Oscar South

[quote name='bubinga5' post='248354' date='Jul 26 2008, 12:09 PM']Uhh? What culture is that. Do you mean humanity??[/quote] No, but one of the notable traits of our global culture is the inability (or difficulty we have) to differentiate between culture and humanity.

99% of the planet belongs to one culture, any variations throughout the world are just minor regional aesthetic differences. I doubt any business would frequently come into contact with any of the remaining 1% of cultures which we haven't yet wiped out, unless of course your name is Indiana Jones.

Heh, do some of the lessons at musictheory.net, they'll explain a lot of the terminology and do a good job of establishing the basics for you to build on.

[quote name='The Funk' post='247099' date='Jul 24 2008, 06:16 PM']Melodic minor modes are more useful so look at those before harmonic minor modes... but before any of this, go look at dlloyd's thread.[/quote] Why? Minor harmony is 99% of the time built on the harmonic or natural minor scale.

[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='247081' date='Jul 24 2008, 05:59 PM']i dont know the first thing about music chords etc, but i still play and have learn pretty much what i know from listening to cd's and re-listening till i know what i am playing, tab helps sometimes but isn't always accurate. i did spend a little time learning some scales but they all seemed pretty much the same and variations there of, guess i need a tutor really but dont have the time or funds. so what area would be best to look at as some of you are talking weird things that i dont get [/quote] I think the best way to start off imo is to get a decent grasp of tonal theory, you can get a lot of free stuff about it from places like [url="http://www.musictheory.net/"]http://www.musictheory.net/[/url] and [url="http://www.tonalcentre.org/"]http://www.tonalcentre.org/[/url], if you've got access to a keyboard its a LOT easier too. As far as applying it to your instrument goes, I'd have a go at learning the modes of the major scale and all major and minor triad inversions in one octave at first and also up and down the neck inside specific keys. Building on that you could learn the modes and inversions in 2 octaves, could expand the chords to 7ths (I'd look at maj7ths, dom7ths, min7ths and min7b5ths at first) and could look at harmonic minor modes. These are just a few suggestions of where I started and worked towards, there are probably many better methods.

[quote name='silddx' post='246807' date='Jul 24 2008, 12:57 PM']No, Alex, I did not misunderstand you. You are talking about songwriting as happy accident and applying theory to it in order to navigate to parts you should be hearing in your head. When I write, I hear what I want to do in my head, away from the instrument. Then I have to learn a bunch of stuff I have never played before to execute my song physically. Couldn't tell you anything about what I'm doing other than possibly what keys the parts are in. There are times, when noodling, I come up with a beautiful chord combination that I want to write a song around. Then I hear in my head what comes naturally and learn to play it.[/quote] You seem to be operating on the principle that there is one single correct way to write songs .

My favourate Jeff Berlin moment was in that bass clinic argument he had with Steve Bailey, Steve was criticising him on not being able to play 6 string or fretless (I think Jeff had said something that that made that point seem less pointless that it does in this context) and Jeff said "pass me your fretless", he did.. Berlin played 3 notes or something, realised he was hopeless and that it was a lost cause, made some excuses and meekly passed it back . Was a while ago I saw it, may have got some facts mixed up but thats what I remember.

[quote name='The Funk' post='246380' date='Jul 23 2008, 08:17 PM']Think at home, play on stage.[/quote] Good wording. A quote I heard once was that someone said "Practicing should always be hard, playing should always be easy", same kind of logic and a very valuable thing to keep in mind imo.

I've drilled every mode of the major and harmonic minor scales, and any misc scales I know like melodic minor, diminished wh/hw, whole tone etc. up and down the neck and in side different keys, and I've done the same for most arpeggios you could name. I've also studied music theory in pretty decent depth in my own time and later at uni. I don't think of any of this when I play, though I think all the practice is very evident on my playing. I think this is how it should be.

[quote name='stevebasshead' post='245575' date='Jul 22 2008, 06:15 PM'][b]You're all compl-e-t-e-ly wrong.[/b] I get my sound out of my cabs. I checked, I put my ears next to them and it's [i]definitely[/i] the cabs. I then tried putting my fingers in my ears and got no sound at all, not one chuffing note, so I definitely don't get my sound from my fingers. I now have earwax on my strings and they sound dead. Would using Elixirs help?[/quote]

I heard that the para driver overdrive was very different to the bass driver, has anyone played both and is able to comment of the difference?

[quote name='OldGit' post='244889' date='Jul 21 2008, 10:34 PM']Saw you were looking for a Steiny Spirit ... only if your really have to .. I had one it was not a great bass .. IMHO....[/quote] Really? damn. One of the coolest looking basses I've seen and would be amazingly convenient, figured since I hadn't seen anything bad about em yet they must be decent : /. I'll hold out until I get to try one out, cheers for the heads up.

