Steve Lawson

[quote]What's everybody else's thoughts on LCM? Has anyone else studied there?[/quote] not been there, but it does have a good reputation, has done for years. I've done masterclasses at Salford Uni, which looks to be a pretty good place to study too - as a side point, here's the story of my audition there when I applied in my teens to study there... [url="http://steve.anthropiccollective.org/archives/2008/02/bluffing.html"]http://steve.anthropiccollective.org/archi...2/bluffing.html[/url] Steve

[quote name='nickcarey' post='144284' date='Feb 21 2008, 11:39 AM']Beedster is so right. Teaching is the complete opposite where the tutor should bring out the best in students. I am a firm believer in active learning (or 'Experiential Learning') where students go through self discovery guided by the tutor rather than being 'fed' information in a one way process like sitting in a lecture.[/quote] Very much so. Very well put, Steve www.stevelawson.net

A few thoughts - the information you get from a teacher will be held in the balance with the inspiration you get from a teacher. Someone can give you good information about the 'science' of music (diatonic theory and how it maps out on the fingerboard of a bass, the mechanics of reading music, some insight into playing a particular style) while providing nothing in the way of inspiration to find out what it is that you want from music. Or have to give to music. A good teaching environment, whether private or class, will provide both - teach the rules with an emphasis on breaking them to find your own voice. Classes have limitations and advantages - you can't expect a bespoke full time course from a university. If you're self-motivated, you could get that kind of information by having intense regular private lessons - I've had students that have had two two-hour lessons a week before now, but were playing pretty much full time in between. The intensity of a college course in a bespoke setting, but without any of the interaction with other students playing their instrument. Fortunately, the players in question were in bands and so were trying it out and finding their way in their own context. Which reminds me, context is everything. All the mechanics of music mean pretty much nothing without context - every area of music requires a degree of mechanized skill (even songwriting) but also a fair dose of fairy dust to make it work. Analyzing common song forms won't make you write great songs any more than learning how to mix 47 shades of yellow will make you Van Gough, but it does give you a framework and a context into which to pour your passions. Becoming a unique, creative and inspiring musician is really hard. No college course or teaching can MAKE that happen, however a good creative environment (be that a group of friends, or a band, or a college or a relationship with a teacher) will REMOVE obstacles to where you want to go to, and provide illumination on other possible places you hadn't even thought of. The same college course will be the perfect environment for one person and a disaster for another, based largely on what they choose to take from it. If you are the kind of person who is motivated by and feeds off interaction with a lot of other musicians in the same boat as you, then college will give you that in a way that private lessons never will. Arguably you could also get it from joining multiple bands and just playing as much as possible, though the 'lessons' will be less focused... I agree that education is in a pretty disastrous state in the UK. The shift that Beedster highlights, from teaching being an aspirational vocation to become 'what people do when they realise they can't get a job in their chosen field' is awful. It bodes so so badly for the future. However, I do think that musicians actually fair better than most in this way, precisely because the path to originality, inspiration and finding your voice aren't mechanised, and the inspiration can be found in a whole lot of different environments. I went to one of the first 'rock schools' in the country, in Perth in Scotland, and was deeply deeply inspired by being there. Yes, I had to play the bass parts to crappy 80s pop songs in a lame band with singers that were awful, drummers that couldn't groove, and with no concern given to 'having something to say' or 'playing it like you mean it', but I was still playing, and through that was formulating what it was I wanted to do as a player, what I wanted from music, and where I wanted to go (which at the time had nothing to do with playing solo bass - I was a professional bassist for almost 7 years before I ever did a solo gig)... I draw on what I learned at college every day, I draw on the inspiration to think, to play, to break rules, to mean something, to be as good as I can be at what I do. There were other people on my course who didn't get any of that from it, who thought it wasn't worth doing. And perhaps that comes back to the idea that if you're going to do it, you're going to do it whatever, and if you're not, you're not. What a good college/teacher/music study peer group will do is find, encourage and nurture that desire for creativity and excellence. One thing I will say is that if you are thinking of 'becoming a music student', you might be better of thinking of yourself as one already, and then looking for the best environment in which to work on the things that you care about. I'm a music student, have been since I picked up the instrument. I still look for places and people to inspire and teach me as I go along, look for ways to shape my outlook, give me a new perspective and an environment in which to learn and grow. I didn't start being a music student when I went to college, and didn't stop when I left. The situation you're in won't change how you think about the process of gleaning the information you require, or your quest for inspiration. Hopefully, it will provide you with stepping stones, and will inspire you to do more, and provide you with a process to get where you want to be if you're willing to do the work, rather than telling you not to bother. What I'll also say is that the two colleges I have experience with in the London area - the ACM and ICMP - have some really really great bass teachers at them. You can look at the course material, time-table and cost yourselves and decide if they work for you, but the bit that I can say I endorse wholeheartedly is the quality of the teachers that I know. It's also worth mentioning that I've had quite a few students who've come to me for more specific private lessons while studying at one or other of the London colleges or music universities - I don't think that reflects badly on the college, as to expect a class-based environment to provide what everyone needs is unrealistic in all but the most mechanistic of study areas (as Beedster so wisely highlighted). cheers Steve www.stevelawson.net

