ambient

Being totally honest, apart from a strap last week, I’ve not had much luck on here.

Threads like this often revert to disagreement 😁. Like I said at the beginning of the thread, it’s a useful skill to have, it’s also a quite separate skill from theoretical knowledge or the ability to busk or improvise. It’s usefulness depends entirely on what your personal ambitions and playing requirements are though. As has been said, players like Pino don’t read, but they have a sound and style that gets them gigs, other players like Dave Swift do read well and are booked because they have that ability. If you’re playing original music, or are a member of a function band that has a set of songs that you’ve learned, then it’s something that’s not really necessary.

It's a good way to improve your own lines though, it moves you away from playing what you feel comfortable with, playing the riffs or patterns that you'd generally play.

I had plenty of ridiculously low offers, I expect those though, I had someone text me about 2am last week offering me a price £200 lower than what I’m advertising them for. On the other hand I sold a cassette portastudio last Saturday, I agreed to meet the guy at new street station to deliver it, this was fine and no problem; I was passing through there on my way to UoB anyway, it just meant getting off the train there instead of going straight through. He didn’t quibble at all over the price, and gave me an extra £5 for my trouble.

Local music colleges can be a good source for finding talented musicians, especially if you’re gigging regularly and getting paid.

For me at least, reading on a gig suits my personality. I just sit and enter my own world where I’m totally happy, I concentrate on the charts and play. I’m fully aware of what’s going on around me, but I’m totally absorbed in reproducing the written part. I take a delight in it. It’s the same if I’m just improvising from a lead sheet in a jazz gig.

I'm generally more nervous and anxious about meeting whoever I'm playing with, that's down to my Asperger's though. I've done a lot of solo gigs over the last two years or so, both solo bass and more recently piano/electronics. My first one was pretty terrifying, since then though I've been absolutely fine, with exception of a bass day one I was doing with Steve Lawson, that was really scary. I find meditation and being fully prepared mentally generally helps. I always try and arrive early, I leave home a lot earlier than I need to, and my journey is planned; I know which train I'm catching and where from etc. Avoid too much caffeine, I'm a caffeine addict, it's my one single vice, but I limit my intake before a gig.

Absolutely true. I did go out of my way to reassure him though, and it was him who wanted them posting. He assumed I’d send them without him paying. I sent him a link to my public Facebook page, he had links to the labels who release my stuff, my Soundcloud and my Bandcamp, and he had my phone number.

Much of what I’ve been doing over the last 3 or 4 years can’t easily be notated using standard musical notation. At university we had to do a final production project which required us to write up to 30 minutes of songs or music, but it had to be fully notated, every instrument. I found it particularly interesting trying to adapt standard notation so that what I was playing could be written down. I’m now composing using sound rather than pitched material. I use graphic notation to sketch out ideas.

I find I can look at a piece of music, notated bass line or any part really, and straight away I know so much about the piece as a whole, even if I don’t know the song or work. You can tell the style, the key obviously, the mood, there’s so much information there.

I learned to read music whilst studying violin at school. I then moved to playing classical guitar, then onto bass. It didn’t occur to me that you could play music without being able to read, I expected to join a band and be given music to read from. Sight-reading is an immensely useful skill to have, but it all depends on what your aspirations and intentions are whether you need to spend the time needed to acquire that skill. I’ve done theatre pit work, played on cruise ships and done many reading/dep gigs, that I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t been able to read.

My notation is extremely untidy, I wish it wasn’t, but so is my handwriting.

That’s people for you.

I’ve met people in all manner of locations all over the country, mainly people from on here and not just buying but selling too. I don’t actually like meeting people, but it’s peace of mind.

