XB26354

It's the secondary dominant of the next chord because the basic flavour of the chord has been changed to make it a V leading into the next chord - F7 leads to Bb (which itself becomes the dominant for EbMaj7). As far as substitutions go, in Giant Steps chords and melody and soloing are all playing the substitutions - there are no "original" chords as such. If you wanted to use Giant Steps as a basis for improvising outside the original chords then chordal players need to be hip to this and play the original chords, or else the improvising and harmony will get rather lost as you say. This is a matter of experience (like "feeling" the right thing to play at the right time, as in every other style of music). I don't lay any special claim to having an ear for jazz - I just ended up listening to a lot because I liked it. As basically no-one knows about jazz nowadays unless they're pretty old (and therefore probably grew up with it) or they're a musician, is it any wonder that it appears alien and hard to "get"? Take your favourite songs. I'd imagine you've listened to them dozens of times, you probably know the lyrics off by heart and can probably play the song (or already have done). Imagine if you knew some jazz that intensively? Heard it on the radio every day, in bars and clubs all over town. Maybe if it was all around you like the X Factor it would be more familiar and hence more acceptable (or not!) You don't have to like it. Really. If you stick with learning and listening to jazz and after a couple of years you still don't like it, don't listen to it or play it. It will still be there in some form or another. And it will have improved both your ear and your ability as a musician, so nothing wasted!

Actually a sizeable number of well-known jazz musicians hate playing it and steer clear of it wherever possible, because the changes are so angular that it requires a lot of practice to develop anything resembling smooth lines over it. It often works better at a slightly less frantic tone, because even though the tune was groundbreaking when it was released, it's not particularly listenable after a few solo choruses. Even Coltrane repeats a few ideas over and over with slight variations. It does however open up more interesting ways to think about traditional II-V-I sequences - it was after all formulated as an exercise of sorts. Don't get stuck with Giant Steps the tune though - the album has some absolute classics (e.g. Naima), played at a much more reasonable tempo

Hi, These are "Coltrane Changes" - something that John Coltrane popularised with Giant Steps. The two progressions should be as follows: Original Fm7 / / / |Bb7 / / / |EbMaj7 / / / | Coltrane changes Bmaj7 / D7 / |Gmaj7 / Bb7 / | EbMaj7 / / / | Note that both sequeces are three bars and end V7-Imaj7. The idea is that one goes "outside" the regular changes in order to create more tension before resolving to the I chord (in this case, EbMaj7). Coltrane changes are characterised by moving key centres down in major thirds. Bar 1 starts Bmaj7, bar2 goes down a major third to Gmaj7, bar three down another major third to Ebmaj7 You can start this idea off like this: 1. Original - Fm7 / / / |Bb7 / / / |Ebmaj7 / / / | 2. Original replacing Im7 with I7 (secondary dominant) - F7 / / / |Bb7 / / / |Ebmaj7 / / / | 3. Use a tritone substitution on the F7 to get B7 - B7 / / / |Bb7 / / / |Ebmaj7 / / / | 4. Obtain the major third movement by adding Gmaj7 at the beginning of the second bar, and put the relevant V7 chord D7 just before it to create sound root-movement - B7 / D7 / |Gmaj7 / Bb7 / |Ebmaj7 / / / | 5. Finally change B7 to Bmaj7 so that the first chord in each bar implies a Imaj7 in keys descending in major thirds - Bmaj7 / D7 / |Gmaj7 / Bb7 / |Ebmaj7 / / / | If you then improvise over 5. whilst chordal players play 1. you have an introduction to playing outside the changes. As long as the ideas mean something to the progression in 5., then your improvising will sound sophisticated over 1. The general advice is play something inside (i.e. diatonic to 1.), then go outside by improvising as if the chords were 5., then come back inside to the original sequence. There's lot more about this kind of sequence in print - notably Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book, which devotes an entire chapter to it. Hope this helps Cheers Mat