CDbaby is DEFINITELY the way to go with this - a one-stop shop for getting your stuff on so many different digital services. They take a relatively small percentage, and their set up fee is charged in USDollars which aren't worth anythign at the moment ...oh, and for calling the states cheap, get Skype-out. cheers Steve www.stevelawson.net

[quote name='Mike' post='136404' date='Feb 8 2008, 11:49 AM']ped, mp3fiesta seems incredibly cheap. Like, $0.50 for an entire Pat Metheny album. It's all legit, right?[/quote] depends on how you define 'legit' - it's 'legal' in Russia, though I'd think that technically it would be illegal to 'import' those tracks into the UK, as the 'licenses' that are paid are not recognised internationally. Russian law takes a very laissez-faire approach to copyright law. But if you're buying an entire album for 50c (25p) - the artist is clearly not getting more than that, probably a lot less, clearly less than their cut would be on one track downloaded from just about any other legit service. If you want cheap, ethical legal legit downloads, try www.emusic.com - for £11.99 a month I get 50 tracks... for jazzy stuff where there are often very long tracks on each album, that can amount to a heck of a lot of music for not much dough... Steve www.stevelawson.net

...I was planning on going, but I've got way too much on here that week now, sadly... Have fun those of you that are there! Steve

[quote name='NickThomas' post='142223' date='Feb 17 2008, 11:40 PM']Good grief!! Please tell me it wasnt your accugroove speakers Steve lol[/quote] No, thankfully it was the house piece of crap Peavey combo - was always problematic, but never previously fit the title 'incendiary device'... Steve

Just got in from a gig at Smollensky's on the Strand, where the bass amp literally burst into flames when I switched it on!!! Bits of burning speaker cone were being spat out onto the floor!! I'm just glad my legs weren't in front of it at the time, or I'd have got burned too... The rest of the gig went OK, despite the fact that the entire backline and PA for the show then consisted of one mackie powered monitor that the guitarist and I were both going through... Steve

Update - you can now order tickets online... [url="http://www.stevelawson.net/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=19"]just click here[/url] - it's through my online shop... cheers! Steve www.stevelawson.net

Weirdly the same company that own planet rock have shut down their other specialist station 'TheJazz' - given that Jazz has one of the most easily definable 'affluent demographics', according to marketeers, you'd have thought they'd be able to make it work... the two stations had 900,000 listeners between them - how does that work out to failing radio??? Surely in DAB terms, that's a pretty major slice of the pie... It's a shame, both ways, Steve

Hi Rory, I guess the first thing to keep in mind is that for a vendor with a booth, being at a trade show is REALLY expensive, so their first thought is that they want to make contacts that are going to make them money. If what you're wanting to talk to people about is something that you can spell out to them as being financially advantageous in about 30 seconds, then people will more likely to talk to you cold. If it isn't, you may want to send some emails and make some phone calls before hand, spelling out what you're up to in more detail, and offering to drop by and talk to them at Frankfurt. Being known in the industry shouldn't be a problem, because a show like Frankfurt is SOO huge that no-one expects to know who everyone is, still it will help if you can make some other connection when talking to people ('ah, my friend ****** uses your amps....' or 'I frequently go to ******** shop that stocks your books' or even better 'I often recommend your books to my students' etc.) Be warned, Frankfurt is huge, noisy and a particularly unpleasant place to do business. I may be going this year to catch up with some friends and do a little business, but NAMM is a much easier place for most of that stuff, and doesn't have the public day like Frankfurt does on the Saturday, which makes it unbearable noise-wise. Seeing school kids jacked up on sugar and junk food stamping really hard on some poor guy's pedal board just because they walked past it and felt like it did not fill me with a sense of safety for my gig. I hid it in the back room of the booth I was demoing on for a lot of the day last year... Having said that, it does have a very high concentration of people in the right industry in one place at one time. That can be very useful, and it's well worth going if you can, just keep those caveats in mind, and don't be too offended if you get cut off half way through a meeting because the owner of a massive chain of shops comes up wanting to talk to the product vendor - they aren't about to miss out on a deal potentially worth 100s of 1000s in order to talk to you about supplying cheap gear to a recording studio or some kind of artist endorsement program. cheers! Steve www.stevelawson.net

