ambient

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1503249178' post='3356688'] That's 'Melvin Davies' on Bass duties at the back, He can solo a bit. [media]http://youtu.be/wGMCa2F474I[/media] [/quote] I love him, he's amazing. He was over here recently with Chaka Khan. I didn't see any of the gigs, but everyone I know who did said how fantastic he was. Love his 7 string Smiths too.

Overwater 7 string bass - Dunlop Volume XL volume pedal - Seymour Duncan studio compressor - Digitech Altered delay - Darglass Vintage Microtubes - Mr Black Eterna Gold reverb - TC Electronic T2 reverb - TC Electronic Hall of fame reverb - TC Electronic Flashback delay - TC Electronic Ditto looper - MacBook Pro running Logic Pro X - Phil Jones Bass Double 4 combo. An Ebow gets a lot of usage. Soon to be augmented by another Double 4 combo so I'm in stereo.

[quote name='interpol52' timestamp='1503212184' post='3356396'] As a 13 year picking up the bass for the first time in 1988, tabs helped me a lot where available. I had no interest in reading music at the time so a combination of tab books and working songs out by ear were the foundations of my development. With the increased availability of isolated bass tracks on YouTube, it has become clear that most of the tab books I used to have are full of errors, examples are the lines to Master of Puppets and Battery by Metallica. This has turned me more towards notation and ear training. In recent years when I have done productions and been handed the bass score, I have improved my ability to read notation. The Standing in the Shadows of Motown book has been a steep learning curve for me. I really enjoy it though. Given the choice, I would go for notation now. That's just personal preference though, not because I think it is the 'right' way to do it. [/quote] Can I ask, where did you get TAB from then? Agree totally about the standing in the shadows of motown book. It's one I use a lot to demonstrate to students how bass lines work.

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1503163244' post='3356179'] Who cares? He is a good musician and it would make no difference as we don't write our stuff down. [/quote] Many bands though do write stuff down. Most keys players I know are extremely mercenary in the gigs they take, they're able to be, they'll just turn up and play from cold the parts they're given. So sure, I agree that playing by ear like your friend is doing is fine, but it does have its drawbacks, and though he's probably quite happy playing the gigs he does, there are door closed to him. My gig this afternoon isn't the best paid on the planet, still £75 for a couple of hours, it involves some sight reading, and lots of improv from lead sheets, no run through.

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1503212284' post='3356397'] Pedantry apart, we are discussing a previous posters assertion that the ability to read music is the measure of a real musician. My personal view is that there is nothing wrong with learning a bass part from Tab, or being able to play the piano without being able to read music. What is your view. [/quote] More a general learning thing really. It's fine doing that until you arrive at the gig and they change the key. That has happened to students of mine, and they were flummoxed, which is why they've ebddd up as students.

Really nice!

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1503159951' post='3356147'] To counter this he can pick up any song you care to play to him from one or two plays through. Now that takes talent. [/quote] If he could read he maybe wouldn't need to run through? It's also maybe got something to do with the fact he's been playing so long, not necessarily talent. Personally I really couldn't care less what approach people take to learning, the fewer people who can sight-read, the more work there is for those of us who can . Whether you get given a chart to read invariably depends on what circles you work in, it's not an indication of that being how things work.

Phil Upchurch?

My mom suffered this when she was having chemo about 5 years ago. It's neuropathy, It didn't last long after her treatment was finished. It gradually disappeared after 3 months or so. It used to really annoy her though, she loves reading and could feel the pages.

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1503139286' post='3355965'] I would agree with the above. The problem IMO is when people become over reliant on tab to the exclusion of other aspects of learning. If a person wants to make progress along the learning path, they won't get too far by relying entirely on tab. If on the other hand they are content to stay in their comfort zone and have no wish to take their playing any further, that's their call. [/quote] I've likened learning music the way the average person does, to reading a book. People dive in halfway through, then start to realise they don't know half the characters, and really aren't sure of the plot. So they start skipping back to earlier chapters in an attempt to find out who someone is. Obviously the whole thing would be easier if they'd started at the beginning to start off with. Such is life though. People often want the rewards without expanding too much energy. They also rather bizarrely equate learning to play an instrument, with it being dull and tedious, which is something I never found it to be. I love teaching people who've been playing for years, all the stuff that they've missed in the earlier chapters.

I had a brilliant teacher. You can't really go wrong with chord tones, especially when starting out. Use the root of each new chord as a target note, that's the note you're aiming for on the 'one' of that bar.