Funny, I've almost always had the opposite experience. I've almost always found more expensive instruments to be better (and most of the time before I knew how much they cost). I've played all the Fenders in the Gallery and funnily enough the nicest-feeling one is the custom shop jazz - to me it's just got the right tone. As for 6-strings, there is an MTD and a Ken Smith, both £2K+. There is nothing else I've tried to touch them for variability in tone, build quality and feel. It may be that some of you that purchased less expensive instruments got lucky and got a very well-made one - I've certainly tried a lot of dogs even up to £600-£700+. I've owned a number of cheaper instruments in my time, from a Chinese Squier that cost £90, through to a MIM P-bass for just under £300. They served a purpose but ultimately I moved them on because I felt limited about how much I could express myself playing bass - not a hundred notes a second, often just one note. Of all the basses I've owned (and that's been most of the big makes, and several of each of the biggest makes), the highest price basses were generally the best. I must agree that the quality of budget instruments has increased a lot in the last 20 years. When I started playing £200-£300 would generally buy a pretty crap bass. Nowadays sub-£300 basses are good enough to gig and record with. I guess that as I improved as a player and played gigs in more varied situations and styles I found the shortcomings exposed with cheaper basses. Expensive is also a relative term - for a working professional who needs a versatile, ultra-reliable bass (or someone wealthy), £1000 is hardly a breaking the bank. For a beginner it's a big outlay as you may not even like it.

As a long-time player of 5 and 6-string basses I never found a Fender with a decent B until I tried a maple board USA P-5 standard. However it needed a pretty good working over to play right. 1. Dump the Fender strings - I don't know who makes them but they sounded crap on every Fender I've played. 2. Set the pickup right - make sure that the B and E have enough volume to match the naturally loud A and D strings. 3. Once you've chosen your strings, make sure they're not tapered - this bass loves non-tapered strings, and the natural P-bass sound seems to be preserved better. 4. Make sure the strings are properly bent at the tuner, the nut and the bridge. This seems to account for a lot of "duff" strings I have come across. They just need a nice sharp witness point. 5. Don't bother stringing through the body. It makes no difference to my ears and just invites premature string breaks 6. Give the strings room to breathe - if the action is mega low the B and E seem to lose their tone A great bass nonetheless - tuners are very good, balance seems better and the HMV bridge works a treat! Shame you can only get it in Candy Cola and Black (I wanted the sunburst!)

Hi, Carrying on from Bilbo's excellent work, here's Ruby Baby from the same album. I've written it with straight 8ths with a note to be played swung to make the chart clearer. One of the hardest things to nail on this track is the precise feel and note placement (as on all the tracks on this CD!). Just look at the lineup for this track alone: Piano - Michael Omartian and Greg Phillinganes (Don plays electric piano, organ and synths) Guitar - Larry Carlton and Hugh McCracken Drums - Jeff Porcaro and James Gadson Bass - Anthony Jackson Trumpet/Flugelhorn - Randy Brecker Tenor Sax - Michael Brecker Backing Vocals - Valerie Simpson and Donald Fagen Hope you enjoy and any corrections/suggestions are welcome! Cheers Mat

Thanks Bilbo for a great transcription of a great tune. Chords: Bar 1 is F13 (listen to the keys). Bar 8 - underlying harmony suggests a minor II-V so Em7b5 - A7b13 going into Dm9-G13 in bar 9. A lot of II-V's in this tune move as min9-dominant 13. Bars 11-12 should be Cmaj7 / F7 / Em7b5 / A7b13 (the b13 is hinted at by the guitar but is consistent with the harmony). Bar 18 - chord symbol needs to be Gb or see the next point below about enharmonics. Bars 23, 24, 34, 38, 56, 61, 62, 72, and 76 - either the chord needs to read Gb or the notes should be changed eharmonically to match the existing root of the chord symbol. In addition these chords sound like tritone moves from the root C7 leading into the F7/(9) and don't sound like aug7 chords - perhaps the #5 would be better written as a b13? Bars 20 and 58 - I hear this as a min7b5. Bar 45 is Em7b5. Bar 74 is Bb7(9?). Bars 91-92 - there is a common high C for all but the last chord then it's unlikely that they're all straight 7 chords. Perhaps - Gb7#11, F7, E7b13, Eb13, D7, then Dbmaj7, leading into... Last chord's a CMaj7#11 (top note of the chord on the keys). The above are my best guesses and of course could be wrong! I also remember that transcription in Bassist years ago, which as I vaguely remember was also very good. The weird thing about this tune is that I can hardly hear Will Lee's bass as it is so locked in with the doubled keyboard line. For a long time I though it was just keyboard. As a general note Lucas Pickford's website has transcriptions for Green Flower Street, The New Frontier and The Nightfly, which apart from a few glaring mistakes are pretty good. Got to www.lucaspickford.com and have a look at all the other great tunes - most done by others but he obviously has "ear chops" for days! I'm not up to much today so I'm going to tackle IGY and Ruby Baby and stick them up here if anyone's interested. Cheers Mat

I'd be careful with current Warwick straplocks, all the ones I've tried (on the many Warwicks I've had over the last 10 years or so) have come out of the strap button all too easily whilst I was playing.

