ambient

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1473015961' post='3126113'] You have to give something people want, you have to provide something that they really want to come out and see, then they'll come. It takes time and effort. Lots of both. There are thousands of bands playing their thing every weekend out there. [/quote] Exactly this. Why should someone travel, spend money to come in, and pay money for over-priced drinks, to see your band ? They have to have a reason to do this, a need to do it. You have to be doing something different to what the others are doing, in my opinion anyway.

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1473013625' post='3126067'] You live in London. It's a much more diverse and desirable destination for musicians than other areas of the country to be fair. I'm not sure it's representative of every institution, as much as I wish it was. My local college currently has 3 bass students across 4 years and as such, has a bass tutor who teaches across two local universities and three FE colleges, as there are so few players studying the instrument. This also seemed to be the case further afield when I moved for Uni. When I was there (at a large traditional red brick uni with a large music department) not long ago, I was one of 3 bass players. Me and another in my first year and one in the third who left after my first year, cutting the number down to two. We were heavily outnumbered by music tech students who worked heavily on electronic music production and software such as MaxMSP. I'm not trying to cause an argument, I'm just stating that there are two sides to every coin, as much as I'd like it to not be the case. [/quote] That's just bass players though, there's always fewer bass players than guitarists. Where I studied for my BMus there were 12 bass players in my year, and maybe 60 guitar players. I teach part time at a local Yamaha music school that has over 200 pupils, mostly youngsters all loving learning to play instruments. I really don't think that music played by 'real' instruments will ever be replaced by laptops. There are too many genres of music reliant on guitars and bass etc.

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1473006733' post='3125982'] I think you're missing one of the saddest points made by your own observations... The 'next generation' will be more interested in music like electronic music or acoustic material and probably less interested in 'bands'/traditional musicianship. Covers bands 20 years from now will either be a guy with a laptop and a launchpad blasting out classic dub tracks or a guy with an acoustic and a looper covering Ed Sheeran. [/quote] Have a walk past your local music college, you'll see that's plainly not the case.

A lot of time, people give up on 5s because they have the wrong mindset from the start. We tend to think too much, instead of just letting go and playing, we're looking at the bass as a 4 string with an extra string. It's not that, it's a 5 string. I play most of my lines starting at the 5th fret on the B string, so that's my low E note, low F I would play at the 6th fret etc. Bb at the 1st fret on the A string I'd play at the 6th fret on the E string. If I have to play anything high up on the G string, then it's all there under my fingers. We tend to be quite lazy, and also tend to play patterns, get away from playing patterns, and play notes. Know what the notes are in the lines you're playing.

I think people are just incredibly lazy nowadays. Sitting at home with a laptop, you can access pretty much every genre of music imaginable, without having to leave the comfort of your armchair. You don't even have to us the phone for your Saturday night take-away, there's an app for it. I also think that live music isn't the be all, and end all that it used to be for people. Plus there's so much of it about. It seems you can't go into a pub for a quiet meal and a drink now, without being drowned out by a band playing classic rock covers at ear splitting volume levels.

Nice, the the words bass solo are anathema to many on here 😊.

It looks like a really nice book, must have taken ages and ages to compile. The price reflects that. Tbh I was only vaguely aware that Gibson built basses, i guess most people have heard of their guitars. If you can get Amazon to sell it, then you're probably on to a winner with it.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1472920720' post='3125376'] That is really nice. I know where we can buy 4string sets of piccolo strings, bug does anyone know of any 5 string sets? [/quote] I bought a 4 string set of D'Addario EXL280s, and added a separate .065 as a B string, and a .018 as a C string.

Here's a really beautiful example of piccolo bass. A fretless this time. This guy is amazingly talented. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=IEulWe8eDwM&app=desktop"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=IEulWe8eDwM&app=desktop[/url]

You've already got access to Garageband, why buy anything else ? It's simple, to use, and good quality A tutor of mine at uni had the iReal app on his phone, if I recall correctly that has backing tracks, never used it myself though, so I could be wrong.

Check out the music teachers uk website if you're having problems finding a teacher.

A walking bass line can just be root, 3rd, 5th and 7th. You don't have to play all of them. It's down to how you play them, play them with the right attitude/feel/intent and it'll sound great .

