 AM']I was just billed by the HMRC - £1,800 by jan 31st! Terrific![/quote] Blimey, you don't earn much.

[quote name='uzzell' post='678034' date='Dec 8 2009, 03:21 PM']I played a gig the other night and the bass player from the other 'team' nudged me on the elbow and whispered 'wanna see me bass?' I replied with a reluctant yes at which point he did a drum roll with his mouth followed by the Carmina Burana vocal chant whipped it out out its case and said 'there [b]she[/b] is, isnt [b]she[/b] the most beautiful [b]girl[/b] you've ever seen?' The whole experience sent shivers down my spine and the funny thing was his bass was an Epi Thunderbird!!![/quote] I'd have thought "Quasimodo" would be an appropriate name for that. Or "Quasimodette" if he insists it's a girl.

[quote name='Eight' post='678556' date='Dec 8 2009, 10:18 PM']On the other hand, I used to spend a lot of time setting up servers which need network names and always found it so boring to use a naming scheme like apps002... so coming up with cool names was always the highlight of my job.[/quote] Only as long as you don't think character names from LotR or, even worse, Harry Potter, are "cool".

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='677205' date='Dec 7 2009, 09:08 PM']I'm just wondering because the more i think about the guitar player in our band, the more i don't really like him. Obviously, we have to work with poeple you don't like, so do you think this applies to being in a band as well? The problem is that we live in the middle of nowhere and we're having enough trouble finding anyone as it is, so we can't really afford to ditch him so i dunno i just have to work with what the hell i got i suppose.[/quote] Don't like on a personal basis, don't like on a musical basis, or don't like on what I suppose you could call a professional basis? I've never been in a band with someone I disliked personally, though in a couple of bands I never really got to know much of the other members anyway. I haven't had much problem in the way of musical dislikes, though I admit to loathing the UB40 songs the old covers band did, while the guitarist loved them. The biggest problem I've had is the professional aspect - most recently the vocalist of the former covers band, who used to drink far too much. It looked bad and it made him sound bad. However, because we did all like each other personally and the drummer, the guitarist and I all lacked the killer instinct, we never managed to get round to sacking him. He finally left, which eased the situation.

A valid reason for me to say that Jaco is overrated: a little while back in the alt.guitar.bass newsgroup, someone said that Jaco had influenced every fretless bassist on the planet. As I'd been playing fretless for years before I'd even heard of him, and since then have only heard two or three of his tracks, then that statement was very definitely overrating him.

[quote name='maxrossell' post='660167' date='Nov 20 2009, 02:20 PM']Sure. But you gotta admit even the thinnest 5s have a substantial neck when compared to even the fattest 4s. I own a pretty slim-necked 5 myself and it's still quite a bit bigger than the biggest 4-string Precision I've ever played, especially when you go up the neck.[/quote] I have several 5-strings with less substantial necks than some 4-strings, and a 7-string with a less bulky neck than a typical Warwick 5-string. I also have one bass which is a 5-string conversion from a 4-string using a Wilkinson 4+1 bridge, hence it has an identical neck to a 4-string...

Ashdown Superflies and lager shandy don't mix. Put drink on shelf behind amp, about the same level as the top of the speaker cab, then a couple of songs after doing that, everything went quiet behind me. Glass had slid to edge of shelf and tipped up, top inch or so had gone onto side, back, and a little onto the top of the amp. All front panel lights (and there's a lot of them on a Superfly) still flashing, power section dysfunctional. Plugged into PA to finish the gig. Gig went well, audience liked us, although there's a couple of songs we made huge cockups on that we really shouldn't. We're back there on 2nd January so we'll try and get everything sorted out for then. Post-mortem: took amp home, took off top and side panels, washed out shandy residue with clean water, put on radiator to dry out. Tested it twelve hours later (ie. half an hour ago) and it's in full voice once more.

[quote name='OldGit' post='673797' date='Dec 4 2009, 12:11 AM']Corporate Ceilidh gig? Make absolutely sure the organiser is making a big deal about it to the punters attending - and calling it a Barn Dance - you need them in checked shirts and pink cowgirl hats rather than suites and tight little skirts ie set the expectation and don't spring it on them. Unless you like seeing your caller suffer [/quote] Yes, in the grand tradition of ceilidhs, they don't realise it's a British Isles thing so it's Western dress and a casino at one end of the room. And two bars. And it's a barn dance, not a ceilidh. As the caller is Mrs Zero, and if she suffers, so do I, I have a vested interest in minimising her suffering. But she's also the one doing the organising from our end and speaking to the corporate organiser so her suffering is in her own hands. It would be nice to get a bit of repeat business out of this one...

[quote name='jakesbass' post='667164' date='Nov 27 2009, 10:55 AM']2. place enough generic material in the set that you please enough of the people enough of the time (most function bands fit this category)[/quote] IRTA "genetic material" and I wondered just what percentage of the female members of the audience were usually up for it, seeing as we (the ceilidh band) are just about to do our first corporate gig. I suspect Mrs Zero, who is our caller, would look somewhat askance at me distributing my seed.

If it's a faithful copy, it'll be truly horrible to play.

Bassists. They're just failed guitarists with poor personal hygiene and charisma bypasses, after all.

Not many people there - knew most of the audience by name... However, it was a chance to have a little live trot-out for the ad-hoc blues band (minus our gobiron player, who's recovering from pneumonia). And the interval band was me and Mrs Zero - we haven't done any gigs since August or so, so half an hour or so was a good opportunity to play out and for Mrs Zero to regain her confidence.

I prefer unlined on the basis of ( a ) it looks kewl and ( b ) there's a chance that the dots will be where the notes are rather than in between. As my Thumb fretless is a defret, it fails on both those counts (although the lines are pretty well invisible now).

[quote name='sk8' post='649406' date='Nov 9 2009, 09:22 AM']Once the 9.0's hit Bass Direct i'm off to try the Classic and 9.0 to see which to get...............[/quote] And then a week later you'll get the other one. Will I have time to save up before you sell?

[quote name='chris_b' post='645612' date='Nov 4 2009, 07:34 PM']You can get feet for cabs from Maplins for about £3 for the set.[/quote] Rather delightfully, in a catalogue a few years ago, Maplin described them as "sick on feet".