tinyd

I got my bridge adjusters fitted by Tom Barrett in Galway - he added them to my existing bridge. Might be worth getting in touch with him. http://doublebassireland.com

Been listening to Pino Palladino's new album: and also this one from Sam Gendel from about a year ago: . Both very fresh-sounding (to me, anyway). The Sam Gendel album was recorded completely live over a couple of days

The album is really good. Really varied and interesting and not at all a "bass players' " album if you know what I mean (although the bass playing on it is obviously excellent)

I'd add Shen basses to the list - like the Stentors and Strunals, they can be affordable but are a significant step up from the cheap models.

I guess it depends on what you want to sound like, but I think that trying to make your body position as close to how you'd hold a DB will probably be good in the long run, especially if you want your EUB to sound more DB-like (you may not, of course). I shared this video in another thread - different model of bass, but it may be relevant.

Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" works for me - it has a hypnotic, repetitive feel, but it's rhythmically interesting and so doesn't feel bland (I find music that's too shapeless tends to be irritating and so jolts me out of whatever I'm supposed to be concentrating on....)

Me neither - his point is a good one - just about all of the other videos that I could find have players playing them more like a BG and they therefore have that "giant fretless bass" sound, so maybe the easiest way to get them to sound like an upright is just to play them like one Anyway, his video made me want one, which is a bad thing, but I hope you get one and get the sound that you want!

Not sure if you've seen it, but this is a good vid: He has some good tips on how to make a WAV 4 sound a lot more like a DB

Indeed, but I think that in this case the other instrumentation etc are also pretty close to Song For My Father so it sounds to me a bit closer than just a general 'style' thing

These are the versions I'm thinking of. Different key but pretty similar (although that bass pattern is used in loads of tunes)

I'm pretty sure Steely Dan directly took their intro for "Ricky..." from Song For My Father

The advantage that I see with learning more about "theory" is that it provides some shortcuts towards being able to play things that sound good, rather than just trying things out more-or-less at random until something sounds pleasant. But however you get there, it still all comes down to listening to the overall music and playing what sounds good to you. One other note: Full scales often sound a bit artificial if you're playing along, especially as many of the scale tones end up on weak beats. For jamming, the major/minor pentatonics, the blues scale, and the "bebop" scales are a more musical way to explore these relationships.

Yep, agreed, the notes are all the same, but when you play lines and melodies you're not just plucking notes out and playing them in any order - like you say, you're targeting different notes and where you start and end gives the tune a certain sound, especially when you consider that some notes will end up on strong vs weak beats. If you play Paul Chambers's bass line to So What without a piano, it will still sound (mostly) like D Dorian, not C major, even though the notes are all the same. So it's a bit too simple just to treat every diatonic mode (and chord) in a given key as completely interchangable, even if they share notes - like most things in music, a lot depends on context. That's my understanding from reading stuff over the years - it's interesting stuff and as with everything that people call "music theory", it's all just a way of helping explain why some things sound good

The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine has a very detailed explanation of the relationship between modes and chords. One thing he covers is why you can't just play a C major scale over all the chords derived from C major. The general idea that I got from his book (and other people) is that you don't want to be too "prescriptive" about the relationship between a chord and modes, but that knowing the relationship(s) gives you an available pool of notes that you can use when you're playing over the chord. What's nice is to internalise how the different modes sound over the chords. For example, as others have said, over a Dm7 chord a D dorian will probably sound good, but it's worth understanding how C ionian and G mixolydian sound over the same chord (you hear this a lot with jazz walking bass lines - I've heard both the examples I just gave on versions of So What, which is all dorian, but rather than just walking up and down dorian modes, bass players will emphasise other modes to add interest).

One thing to note is that German bow technique tends to involve a straighter arm and I'm not sure how that might affect its use with the shorter scale on the Ibanez. In one of the official videos on their site it's being played with a German bow and the contact with the strings is very close to the bridge but maybe that's fine. Just something to be aware of...

He had an "anti presence" in that he actively refused to engage with the audience outside of playing the music, but this came about because he was (to put it mildly) uncomfortable with the expectation at the time that black performers were expected to smile etc. to gain acceptance with white audiences, and he thought his music should speak for itself. The fact that other people later bought into this and identified it as "a thing" is a kind of stagecraft-after-the-fact I guess. Anyway, I'm not sure what my point is, but it's an interesting discussion

I read @Bilbo's point as being that "stagecraft" is very hard to define, and it depends on the musician/audience/genre. Some musicians engage with the audience entirely through the music itself, whereas others do it in other ways as well. If you went to a Miles Davis gig in the 60s expecting banter, dance moves and a light show you'd have been pretty disappointed

Maybe the more you understand the rules in the first place the greater the scope there is to break them? What we call "music theory" is just a reverse-engineered attempt to explain what sounds good to human ears, it's not supposed to be prescriptive, but it can provide lots of shortcuts to making other good sounds, so it's worth investigating IMHO. There are some fantastic musicians out there who may not be able to explain anything about music theory, but they still *know* it internally, which is what makes them good.

Sorry, it's a long thread so not sure if this has already been posted, but here goes anyway. Extremely funky and featuring the excellent MonoNeon

As a technique it can be impressive, but I agree that there aren't many tunes where it works (and I love funk). The best examples are usually where it's used sparingly and the tune has a bit of space and the bass player uses the slaps/pops as syncopation within the groove e.g.

I also have an aversion to carrying extra gear - I've been thinking about getting a small amp like a BAM200 and then using its DI for the FOH sound and a Phil Jones Ear Box for monitoring. Not sure how many of my gigs (remember those?) will work with this setup but it's certainly tempting in terms of size / weight.

Alex Blake has a totally unique sound and way of playing the bass. Not sure if they teach this anywhere....

I have a self-imposed "one of each type" rule so I have a Shen DB, Japanese Fender Jazz and Laka Ukulele bass. Just trying to decide if my rule allows a fretless BG or not, but as it's rule I guess I can bend it

Forgot about this one - Larry Grenadier is a great player:

He's great, and even when he's 'just' walking he's still amazing. He's been fairly good at playing bass for a while now He's currently on tour in Europe with Chick Corea- gutted that I won't get to see him....