ZMech

Whilst I'm not fussed about the players moving around, i don't think i've yet enjoyed a gig where it doesn't look like they're getting into the music, be it through a massive grin or a concentration face.

you might want to mention your budget and location. I managed to get a nice one off gumtree for £500 incl setup costs. Would recommend asking your teacher to take a look at a bass you choose before you hand the money over, since I definitely didn't know what I was looking for.

Well I ended up going for the schatten for £80. Required a small bit of bridge filing, but nothing major. So I gigged with it for the first time last night, playing through the house peavey 1x15. Required a fair bit of EQ, as if left flat it's far too trebly, but with a bit of fiddling I got the ultimate sound compliment from my mate of 'great pickup, it just sounded like your double bass but louder.'

Depends, are you just playing over chords or are you playing over a set bassline? If it's the former, then making a small crib sheet and leaving it on your amp just saying the chord sequence for each song, assuming they're usual 4 chord sequences, shouldn't be such a big deal.

Just got back from the first jam on the double bass. only played about 45 mins, but both hands were feeling it by the last song! now got suitably big blisters on the right hand.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1169672' date='Mar 20 2011, 04:38 PM']Actually the perfect intonation thing has been sorted (at least on guitars) and is a tad weird looking. [url="http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php?go=0&sgo=0"]http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php?go=0&sgo=0[/url] I can't see how the fanned fret gives perfect intonation across all strings at all frets. The notes aren't in exact enough place across all frets and all strings to do that and even if they did a change of string guage would bugger it all up again.. There still has to be a bit of give and take somewhere down the line. I would like to try a fanned fret though even if only for the ergonomic benefits .[/quote] Interesting idea, not sure it's one i'll buy into. Seems like there'll be a whole multitude of other factors affecting the tuning during a gig, e.g. a bass getting cold in the case on the way then warming back up, any shodiness in technique, and the fact that the start of any note always sounds slightly sharper than the tail end. None of the videos on their site seem to show a straing A/B test between one of theirs Vs a straight fret guitar. Anyway, where did i leave my fretless?

[quote name='Grand Wazoo' post='1169582' date='Mar 20 2011, 03:25 PM']Well yes that is the part I was too tired to explain, I had a Bongo 5 strings they have 24 frets and built by Ernie Ball Music Man, these basses are supposed to be some of the best basses built by MM. Anyway I could adjust / tune the saddles so that the harmonic at the 12th fret would match exactly the fretted note at the 12th fret as well as the open string,... you with me so far? Well I couldn't help but noticing that fretting a note on the 15th fret will sound very sharp even after having sorted the intonation, the neck relief etc etc, I then connected the bass to a Peterson strobo tuner and it showed just how badly out of tune all the other notes on the fretboard are. I then tried that same test with a Stingray a Big Al and a 25th Anniversary MM, and all the other 5 strings basses I used to own plus a couple of Squier and a Fender CIJ all had that more or less the same issue, I decided to live with it. However I could tell when laying tracks through my headphones that some notes compared to keyboards, which always have perfect pitch, that they always sounded a bit sharp or out of tune.[/quote] That's an issue with the fret wire being in the completely wrong place then, which is pretty suprising, since fret spacing is a simple exponential decrease. Changing the frets to be fanned wouldn't solve this problem. Mind you, I just tune by ear so might just not be noticing.

Sweet, glad to hear it backed up as a good idea. I'll probably steal some of my dad's piano books to go with it being forced to think outside of fret jumps sounds like a good change, will let you know how it goes. p.s. wasn't any more or less of a ramble than most of my answers

[quote name='fatback' post='1169409' date='Mar 20 2011, 12:42 PM']it's been like mentioning Matt Munro to an 18 year old here.[/quote] Who?

No problem. Makes a change to be one giving advice, perhaps that means i've been learning!

Sounds similar to how I approached things (am an engineer). One thing I'd warn you about now is that patterns can be subtly limiting. Until recently I only really knew how to play each scale using a pattern for each, always accross 3 strings. The switch to jazz has highlighted how annoying this is, especially when playing over Eb. So I'd recommend playing all your various scales in multiple ways, e.g. over 1, 2, and 3 strings, or more if your so inclined, along with using a different fret choice for the way down for the one you chose going up, e.g. if playing an Am on the way up play the D and E on the D string, and on the way down on the A string. Also a nice exercise for practicing your arpeggios, and linking them into the music as well: Get a standard e.g. Autumn Leaves, and in steady crotchets play the arpegio of each chord in time with the song. Once you're getting happy, switch the order e.g. to 3rd 7th 5th root. As you no doubt have already worked out there are of course 24 ways in which you can arrange those four notes, and that's without ommitting the 5th in favour of the octave. This has quite quickly helped me understand how note choice effects the character of the chord your playing over, especially as a starting note (having to start every bar on the root is a myth I believed for too long!). [quote name='faiz0802' post='1160277' date='Mar 13 2011, 10:40 AM']Ofcourse. I've tried that method you talk of, and I think its similar in approach to step 5. Wow, upright bass huh? I've always dreamt of playing one... Some day... sigh... [/quote] double basses make great birthday presents! managed to convince my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles to all split the cost and just get me the one awesome gift for my 21st a few months ago.