Hi all, I've just booked a really amazing gig for March 4th at [url="http://www.darbucka.com"]Darbucka World Music Bar[/url] in Clerkenwell (the venue home of the [url="http://www.recyclecollective.com"]Recycle Collective[/url]). The line up will feature a really diverse range of solo bassists - [b][url="http://www.toddjohnsonmusic.com"]TODD JOHNSON[/url][/b] - on his first visit to the UK, Todd is one of the finest electric jazz bassists on the planet, and is known to many via his amazing DVD tuitional series, his loads of [url="http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=toddjohnsonmusic"]youtube clips[/url] and his amazing playing with the Ron Eschete Trio. Not to be missed! [b][url="http://www.myspace.com/yolandacharles"]YOLANDA CHARLES[/url][/b] - playing her [b]first ever all solo show[/b] (!!) Yolanda is one of the most instantly recognisable bassists in the country, thanks to her work with Robbie Williams and Paul Weller. She's also front woman for her own amazing funk band, MamaYo, who some of you will have seen at Bass Day 2006. [EDIT]from her myspace page it looks like MamaYo is no more, so I guess she's focusing on playing under her own name for now...[/EDIT] Her songs are great, her bass playing's funky, and this is one debut you really don't want to miss! and [b][url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]STEVE LAWSON (ME)[/url][/b] - this'll be my first solo gig in London for MONTHS, and hopefully there'll be some new material on display... There'll also be time for some Q and A with all three performers. Tickets will be £6 in advance or £7 on the door - advance tickets will be available ASAP from the online shop at www.stevelawson.net I'm really excited about this gig - it's always great to get to play alongside musicians you really respect! See you there! Steve www.stevelawson.net

If any of you guys are interested in learning walking bass and jazz theory, Todd Johnson's one of the best there is at teaching that stuff. Great teacher, great player - definitely highly recommended! He's the only person I've had a bass lesson from in the last 15 years. Steve www.stevelawson.net

Having been away in the US since the middle of December, thought I'd let those of you that are in any way interested know that I'll be back teaching in Herne Hill, South London from Feb 4th - email or PM if you want to arrange something. cheers! Steve www.stevelawson.net

Not going this year, but it's a great event - I'm sure you'll have a fabulous time. I've played there 3 times, I think, and really enjoyed it each time. Also saw some great players there - Hadrien Feraud, Claudio Zanghieri, Carlos Benevante and my favourite last year was Ric Fierabracci with Bill Evans' Soulgrass, which was a really really great gig. cheers Steve www.stevelawson.net