Cool, will have a listen, I'll see if I can get a recording of my playing at this gig so I can post it. Oh yea and I forgot to mention before that I play the majority of the time on Double Bass now, switching to Electric as the 'backup' when it suits the tune better. I bow a couple of the slow ones too, my favourate to bow is probably 'Planxty Irwin'.

I really want to get one of these for uni next year, 40 min walk to the music campus every day and most uni peoples cars are too small to fit a 35" bass in the boot, plus carrying a hefty 5 string and pedalboard when I get stuck walking is a bit of a task in itself. Does anyone know where to get hold of one? I know you could get them from Sound Control, can you get them from whoever took over? Anyone know any independent dealers? Cheers, Oscar.

Flobots - Fight With Tools Indie and Rap are two genres I generally stay away from (bar a few select exceptions), but this CD is a brilliant work of art.

[quote name='ARGH' post='244117' date='Jul 20 2008, 10:54 PM']You might suffer a Nickel allergy...Considering a cheap pan...you ARE using a cheap pan..not mum/wifes/partners best Teflon job,coz she WILL go mental...as in really SPAZZ,like the time your dad used a Metal 'spatch' on the new frying pan...God..it was as if he'd started WWIII....you remember...stainless steel isnt going to harm you. Coz last I heard Stainless steel and Stainless steel didnt have a high reaction rate.[/quote] I don't really know the specifics, I'm just repeating the tiny bit I remember of what whoever told me said.

Since I haven't posted anything somewhat recent yet, heres a link to a really rough demo track and an intro to something as yet unwritten recorded by me and a friend from my music course last year. I'm not a massive fan of the first half of the song (I'd have liked to spent longer on the guitar sound and getting a better bass part together, we were also on a time limit so had to loop a lot of parts), I do quite like the second half from the first guitar solo onwards though. Anyway heres the link [url="http://www.myspace.com/alaunaband"]http://www.myspace.com/alaunaband[/url] We're working on the project more over the next year and hopefully will be playing a festival or 2 over summer, so I'll post new stuff over the course of the uni year.

[quote name='ARGH' post='244105' date='Jul 20 2008, 10:31 PM']Just rinse the pan afterwards,you can be shocked at the amount of crud that comes off a set. some people bake them dry,I use a teatowel,and then rub them in a swab,it freshens them up and gets a little extra gunk off.[/quote] Its supposed to me to do with some chemical reaction between the metal of the strings and the metal of the pan or something, but I doubt theres any serious health risk to it.

Boiling strings makes them sound like new again for a short time, they never last as long as a new set though and they get more brittle. When I'm at uni and change my strings once a week I usually boil every set one or two times, saves a little money. Oh yea you aren't supposed to use the pan you boil them in for cooking for some reason, but I did for quite a while before I heard that and didn't notice any ill effects.

Heh, at uni when we were doing jazz in our practical class, the lecturer specifically said "I don't want to hear any 'Oasis plays jazz' style performances" (basically didn't want the lazy guitarists to just strum 7th chords), so I worked out a solo made entirely of melody fragments from Oasis songs . The guitarist from my band also slipped in the intro to 'top gear' but got caught.

Heh I was just looking through my old library of Sibelius compositions, some interesting stuff, we should do some 'basschat sibelius collaboration' where we could pass around various uncompleted parts and have people add to or edit them.

I use Sibelius too, excellent program. I barely noticed a difference between V4 and V5 though. I wouldn't think you'd really need a guide though, its quite intuitive and you can get to grips with most things just by poking around and experimenting.

[quote name='The Funk' post='243183' date='Jul 19 2008, 04:42 AM']The feeling's mutual. [/quote] Lol, didn't get that for a few seconds .

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='242408' date='Jul 18 2008, 09:39 AM']Right; I'm gonna say it.....! Putting a funky groove to 'Fever' does not improve it - it is a turd. Polish it as much as you like it remains a turd. Captain Smith and Pocohontas my a***. 'Summertime' was written as light opera (Porgy and Bess) (and how you can call someone a contemporary musician when he died in 1937 is beyond me ). There are several good versions of it (the Miles Davis/GilEvans arrangement especially). Every other version I have heard or played has been a pale imitation and it has become embarrassing to play it or hear it played. It makes me cringe. Stop doing it. Now. I know you like it. I know you think its funky and great but it isn't. Its a sixteen bar minor blues. There are 1,000s of them. Find another one.[/quote] I can't stand funk, I dare anyone to try to make or call any tune I play on in any of my own bands (I'm 'co-bandleader' in my jazz band) funky. If you're around Chester anytime that we're playing, come see us. Possibly not revolutionary and we'll be fine tuning for a while yet, but you won't be disappointed.

Biggest I played was probably in a really big church in newquay, although it was pretty modern looking in there and it was a great gig. I wondered what happened to LRAP. I'm probably playing Fuse next year myself, did anyone go last weekend this year?