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1472826417' post='3124582'] Yes. You are having a go. I think it's rather well established that in order to function to any reasonable standard you need to put some work in on technique, theory, bass line construction etc. It's also rather well established that jazz double bass is not written in tab...and that there are a number of excellent resources out there for walking lines if one is willing to put a little effort into reading skills. Written musical notation has been the standard way of conveying musical ideas, concepts and pedagogy for a fair few centuries now...if you don't read, or don't want to learn, you're limiting the material which you are able to access. I don't think you'd hear any arguments on the above facts from any professional jazz musician - bassist or otherwise. That's not "rules": it's how it is. "...encourage new players and find a way to get them down their own path" As a teacher, some folk need guidance about their "own path" and whether that will lead to any kind of results. Listening to Ray Brown, Chuck Israels, Scott laFaro etc and hoping to "blag" this music without wanting to really learn technique or theory and with recourse to non-existent tab materials isn't going to help the OP. Implying that his own personal way of approaching an instrument, and style, he knows little about is as valid as anything else would be extremely unhelpful, if not unethical. A teacher who only tells students what they want to hear is no kind of teacher. At the end of the day, the OP asked a question about bass education. I answered. In my capacity as a pro musician and educator. Perhaps input from that level isn't welcome on forums.... Really, the message was simple - if you want to do this, you need to put the work in to at least some degree. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes to learning jazz double bass. BigYin, you might feel you've bitten off more than you can chew - certainly bigger mouthfuls than you were expecting. Don't give up straight away. Concentrate on the moment, on where you are now. Take things a little bit at a time and things will improve steadily. Honestly, it was like that for everybody when they started. Aaaand...if you feel like persevering with reading the dots, I've got a pile of PDF material which could find your inbox ;-) [/quote] I totally agree with everything you've said there. I've owned a couple of double basses, and managed to play them to a reasonable standard, gigging with them etc. It was difficult, and took quiet a lot of practice beforehand. I did manage to carry over my electric bass knowledge, with a few adjustments, though my musical knowledge and playing level is pretty advanced. To the OP, stick at, it's extremely rewarding when you do get it together. My one student is 79, like I said to him this morning, learning to play an instrument is a journey, and as with any journey, it's made up of lots of little steps. Regarding transcriptions/resources, there are loads here [url="http://www.projazzlab.com/study-tools/"]http://www.projazzlab.com/study-tools/[/url] Just write the note name above the notes on the staff, and take your time, and have fun.

Definitely now. There's so many players out there doing stuff that's trying to push what bass is meant to be.

There's a beautiful song by John Patitucci called Sachi's eyes, played on a 6 string piccolo bass.

A guy I knew at uni built one, though I never got around to hearing it. There's a guy called Joe Foley McCreary who played with Miles Davis credited here as playing 'lead electric bass', plays one. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG-sCIYKMBg[/media]

I can't stand them personally, not just them, the whole genre does nothing for me. However, I had to learn one of their songs for a live performance at uni. It was without doubt one of the hardest things I've ever had to play. I remember looking at the score, and thinking "that's not too hard", then I saw that after the first 8 bars or so, the tempo suddenly shot up to something like 180 bpm........eeek ! He's without doubt one hell of a player, does he do lead vocals too, either way, I have a lot of respect for his playing.

It depends what you want achieve I guess. I studied at ICMP in London. First of all on their Higher diploma, then I did their 3 year BMus course, graduating last year with a very respectable honours degree, I'm now doing an MMus course at Goldsmiths. There's a lot more to music than just playing whatever genre you're comfortable with. It forces you to leave your comfort zone, playing music that you've maybe never been interested in. I studied jazz, fusion, country and western, metal amongst others. You also get to do composition, arranging , writing (academic), dissertation etc, music technology. I had coffee with my old programme leader a few weeks ago, something I said to him, that he was impressed by was, studying shows you what you don't know you can do, you end up discovering a lot about yourself. I'd never written a piece of music before, just bass lines for bands. I've now got licensing contracts with 2 production music companies.

Apparently I'm Geddy Lee, who according to Google plays for a Canadian progressive rock trio.

Nice, quite Robert Fripp'ish.

It's wrong, (in my opinion), to pay tax on something that started in EU/UK, and was then exported, and is now coming back. Like you say, VAT has already been paid on it. I believe that there's no import charges made on USA built items that are being re-imported into the USA. I think I'd be frantic with worry and stress. Hope it gets all sorted out for you.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1472677655' post='3123292'] But it has a lovely personality, I hear. No worse than those Zon Hyperbasses (which I've always suspected is what gave Steve the idea... But certainly not my personal cuppa char. [/quote] I've always thought the hyper bass looked amazing.

I teach part time at a Yamaha music point, they've got over 200 students, ages vary, but there's lots of youngsters.

I'm reading an interesting book, called the yoga sutras of patanjali. There's some interesting concepts in there about how we identify ourselves, and how others identify us. People are seeing themselves as bass players because they only play bass, but what do they play on the bass ? The answer is music. See the bigger picture.

There's quite a few 'jazz songs', that don't break down into sections, and are maybe 32 bars that just just keep repeating. Why are you trying to commit it to memory ? Maybe analyse it, and break it down into how it's formed. I'd do that with anything before playing it, as you play more jazz, your ability to do that speeds up. So, it's in Eb for a start, that's useful to know. Also there are quite a lot of II/V/Is, which are a really common element in jazz composition, e.g. Fm/Bb7/Eb, that's a II/V/I in Eb. That actually repeats quite often. Often the song is just moving between the V and the I, the V chord being played for 2 bars, that's what you get in the first 6 bars, so Eb to Abm, and Fm to Bb7, then you have Eb for 1 bar, and then a II/V/I in Eb, so that's the first 9 bars. Break it down, learn a couple of lines at a time.