[quote name='SJA' post='95299' date='Nov 27 2007, 08:55 PM']the validity of the analogies of the guitarist changing guitars or a band changing tempo depends on whether the music they play doesn't vary in any way otherwise. you do overly rely on effects- I've seen you play live 3 times now (in the vain hope that I'd get to hear something i liked) and every time it's the same story of relying on a reverse effect, pitch shift etc. to wring some kind of variation out of some unremarkable riff or idea.[/quote] I'm surprised you came to see me three times. But thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, even if the search for whatever it was you were looking for in my music proved fruitless. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to the accusation that I 'overly rely on effects' when as stated, I don't see processed or unprocessed sound as being any different - it's just sound. I don't overly rely on it any more than any musician who releases recordings relies on sound for their work not to just be sheet music. I use the sounds I think are right for the music I've written - I tend to view my sound set as being like my band - I use a tremolo sound for chords rather often in the way that a band with a Fender Rhodes player would have them play on the songs, I use a pitch shifted sound for the melodies because I like the sound and it puts the tune in a different register to the accompaniment... It's just a sound palette. [quote]that would be a drummer who can't freely vary their playing, changing their style, pattern on the spot- plus stops you from throwing in a chord change on the spot. it IS limiting.[/quote] ...only is as much as any set of parameters is limiting. It's also liberating. Without a looper, a band who wanted 15 layers of bass would be stuck. So not having 15 bassists is limiting, if that's what you want. It has it's parameters, just as bass/guitar/drums is a set of parameters, or writing for classical orchestra. They are a set of parameters I greatly enjoy, and find inspiring. Chord changes on the spot are quite possible, as are style, tempo, harmony... it's all in the arrangement. I tend not to do those things because I don't write music just to fully exploit what's possible with a looper - I'm not writing demo music for the technology I use... [quote]as for me being rude, well, i've seen Steve himself be pretty rude himself about other peoples' music in his blogs- eg. calling Velvet revolver "sh*t on a stick". I've got a bit tired of his attitude of smug superiority, sorry if I've put a spanner in the works of his self-promotion scheme.[/quote] It would seem that the pertinent bit there would be that it was on my blog. I'd be unlikely to go onto a rock site and post about my dislike for VR's set at Live8 in a thread about Duff's bass-playing, or join a thread where Duff McKagan was posting and tell him I didn't like his band - and were Duff to approach me about it, I'd probably apologise (though maybe even Duff would have to concur that Scott Weiland looked like Blakey off On The Buses when he wore that hat on stage) I've certainly printed retractions on my blog before when challenged about the unfairness of something I've written. Not that I'm suggesting you shouldn't have posted what you did - clearly your opinion of what I do is different from mine, or I wouldn't be playing the music I play. I'm surprised that I've managed to wind you up to the degree that you would post what you've posted, given that in the context of this thread, we're probably coming at it from the same angle (that music ought to be judged on its own merits, rather than by the tools that are employed to create it), but it would seem from your last comment that the thread itself was just a chance to put me in my place. No spanners thrown into the works of any self-promotion scheme - any 'scheme' I have is to allow people to listen to what I do and make their mind up. I'm sure the people who read and post here are big enough to do that, as they do with tonnes of other music on a daily basis... If you have further issues with what I've said, it'd probably be better to take it off-forum, though I'm guessing that such a conversation would prove equally fruitless, given that your assessment of what I do musically is not one I concur with, and the criteria by which you're judging it aren't ones that I can relate to. Sorry to have riled you so - it clearly wasn't my intention, Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

[quote name='ARGH' post='95254' date='Nov 27 2007, 07:01 PM']Have to say,I sort of agree...Ive seen Steve start off intending to play a tune,and it then vears off in some direction,and Steves apologised to the Audience.[/quote] For what it's worth, nothing unintentional ever happens in those situations... the 'apology' is for comic effect... If I genuinely felt I owed an audience an apology, I'd stop gigging... The veering off is why I love looping - the option to do that just doesn't exist if you're working with a backing track. It's possible if you're manipulating and processing pre-recorded loops in Ableton Live or such like, but you're still stuck with the original source material. With real time looping (especially with the Looperlative), the number of possibilities for where a particular tune can go is endless... that's what keeps it interesting for me. cheers Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

[quote name='SJA' post='95244' date='Nov 27 2007, 06:42 PM']IIRC his fretted Zon headless (Vinny?) is in standard tuning and has no retuning options on it-[/quote] he varies the tuning a fair bit, but with standard strings on it. [quote]SL relies on effects for variation, and frankly it just gets boring very quickly. and looping lost its novelty a long time ago, and now the limitations it places on the music just stifle it.[/quote] I've no desire to 'defend' what I do - there are always going to be people who dislike what I do, and there's no earthly reason why someone who doesn't like what I do 'should' like it. However, I always find it odd when people say my (or anyone else's) music 'relies' on effects - I don't see processed or unprocessed sound as being any different. It's like saying a guitarist relies on different guitars for variation, or a band rely on different tempos for variation. I also don't see Looping as a limitation at all, I see it as a Liberating tool, as I stated in an earlier post, opening up the option to layer sound in a way that would be impossible with live musicians (given that repeatedly playing a line and looping it have a very different effect on the listener) - Looping is no more a limitation than having a drummer in your band who doesn't also play a melody instrument... That you don't like the way I write or play is completely fine with me - I'm not writing or performing music for you, clearly. But my choice of processing gear, my bass technique, my looping approach are all things that are there to serve the music I play, the music I hear in my head and then make happen with a bass in my hands. My motivation to do what I do is neither defined by my looking for a gimmick or my inability to find musicians to play my music for me. When I need or want other players involved, that happens too. Hence [url="http://www.recyclecollective.com"]The Recycle Collective[/url]. I don't recommend it though, as it also involves a lot of heavily processed musicians and often lots of looping too. Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