If you do decide on the Squier Classic Vibe then the Jazz is superb value for money. I've tried a couple side by side with US jazzes in the Gallery and the difference is really small, despite being £600+ cheaper

The Warwick Corvette 6 has a 52mm nut. The ash version I had sported a fairly chunky neck, so your best bet in your price range is either the ESP or the SR506 - of the two, the SR506 has by far the thinner neck profile. They've got both an ESP 6 and an SR506 at the Gallery in Camden at the moment (which makes for a quick and easy comparison!)

If you like Chaka Khan then "Chaka Khan", "Naughty" and "What Cha Gonna Do For Me" have got some killer bass lines. Anthony Jackson plays a Fender tuned C-F-Bb-Eb, but there's also Marcus Miller, Abe Laboriel and the fantastic Willie Weeks. A guy on the internet called Stevie Glasgow has brilliant transcriptions on his website, should you want to tackle some reading too. Stain by Living Colour has some great tracks (Doug Wimbish gets an amazing grinding tone out of his Spectors).

One thing that mystifies me is why Fender can no longer make a bass with a sunburst finish using 2 pieces of wood for the body. I bought a US Deluxe Jazz 5 just over a year ago - alder body, 3 pieces. Now the joins were pretty clean but from the back it was obvious. Not great on a bass that now goes for £1300. I guessed that either they were doing it to save weight, or because of a lack of the best alder, but other manufacturers at the same price point can do it. Either don't offer see-through finishes or make them the way they used to! I'd also like them not to have massive routs under the pickguard, esp on a jazz bass as it often looks cool to go Jaco-esque and remove it. No chance on a current Fender. That said, the American Standard P 5 I've tried recently was awesomely good.

Didn't Wunjo used to be round the corner wedged between the Korean restaurants round the back of the Centrepoint?

[quote name='Musicman20' post='581659' date='Aug 26 2009, 05:34 PM']I am off to the Gallery on Saturday, so I might try the same one's out. That exactly what I thought, the 09 Fender just had a better sound, to me anyway. Can I ask, how good are the Fender 5's? I hear silly rumours that their B doesnt really cut it....but I also hear the new ones are REALLY good for their money. Thanks[/quote] I think it is Jazz 5's that seem to have the problem. The US standard P-bass 5 I tried has an excellent B (as long as you change the stock Fender strings, and play around with pickup height). I've moved on a US Deluxe Jazz 5 and the aforementioned Sado RV5 primarily because I wasn't happy with the B (or the circuit tbh). Then again I tried a 1996 US Standard (with the 5-in-a-line tuners) that was on commission sale at the Gallery a few months ago and that had a great B, so maybe it is pot luck?

I've had 2 Metros - an MV5 a couple of years ago and an RV5 I bought here a couple of months ago. The MV5 had a lovely satin neck and sounded wicked. I got rid of it on a whim and have regretted it ever since. The RV5, although finished to a scarily high standard (2-piece body and finished under the pickguard with no routing - Fender take note!), it didn't do it for me I'm afraid. B string sounded dull to my ears with Sadowsky strings (which I found out were duds anyway) and even the prized DRs, which sound fab on every bass I've played and owned for years. Im now happily using a lovely Spector 6 (thanks CrazyKiwi) and a quite literally awesome American Standard P 5-string - light as a feather, fantastic neck and a tone to die for even on the B.

[quote name='silddx' post='580647' date='Aug 25 2009, 08:22 PM']Thank you I did! But my searches proved fruitless. Would you mind telling me what your search terms were please? Also, I'm only planning to sand it back a little, the grain enhancement of the stain is actually not unlike how "they" do the Mary Kaye finish anyway.[/quote] Here's the thread I mentioned: [url="http://forum.warwick.de/18-warwick-custom-shop/8468-taking-high-polish-finish-off.html"]http://forum.warwick.de/18-warwick-custom-...finish-off.html[/url] Don't be fooled by the title - the bass is oiled honey violin. I just typed "remove oil finish".

I'm sure you've popped over to the Warwick forum as there are one or two posts about 'wick owners sanding oiled finishes. I'd guess the only thing to be wary of is the stain soaking in more in some places rather than others. I considered it with a SS1 in nirvana black (the stain looked like it was non-standard, almost dark burgundy) but sold it in the end as dark oiled finishes are really hard to completely remove. There was one thread about a guy who sanded off the honey violin finish on his streamer and it looked good in the end (but took him ages).

