XB26354

I thought Janek's column in this month's mag was excellent. It does seem that there is more substance to the magazine as a whole, and aside from the typos and alternate notation conventions, is one of the most interesting editions I've read in quite a while.

[quote name='henry norton' post='557813' date='Aug 1 2009, 02:36 PM']Hence, one of the latest trends is to have just one high quality passive pickup and no tone controls at all![/quote] Er.. Anthony Jackson, love him or hate, him, has had that setup for donkey's years. Gary Willis had a single Bartolini with no controls at all at one point (I believe Ibanez insisted on at least a volume control for his signature bass).

As a teacher, that's a tricky question to answer, because what do you mean by feel? I think it means different things to different people. Having a feel for a style of music usually means more than being able to play with a certain attitude - it often goes as far as living the life or culture of that style of music. Take latin music (a very broad description of about 30-40 different distinct styles) for example. It is based on rhythm, so just about every latin player needs to at least understand how all the percussion instruments work, or even better, play some of them. Jimmy Haslip is an example of someone who grew up with latin music and culture, and learned to play lots of different percussion instruments, before he even picked up the bass. He's often not thought of as one of the "greats" but has a very sophisticated rhythmic sense. If you identify with the origins and culture of a style then your ability to approximate a feel is much more likely to sound genuine. A teacher can only open a students eyes and ears - the rest is down to the student.

Just to dip my toe in the water.... I also own several Aebersold books. In my mind their function is to get your playing together, to understand how to play over jazz, both as an accompanist and as a soloist. These are foundational skills required to have a working knowledge of standard chord structures and the most well-known tunes. Just as classical musicians learn the "repertoire", so budding jazz musicians need to learn the language. The next step is to play with other musicians to learn how to interact and also to make your sound fit with a group. Without this step it is very hard to be a professional player or to go to the next step of developing a voice and vocabulary of your own. The problem is the lack of places to play. What chance do most young players have to develop? Music colleges are a very poor substitute. So, the aebersold playalongs give you the opportunity to hear world-class musicians playing familiar material. The only downside of playalongs and jazz is that they are the same every time, so you do lose the spontaneity of improvisation. With regard to modes and other theory devices, they are just sounds. Jazz is really ear music, so I think it is better to listen to sounds and react to them rather than to pigeon-hole something as "modal" or bebop - and I'm pretty sure when the musicians of the time were creating the music they weren't thinking in those terms. Mat

I think the most important piece of advice is that if you get a 5-string, don't view it as your normal bass with an extra string chucked on the bottom for the occasional low note - play all 5 strings equally. You mention you like playing higher up the neck. In fact playing low E or F on the B-string has a different tone to open E/1st fret F on the E-string. Darker and fuller. As for tuning EADGC, a number of modern fusion players employ it, like Matt Garrison,Tony Grey and Janek Gwizdala. However, I'd think carefully about what you want to do with bass - if you primarily play bass lines rather than chords or solos the low B is much more useful. I've recently stepped down from 6-strings to 5-strings just because it's a lot easier to play regular bass without reaching over that extra string all the time. It's funny you mention having nowhere to put the thumb when playing the E-string as when I play a four now I feel a bit lost when playing the E! I'm sure some here will advise you not to anchor your thumb (or at least not too hard), so that shouldn't be too much of an issue. As for spacing etc. you really have to try a bass to be comfortable. Narrow spacing isn't always the best as your left hand can get cramped, especially if you play root then 5th below repeatedly. Whatever you choose be sure to let us know how you get on! Cheers Mat

I know how you feel as I am adding a US Standard P 5-string to my RV5. I wasn't interested in a Jazz bass as the RV5 already covers so many bases. I can get the perfect passive tone out of the Sadowsky - the only thing it won't do is that pure p-bass tone, hence the Fender. If you do go for it I recommend choosing a different fingerboard to the one you have on your Sadowsky, i.e., if the Sadowsky has a maple board, get a rosewood board Fender, and vice versa.

It's funny you mention this. After playing for 25 years, owning everything from a Ken Smith 6 to a Status headless 5 to numerous Warwicks I've ended up with a Sadowsky RV5 and an American Standard Precision Bass 5-string - so basically a jazz bass and a p-bass. Why? because the p-bass has such a rich, natural sound, even down to the open B, and the Sadowsky just snaps. They're light, very comfortable, balance perfectly and sound brilliant. I feel like a luddite, however I like my 5-strings and don't really hanker after vintage Fenders - played a few and I always miss that low B

Eh up forgot about this section! Bought a lovely Sadowsky Metro RV5 from Rich a couple of weeks ago, he was a pleasure to deal with, even gave me a lift to from the station. The bass was excellent and in perfect condition. Nice guy and highly recommended. Cheers Mat

I agree with just about everything - it is a great, great bass let down slightly by the very low output circuit (or is it the pickup?) I believe the circuit on the silly money 1005 is just a standard 2-band Bartolini job, but the soapbar is custom for that bass and not offered separately. Any good quality replacement should do - however you'll have to be careful with the housing size as I think the PU on the GWB35 is non-standard.

I think the visual element should not be ignored. If you fret any given note, and you have a) a string above the current string and at least one fret behind the one you are playing, then up a string and back a fret will always be a major third. On piano a major third can be two white keys, two black keys, a white key and a black key or a black key and a white key! Rather than just one shape learn all the possible combinations of shape (or harmony in a given position and how it links to other positions). Learning shapes gives us the muscle memory to play them quicker too. Of course the actual note names are important, but complete knowledge is what you know + what you can see + what you feel when you play + what you hear.

Or even Lakland Joe Osborn 5 - it has passive JJ and there's a nice one in natural for sale here.

Swapping pickups makes very little difference to the tone of a bass. I've tried identical corvettes and streamers with MEC passive, MEC active, Bartolini, EMG and Seymour Duncans and they all sound pretty much the same. I also had a custom made bass once where I tried several different pickups (with the same circuit) and the bass sounded the same. The output volume will vary - more coils = more gain - but the tone hardly changes. Maybe look at a different circuit?