[quote name='SJA' post='95216' date='Nov 27 2007, 06:01 PM']I saw Steve play alongside Michael Manring (at the Troubadour in 2004), and sorry, Steve, Michael made far more memorable, stirring music, and happened to be using 4 string basses.[/quote] Ignoring for a moment that you're talking about my music, given that 'ERB ' stands for 'extendend range bass', the range of the Hyperbass is WAY beyond anything that my bass can get to (given that michael uses as much pitch-shifting as I do, I'll discount the extra octave in either direction that we both use.) But that was the point of all this at the start of the discussion, wasn't it, that it's all about music first, not how many strings you use. Michael sounds like a genius whether he's looping Teen Town on the Hyperbass or playing an unprocessed standard tuned four string acoustic bass guitar. I love what he does, I think he's without doubt the most exciting, original and inspiring composer and player ever to pick up the bass guitar. He plays, thinks, writes and improvises in a very different way to me, that's why I love playing with him. He's a musician that frustrates a lot of bassists because he doesn't play 'bass music' at all, he writes more like composers in the contemporary chamber music world. I'm sure he'd be equally inspiring on a 3 string bass as he would if he decided to play a 7. And that's the beauty of music, and of venues that have bars upstairs - next time Michael and I tour you can sit out my set, and come down for his. You'll have a quandary on your hands when we play together though. Steve

[quote name='gypsymoth' post='94598' date='Nov 26 2007, 03:50 PM']whether you are playing a single instrument solo, or looping and layering it with effects, or doing multiple instruments, the whole concept and process is a struggle of limitations and compromise.[/quote] ...as is all musical performance, if you have some 'ideal' in mind. I used to be really confused as to why so many of the artists I looked up to hated listening to their own recordings, whereas I love listening to mine - was I just a narcissist, and they were 'true artists' or what? Then I noticed the one fundamental difference in the way their music was created - if you write music ahead of time, then set about realising it, it's a very rare thing for the end result to be all that you imagined it to be when you started. Your primary question about the end result is 'is it right?' - which is not the question your audience are asking. They are asking 'is it good?'. The beauty and wonder of improvised music is that it allows the artist to sit with the listener - I get to the end of a recording (I improvise pretty much everything in the studio) and ask myself 'is it good?' - I have no prior concept of 'right' because I wasn't necessarily aiming for something specific in the first place. So I can hear new things in my own music each time I listen, and don't hear what should be there and isn't, because there is no 'should'. If you contrast this with ensemble improv, one can often be left wishing that the other musicians would do certain things, hoping that they're respond to the changes you've put into the music, and go with it, that they'll hear the shift in the harmony, that they'll understand what you're getting at... That can be a huge frustration and can lead to way more compromise than solo improvisation, which at its best is unfettered. I've been unbelievably lucky to assemble a community of improvisors around myself with the [url="http://www.recyclecollective.com"]Recycle Collective[/url] - improvisors who bring things to an improvised music setting that I wouldn't dream of conceiving. I attempt to empty my mind of any fixed notions of where a piece 'should' go, and allow myself to get lost in the imagination and creativity of my fellow players, responding with my own musical palette to their leading, and then leading it myself when the musical dialogue suggests that would be a good thing. At its best, it ends up far greater than a sum of its parts. At it's worst, it's still flippin' amazing. I've VERY picky about who I'll do those kinds of gigs with, because bad improv is horrible. I don't want to end up doing 'funk in E' for hours on end, or trading licks like Freddie Mercury doing his 'deeeeeoooo' schtick with the audience... OK, so where does this tie in with a discussion about ERBs and shredding, circus bass and too many strings? It puts gear and chops in a context - both are utterly vital and integral to the palette of sounds you have available, but have to be entirely subservient. A player with a pile of stock licks who sits waiting for a chance to show what they can do stands out a mile in a collective improv setting - like a footballer who never passes. It's all about context. Discussions about compromise are all relative because time, space and the immutable laws of physics are a compromise in an absolute sense, but all limitations are also gateways to liberation... stay thoughtful, Steve