TAB isn't evil, it does have it's drawbacks though, and is one of the shortcuts that people use when they want to play a line, instead of understanding what's going on, and working it out for themselves. I learned to sight-read music when I was studying violin at school. I started playing classical guitar at age 14 or so, again reading music. When I took up bass, it didn't actually occur to me that you could play without having a piece of music in front of you. I knew the guys that I was really into, Patitucci, Stanley Clarke etc could read music too. I just thought it was what everyone could do. Sight-reading is a skill, it's vital really if you want to play on cruise ships which I've done, I've also done theatre pit work at Birmingham Rep and Alex theatres, and done dep gigs where I've just turned up and been given a pad of charts. It's great being able to look at a piece of notation, and just understand what's going on from the visual information there.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1503065984' post='3355481'] As an aside, how, with 'dots' is one supposed to convey tone, such as fuzz, or 'grit'..? Dots have their limitations too, in some circumstances. [/quote] For my BMus end of course project I had to compose and record up to 40 minutes worth of stuff, my own stuff, so ambient solo bass. It all had to be notated in standard notation. Each piece took hours to do, and was on average about 30 sheets of A4 when printed out. I use an ebow a lot, plus numerous effects pedals. I devised a key that accompanied each chart, this showed which effect pedal, and identified the various techniques used in the piece. There was lots of annotation regarding effects etc. This would have enabled someone to interpret what was going on in the piece. Some show tunes that I've played dictate the use of effects pedals, they usually just state overdrive on, then overdrive off etc.

How high or low is your bass? Stand in front of a mirror with your bass on, look for tension in your wrist or shoulders etc,

There are literally thousands of songs from all genres available in standard notation. There's a whole thread pinned in the theory section,

I used a similar rig a few years ago, the cab had a tweeter, in a very loud Free tribute band. So loud that I left them, but the rig handled it perfectly.

The TH350 only puts out 175 watts with an 8 ohm cab, so you should be fine.

Can we expect there to be a lot of Status 6 string basses for sale in a year or so time then? Where people have bought them because of Mark King, then realised they have no need for one.

What I find so bizarre with all this, is why people are constantly trying to find short cuts to learning to play an instrument. An instrument that once learned will give years, and years of pleasure. So why not do it properly in the first place? It needn't cost loads of money, or even take loads of time, in fact most seem to spend more time trying to find short cuts. If you were learning to play violin like I did at school, or trumpet or practically any other brass instrument, then you'd learn enough theory to get you going, you'd almost certainly too learn to read music. So why not with bass? If you're happy to blindly regurgitate a learned part, then fine, but learning to actually play, learning some background to what you're doing, Having enough knowledge so that you're able to improvise a part, I mean improvise too, not just play notes at random hoping you're going to play a correct one is surely better? One of my students was 80 last weekend. His previous tutor was basically just teaching him to play bass lines from TAB, he didn't learn anything about what he was playing, or why. It's been a year since I started teaching him, he loves Frank Sinatra and that kind of thing. His dad was a professional bassist back in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He can now just turn to a page in his real book, and improvise a bass line over the chords from it. He absolutely loves his playing, and his lessons. All this about TAB, which in my opinion is a waste of time. Most of the TAB I've seen has usually been wrong, it also doesn't convey any information regarding rhythm. A little bit of basic knowledge would enable people to pick out a bass line quite easily, bearing in mind that most bass lines are pretty diatonic, listen to the line and look at the chords, most lines start on the root note. But no, we'd rather sit and spend ages looking for the TAB, and then more time working out what the TAB should actually say.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1502756923' post='3353349'] No, you're not wrong at all; that's exactly right. It is, however, equally possible to turn the telescope the other way around, play bass lines (one's own or other folk's creations...) and derive scales and chords and melodies from them. It's also perfectly possible to play along to a disk and never know what the notes are called, or their relations to each other. Not that this is the 'best' way, nor the quickest, but it's the way very many folks start out, and often enough turn later on to the more formal, or technical side (so much the better...). Starting out in one's bedroom, or a garage with one's buddies, and jamming away, making a racket, getting blisters, maybe even breaking a string or two... This is a perfectly legitimate activity for a budding musician. Some study alongside is good; some 'letting one's hair down' and enjoying the simplest of riffs for twenty minutes solid is good, too. Look at scales, certainly, but don't imagine that one [i]has [/i]to remember any of that to play the bass (or any other instrument, of course...) Just sayin'. [/quote] I really can't be bothered arguing tbh.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1502754732' post='3353344'] Maybe a rather pedantic point, but I'd suggest that it's the opposite: scales came about because of music folks were playing. It's perfectly legitimate, for some, to completely forego all formal knowledge of these mechanical constructions and still become virtuoso performers and skilled musicians. I wouldn't suggest for a moment that scales etc should [i]not [/i]be looked at and/or studied, but I consider it a blinkered view to say that they're the crux of the matter. Different folks have differing perspectives; one size does not fit all. [/quote] What I meant was that most bass lines are formed using notes from chord tones, which are derived from scales, as are guitar solos, melody lines etc........I may be wrong of course.

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1502744174' post='3353282'] Lessons are good to get you started but don't bother with scales and stuff. [/quote] This kind of thing is poor advice to someone starting out. Scales are where it all comes from. There's no reason at all why learning them should be boring. I teach scales using bass lines that the student knows to demonstrate how lines are created.

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1502750375' post='3353329'] Just read through the content and looked at the photos, nice bit of PR 'puff' for Gizmodrome and Status Basses. Not sure what the picture of him 'gurning' and clenching his fist is about: and there's just lots of other spurious photos too with very little written content over 8 full pages and 7 photos, all obviously taken in a local hotel room. Still it could have been worse, like an old interview with Sir Paul? [/quote] I didn't know what Gizmodrome was, so I looked. Adrian Belew and Mark King?