Pitch, scale length and mass. (Theorectically) a string of given pitch, scale length and mass has fixed tension. The only way to change the tension is to a.) change the tuning of the string, b.) change the scale length or c) change the string mass (gauge). Different materials have different mass so that is another option for c.). Low tension strings are most likely thinner gauge strings that bend more easily and more freely, meaning more likelihood of fret buzz with a very low action. Great for Blues guitar impressions though!

Although technically a triad, GCE would not normally be considered a diatonic chord in the key of G major because the major part assumes a major third B and perfect 5th D. The notes C and E would be diatonic as third and fifth of Amin (ACE), the second diatonic triad in the key of G major. CEG is also the fourth triad of G major. Most western harmony is built in thirds, so the perfect fourth above the root G suggests either a second inversion C chord or some kind of suspended chord. It helps to think of the notes as they would appear in the alphabet rather than the voicing (arrangement to harmonise with the music) when trying to work out chords. In most cases, if someone played a random G, C and E on the piano then a C triad is the most likely - CEG. There are always other possibilities, but these are usually obvious in context (i.e., the harmony is based on suspended chords).

Rounds - if I wanted my bass to sound like it was being played in the shed at the bottom of the garden I'd buy a double bass

Lumber yards have thousands of tons of trees because they cut them down! If there is a maker nearby that builds a relationship with them they might allocate some stock with the types of wood and grain patterns the builder is looking for but it is a drop in the ocean compared to total stock of wood. Again I read somewhere in a trade publication (have to look this up!) that instrument manufacture accounts for about 2% of total logging. Compare that with 54% (in South America) for slash and burn farming. This does not take into account more recent overuse of certain exotic hardwoods like wenge, bubinga and ovangkol as you rightly mention.

[quote name='Gwilym' post='567176' date='Aug 12 2009, 07:16 PM']on the topic of ethics, I've always wondered about what % of new instruments are manufactured from renewable wood sources, and other recycled materials.[/quote] It's funny you should mention wood from renewable sources for instruments as furniture is far more responsible for deforestation. I remember reading something about this stating that 40% of all deforestation for furniture in the Amazon since 1950 was for Japan for screens and enamelled wardrobes etc. - goods which don't even need solid wood. It is true that instruments require the best cuts of wood and there is often a lot of timber wasted in finding that wood, but most of those offcuts get used, either sold on to other industries or used for fuel. Lumber yards have thousands of tons of wood and I'd guess that even Fender only takes about 5% of the stock from their sources. Then there is the land clearing for grazing beef cattle in the Amazon, the massive deforestation in Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia for palm oil, and don't forget logging for fuel. I'd love to see all guitars and basses to be made from already cut old wood or sustainable stock - but other industries account for the problem. With regard to country of origin, it is likely that instrument factories have better conditions than clothing or cheap disposable goods factories as the ticket price is much higher, allowing more profit to be made, plus workers need to have more skills than just basic machinery knowledge, so are likely to be paid a bit more. Ethically speaking there is a lot of dodgy practices, partly because the factory owners want to get rich, partly because although China is a communist country the gap between rich and poor is even wider than in the West, so those with more money and status are pretty untouchable, and lastly because the government does fix wages in a lot of industries to keep them artificially low (I know people in the clothing industry in Hong Kong, and the things they get up to are unbelieveable). At the same time there is the demand from the West, but at prices that only these countries can manufacture goods for. If beginners were prepared to pay £800 minimum for a bass then every bass could be made in the US or Europe, but the truth is a lot want to pay sub-£500, and East and South-East Asia fills the majority of that market.

Aside from some vintage gear do many musicians actually go back? I've been visiting Denmark Street for about 20 years and I have bought 1) A bottle of Lemon oil (7 years ago for a fiver and still got it), and 2) Reading Contemporary Electric Bass Rhythms by Rich Appleman in Rose Morris (Chappells didn't have it). I have never bought a bass, amp or effects from any shop because the price is way too high and the attitude doesn't just suck, it totally stinks! I'd agree Wunjo is better in this respect but most of the shops look like they're going out of business anyway. The Gallery has been my place to visit for over 15 years, plus the range of basses available p*sses over anything in Denmark Street (and most of the rest of the UK, for that matter!)

Just bought the Boss LS-2 off Nik. In perfect condition and sent very quickly by Special Delivery (even though I only asked for a signature). Top bloke! Cheers Mat