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='94558' date='Nov 26 2007, 02:20 PM']Crazykiwi - I think that most popular music, as it is presented in the mainstream media, IS s**t.[/quote] Not just popular music - by volume, most music isn't any good. That's because making great music is really hard. It's not something that happens overnight. It's not something people just fall into, even those who claim they just fell into it are almost invariably lying... And then there's taste - one man's genius is another woman's mindless nonsense... Fortunately due to the sheer volume of music out there (no pun intended), there's enough world-beatingly great music around to satisfy any taste for a lifetime. The tricky thing is finding it. Or for musicians, it's being found. Then trying to balance the time it takes to make great music (a lot of time) with the time it takes to make yourself findable (also a lot of time). Something's got to give... But for now, I shall make it easy for y'all - [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]click here for great music[/url] Don't be too hard on yourself or others if what you do isn't 'great'. Just try to be less sh*t tomorrow, and eventually you'll get there. I get up each morning with the intention of making better music than I did yesterday. It's a journey with no arrival point, the journey is the point, and all gigs, jams, recordings, lessons, videos, whatevers are stopping off points along the way. Musical fundamentalism is bad for the listener and the player... [url="http://steve.anthropiccollective.org/archives/2007/11/transparent_mus_1.html"]this blog post might interest some of you, on this subject[/url] Ears open, Steve

Hey all, thought it might be nice to have a thread for us to talk about the elements of music that make music great, abstracted from the 'bassness' of the music... So a thread about our favourite recordings that don't feature any bass, or at least any electric or upright bass - I'm not putting a moratorium on low notes. I'll start - here's a few for you - [b]Don Ross - Passion Session[/b]: Don's a post-Hedges acoustic guitarist, looks like a truck driver and grooves like James Brown's rhythm section. Funky, melodic, beautiful and expertly played. [b]Paul Motian Trio - Sound Of Love[/b]: a drums/guitar/sax trio, playing gorgeous music, the interplay between Paul (drums), Bill Frisell on guitar and Joe Lovano on sax is just amazing, and the space left by having no bassist means that all three of them 'comp' in really interesting ways. [b]Howard Jones - Live Acoustic America[/b]: A lot of Howard's early albums suffer in hindsight from production that was boundary pushing then but sounds a little anachronistic now. This album is just him at the piano with a pecussionist (I can't remember her name, sadly) - great songs that really groove... [b]Bobby McFerrin - The Voice[/b]: one of my all time favourite solo recordings, on any instrument. I've drawn SO much inspiration from this album I should be paying him royaties. Anyone wanting to get back to the feeling that there are no rules, no boundaries, and that experimentation is the key to finding your own voice, this is the album to inspire it. Pure Genius. Over to you lot, what do you recommend? Cheers Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