I prefer to meet somewhere too, in this case he wanted to try them, which I understand. I fully understand your caution, let’s face it, you’ve no idea who these people really are, they’ve just answered a Gumtree advert. It’s a not like this site or even Facebook where you have more of an idea of who they are from the way they’ve interacted with you in the past. This guy was also messaging me through Facebook, but his profile didn’t look right, it looked fake; basically there was nothing there, there’s even less now because he’s disappeared from there. It was an obvious scam. The name he used on Facebook was Derek Pinkham, the name he was using on his Gumtree messages was Jack. He sent me links to a website and to a profile on various music production/songwriting sites, the profile name there was Jack Chicago. This is what set the alarm bells ringing for me; Jack Chicago lives in America. If you advertise something and either Derek Pinkham or Jack Chicago contact you, then ignore them.

That's it, it could be a hacked account, stolen card or just an unauthorised account. Anyway, I've told him if he wants them then he'll have to come and collect them and pay cash, which is actually exactly what my advert says.

Unless he uses a hacked PayPal account though.

I think you're absolutely correct, my guess is he'd use either a hacked or unauthorised PayPal account. I sent him a message last thing before bed last night telling him that it was collection only, he could spend as long as he wanted trying the monitors but payment was to be made in full before he could take them away. Anyway, I then did a little research. He uses two names, that's not unusual I guess an artist name and a real name. The artist, or in this case producer/writer name is Jack Chicago, who according to his website, he actually sent me a link to this, lives in America. I'm not going to get scammed, so I've repeated my previous message to him that it's cash on collection from me only.

I'm no stranger to selling items, both on here and via Gumtree. I am well aware of the potential risks, and generally advertise items as cash on collection only, especially where Gumtree is concerned. I'm first to admit that I'm perhaps a little odd, but I do find other people strange and difficult to understand. I'm selling a rather expensive pair of Genelec studio monitors. They're advertised as cash on collection from me only. That way the buyer can see them, and hear and test them before buying them, it also protects me from unscrupulous buyers paying with PayPal then claiming there's something wrong, getting their money back and hastily disappearing, which does happen. I had someone contact me, he's really interested in them but lives somewhere in Kent. After a few emails back and forth we agreed a price, he was going to collect them from me on Monday evening. He then decides not to do that, but he wants them posted and he'll pay the postage. Many more emails back and forth and I agree to post them, and he agrees to pay me by PayPal friends and family. I was going to send them via Royal Mail Special Delivery so they would be tracked, signed for and fully insured. Last night he sends me the delivery address, I send him my PayPal email. He doesn't pay me so I don't send them. Tonight I get an email asking if they've gone, erm no, you haven't paid me. His reply "Oh, OK, would you accept 50% now and the other 50% when you've sent them and given me the tracking number?". My reply......."Nope". I genuinely don't think the guy's trying anything untoward, but you do seriously have to wonder. He really expects me to just post an expensive pair of monitors, bearing in mind he hasn't even paid the £50 postage yet!

The best thing is to transcribe lines yourself, use them along with the chords in the lead sheets. That’s how I learned anyway. It is an art form, one of my tutors at uni showed us a formula for creating walking lines, it sounded like a formula too, there was very little beauty in it. A good album to transcribe from is Bill Evans live at the village vanguard. The way it’s mixed puts the bass on it’s own in one channel. Scot LaFaro is the bassist, wonderful lines.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music

But what they produced, was it pop or soul? i did say I’m probably completely wrong, anything like this is anathema to me.

I would say that Motown derived from soul, Motown itself isn’t soul. Soul itself derived from gospel, jazz and blues. I am of course probably totally wrong, I personally dislike most popular music, my posting is just based on what I picked up in the musicology module at uni, when I could stay awake 😊.

I think there’s an awful lot of crossover with singers anyway, what one person would class as soul someone else would describe as pop. To me at least soul is heavily blues influenced, I’d have described most of the singers mentioned as alternatives to the role as ‘queen of soul’ as being pop singers, for me at least they don’t fulfil the remit for being soul singers. Is Motown soul? I’d argue no, it’s pop; it doesn’t have the earthiness of soul.