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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....

I'm contemplating an ultra-light setup of an Ear Box plus a small amp like a BAM 200. I'm always surprised at how loud the DB is acoustically when someone else is playing it so I figure that if the Ear Box works for monitoring then I can ditch the combo at some gigs.

@Bilbo Sounds like you're happy with the Ear Box - do you find it helps with intonation? Reason I'm asking is that I struggle to hear myself at gigs and end up playing down the low end of the neck just to be safe. I have a Realist pickup so I was thinking of taking getting an Ear Box and taking it out of my GK combo for small gigs.

Nice! The live album Alone Together is just the two of them and is a lovely example of duo playing

Good choice. I really like his playing on all those Coltrane Impulse albums - Crescent also has some really nice stuff, as does the recently 'rediscovered' Coltrane album, Both Directions At Once

Anything with Christian McBride is well worth hearing. There are s couple of recent recordings with him playing with Chick Corea that are excellent, but his own bands are also really good. The Bad Plus are also great, lots of stuff on YouTube...

Some of the best recordings I can think of are the Miles Davis ones from the late 50s, Cookin', Relaxin', Steamin' and Workin' (you can get them all on one compilation called "The Prestige Sessions" I think). They were all recorded at the same couple of sessions and they're mostly standards with the incomparable Paul Chambers on bass. For learning walking bass I'd say they're better than Kind Of Blue because the tunes are more typical of what you'll play at a jazz jam. Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderly is also a lovely album with the definitive version of Autumn Leaves. There are hundreds more but these are great to start with.

It's worth checking out to see if it works for you. Scott has a lesson where he talks about it:

It could be worth trying Simandl (1-2-4) fingering where the little finger is always supported by the third. It'll require some adjustment in your playing but it's a well tested technique and it'll work on any bass guitar since it's designed for double bass.

I think the 'cultural appropriation" argument is a bit of a strawman - most examples of this are usually drummed up by certain papers trying to get everyone angry about "PC gone mad" etc, whereas in reality I can't see anyone objecting on these grounds. I think what's more relevant is whether you feel that your band call pull off a song like this, given its very dark subject matter. Maybe have a listen to some of the other versions and see what kind of arrangements they've done, and see if one of them feels more comfortable to play?