[quote name='Alun' post='94231' date='Nov 25 2007, 06:39 PM']Slightly unrelated - I dug my glass slide out yesterday after listening to Robert Randolph playing pedal steel and had forgotten how utterly crap at slide playing I am![/quote] I've been playing a LOT of slide this year, after my friend [url="http://www.claudiozanghieri.com"]Claudio Zanghieri[/url] pulled one out in a jam we were having in Italy earlier this year - he sounded great with it, and as we were playing at a trade show in a music shop, I went and tried out as many different kinds of slide as I could - I found a heavy brass slide worked best on flatwound strings - can't vouch for roundwounds at all... Slide on bass is way cool, but it does take a fair amount of time to get comfortable with... Mark Sandman was a big influence to get into playing slide - there's a tune on my second album dedicated to him - [url="http://www.last.fm/music/Steve+Lawson/_/Exit+Sandman"]Exit Sandman[/url] - a sad loss indeed. On the subject of negativity, heading in both directions, my suggestion would be that posting we aim for clarity, humility and seek to liberate each other to play the music we hear in our heads rather than confine each other with discussions of what is and isn't acceptable for a bassist to do - as I mentioned in my previous post, ultimately all that matters is what comes out of the speakers. That doesn't render technical discussion invalid, far from it - it just means that the proof of the veracity of our claims about music and how it works are to be found in our own music, not on youtube... A preponderance of music not to my liking coming from a particular approach to the instrument doesn't invalidate the approach, it just suggests that it either doesn't work for me, or that the stuff that doesn't connect with me is the stuff that's getting the coverage. That goes for the music within a particular artist's catalogue... there are some players that I think make beautiful music who have some really uninspiring videos on youtube of them 'shredding' - they've chosen to get exposure that way, and save their beautiful music for other situations, and that's a marketing choice they've made. I can leave the wow-stuff to the wow-fans, and still greatly enjoy the music that engages my emotions to a greater degree. Those of you who've been dissing ERB will probably grow out of that when somebody makes some music using one that really connects with you, and those of you vigorously defending ERBs will probably do so with less ferocity when you've had a few more of your own prejudices exposed, and perhaps have a few more gigs to get ready for... It's all good, we're all friends and there's room in the bass-pool for all of us to do our thing. We just need to keep some perspective, and keep the goal as being the music. Great music is great music whether it's played on bass, banjo or accordian... with that, I'm going to go and start another thread to help focus our minds in that direction... Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='93277' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:36 PM']Have you played a bass banjo?[/quote] My bass teacher at college had a thing that was called a bass banjo, made out of a Precision neck and a kick drum! Sounded pretty amazing, I seem to remember... Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

LOL @ Dood. Anyway, back on topic, the subject of ERB is an interesting one, in that it seems to get people so worked up! When my first solo album came out in 2000 I got SO MANY emails from Americans utterly disgusted that I dared to call what I was doing 'bass playing', writing insane things like 'yeah, buddy, you try and play like that in my reggae beach-party band and see how far it'll get you'... as though I was planning on looping and playing chords in a reggae beach party band... hmmmm. Bassists seem to suffer from a confusion of 'tools' and 'outcome' more than almost any other musical group - we argue about what are the 'correct' and 'acceptable' ways to use a particular instrument, instead of measuring the process based on the outcome. After all, with music, all that really matters is what comes out of the speakers. That bass players so often forget this is why the world of solo bass is littered with 'circus bass' - technical wizardry performed only for other bassists to salivate over, with little - or hidden - musical content. We get hung up on adding more strings, playing faster, getting bigger amps, cleverer gear, when for the audience, the more transparent that stuff is, the easier it is to get into what's actually happening music... unless you want to spend your life playing to small groups of other bassists for 15 minutes at a time (that seems to be the upper limit of stamina for pure circus bass.. ) That's not to say that some great music hasn't come from the world of technical extravagance and 7+ stringed instruments - Jean Baudin and Trip Wamsley are both making beautiful music on 8/9/10/11 stringed instruments. That none of those instruments seem to work ergonomically for me means nothing in the light of the beautiful music that comes from those two players. Michael Manring has the most outrageous technical skills of any bassist I've ever seen, but I've also never seen it get in the way of 'the music'. It's exciting, impressive, clever, extravagant, but utterly compelling and deep too... So what are we to do? Well, there are two sets of voices that need disregarding if we're up for pursuing music of substance - firstly, the luddites saying 'that's not a real bass' - yeah, yeah, then call it a f***ing banjo, what you label an instrument has has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the music it makes... so life's too short to worry about such things. Secondly though, we also need to avoid the trap of believing the people who tell us we're badasses just because we play 9 string bass, or can slap really fast, or tap really complex lines. Those complex lines still have to be musical, still have to be engaging, and the difficultly with doing those kinds of things on bass is that the whole notion of playing more than bass lines on an electric bass is such a young concept that there's precious little music of quality and depth out there that shows us what's going on. So look elsewhere for inspiration. To guitar, keyboards, sax, orchestras, etc. etc. critique the SOUND, the tone, the shape of the notes, the integrity of the phrase, not just the dexterity and the flash-quotient. As I write this I'm listening to a MIDI file of some music that I need to learn for a gig tomorrow - the music is amazing, complex, deep, beautiful... does that stop the MIDI file sounding like total sh*t? Nope, not one bit. I still wouldn't listen to this out of choice. There's no humanity in the line. Bassists are often guilty of removing the life from phrasing because we spend the rest of our lives trying to be regular, on the beat, consistent etc... all qualities that can stifle a tune... think deep, Steve [url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]