Sweet track, if my synagogue had stuff like that I might actually go occasionally! Definitely loving the rhythm, the bassist seems to be playing in a two bar sequence, going ONE TWO AND (three) AND (four) AND ONE TWO THREE FOUR, so on the offbeats of the first third and fourth beats, and then stocato straight crotches for the second bar. See if you can get that down, it'll certainly help. I'm not yet a master of melody, so I might let someone else go into detail of note choice especially with the split chords in the chorus, but I'd suggest you can happily use notes that aren't strictly in Gmaj as passing notes, e.g. playing C C# D to move from the C to the D, so long as you don't linger on the sharp. Trying listening to other african music, might give you some general inspiration. Some of my favourites are Richard Bona, Amadou and Mariam, Orchestra Baobab, and Baaba Maal. Speaking of which, haven't listened to any Bona for a couple of weeks, time to change CD. Edit: A general exercise I like which has helped me to play over chords is to get a standard e.g. Autumn Leaves, and try and just play the arpeggio of each chord as straight crotchets in time with the song. Once you've sorted that, switch the order e.g. 3rd 7th 5th root, and do it all again. If my maths is right there are 24 ways in which you can order 4 items, so plenty of variations. Sounds easy, but is suprisingly hard, but gets you used to thinking about the root third fifth seventh, and hearing the effect of each one on the chords, especially as a starting note.

correct me if i'm wrong, but would the full chords look something like this? Verse: Gmaj7 Gmaj7 Amin7 Bmin Cmaj7, Cmaj7 D7, D7 Gmaj7 Chorus: Cmaj7 Gmaj7 D7 Emin/D7 F#dim7/D7 Gmaj7 x2 I've only recently started to appreciate and use all of the notes in the chord, I used to leave out the 7th quite a lot, but have now realised it adds a lot of character (as you can probably tell in the way i wrote those chords). Also, pretty sure that F# should have a diminished 5th, so that'll be interesting. Are there any extensions with 9th, 13ths etc? If so these will be reinforced by your inclusion of them The general advice I was given for constructing walking basslines was to start each bar on the 1st 3rd or 7th, as these are the main defining notes, the 5th is fine but unless it's diminished like on the F# it doesn't add anything the root doesn't. My apologies if that's all obvious and patronising, but it's the kind of stuff that i've finally started just thinking about after 4 years of playing! Edit: a youtube vid of the song you're playing over might help too

[quote name='munkonthehill' post='1168193' date='Mar 19 2011, 01:21 PM']Now I have your attention,,,,,,[/quote] Yup, your drastic mispelling of finger achieved that You could try switching to a floating thumb technique, I find it generally more comfortable, especially on the top two strings.

Fbmaj7 [quote name='dannybuoy' post='1167363' date='Mar 18 2011, 04:28 PM']E7#9 (AKA [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrix_chord"]the 'Hendrix' chord[/url][/quote] Opened my realbook at a random page, and picked a random bar, the chord for it was D7#9! so have picked the chord before it and transposed it accordingly

So in the Rufus Reid book, he mentions that most of the great players regardless of instrument (except maybe drummers ) would spend time playing around with chords and such on a piano. So I'm gonna rescue my dad's neglected keyboard from the loft when I next head home, and heed Reid's advice. The question then, is does anyone have any ideas of how best to use this new found tool? I guess learning how to actually play scales might help, and then just try accompanying myself for different standards. There's probably a way to be productive about it all, but I just can't think how.

Whilst it's easy to get defensive, I think I'd agree with any guitarists that it's easier to pick up and play without experience in a silly teenage band (we were all in one!). playing constant crotchet root notes to the standard I VI IV V song is probably quicker to learn on bass than how to switch between those four chords when strumming. The hard bit is learning to get past that stage, and to gain an ability to add interest to the songs, both rhythmically and melodically, and once you've got a decent technique that I don't think it's any easier or harder on bass than on any other instrument.

[quote name='bluesman' post='1166009' date='Mar 17 2011, 05:16 PM']its just the coolest instrument....bar non.[/quote] Double bass wins all, no question about it immediately get so much respect once you tell someone it's your instrument of choice. and are we talking about 'becoming' over the time scale of 4 years or 40? i'd only have experience with the former, but it might be getting more respect now due to the improvement of recording/speaker/headphone capabilities.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1165805' date='Mar 17 2011, 02:37 PM']You need a 'maybe' button.[/quote] and an 'only when drunk'.

well, worked for me using firefox 4, has opened as a googledocs. Mike, have you tried just hosting it on your site instead? I'll admit I don't really know much about these things. Anyway, now to give it a read

Whilst the side of my index finger is currently sufficiently hardened, i had the unexpected problem that after not picking up the BG for a month playing it for an hour at a jam night made the tip of my right index finger quite sore! Although my digging in lots probably didn't help matters. Must remember to not neglect the old horizantal plank completely in future.

A general rule of thumb seems to apply, in that font size is inversely proportional to brain size.

If this is an issue, why don't you put stickies in all the relevant sections about mp3/image hosting on external sites?