ZilchWoolham

If you have a rhythm section I don't really see why a click is necessary, but it certainly isn't a problem, either, unless you specifically play songs with tempo changes, either abrupt or gradual. But whether a band gradually drifts from 133 to 136 BPM over the course of three minutes instead of staying at a rock-steady 134 is not something I think anyone would really notice. You're still a band of humans performing, it won't sound lifeless. In fact, I'd argue that even a lot of electronic music doesn't necessarily sound lifeless. As far as audience engagement goes, the most prevalent form of dance music for the past 40 years or so has been fixed to a strict BPM and it hasn't exactly hurt its effectiveness on a dance floor. It's true I probably wouldn't want to see Fairport playing Sloth to a pre-programmed click track, but for a functions band I think tightness and economy serves you rather well.

One of my earliest bass inspirations and truly one of (if not the) greatest melodic bass players of all time. Everything he played with The Smiths was terrific. Playing the way he did with someone like Johnny Marr on the guitar means that he not only anchored the songs rhythmically but also harmonically, giving very crucial context to all of those broken chords and arpeggios. Stephen Street said that he noticed Morrissey would often lean heavily on the bass lines for his vocal melodies and it's not surprising. There are so many song recommendations I could give, but This Night Has Opened My Eyes is truly sublime. Perfectly measured, perceptive, meaningful bass playing. One of the best early Smiths tracks that really showcases a band of four equals. I cannot praise this man enough. A very sad day.

There's an Elvis Costello sleeve that looks like this!

As stupid as it is, this is actually not the worst Fender-adjacent headstock I've seen. Then they decided to make a 2+2 style headstock instead with the bizarre decision to make it practically as long anyway, to give a bit of extra pop to their carefully chosen gimmick. Then, of course, here's the worst headstock design I've ever seen. Remarkably, the makers were so confident in the superiority of their design that they had to include a miniature outline of the headstock, on the headstock!

I have a preference for symmetrical 2+2 headstocks, that is to say if a headstock has to be present at all... As for in-line headstocks, the classic Fender is perfectly fine by me, although anything that tries to look a bit like a Fender but not exactly like a Fender is usually a big turnoff. The very best looking in-line headstock, though, belongs to the Thunderbird, although it is of course barely usable unless you're a professional basketball player.

Don't think Wal belongs in that crowd, especially if we're talking about the early JG, Pro and Mk1 models. Exotic woods for the Mk1, yes, but the contour is very modest, the hardware looks very solid and reliable, and even with its complex circuitry it's not overwhelmed with knobs and switches. Overall very well balanced visually, and one of the best headstocks you can find! The other ones I agree with. I don't like the Warwick body shapes, but I will however admit that the most gorgeous neck joint I've ever seen was on one. Completely agree about the P bass, too. Similarly, a black Strat with a black pickguard looks fine, but a black Strat with a white pickguard looks like a department store guitar.

Alembic were definitely pioneers of the furniture bass, but in comparison the the increasingly large, increasingly amorphous blobs made in the decades since by the likes of Fodera, Mayones etc. I think the early symmetric Alembics are actually quite stylish.

I think I'm bizarro you! I'm 5'8 with small hands but longer fingers and long arms. Re: Sparko, he typically had his basses hung quite high which I think added to the effect (not to mention his oftentimes mile-wide trousers). I've a feeling he's not 5'7 either. Funny thing is he had quite a good reach with his hands. I remember a thread on here where someone struggled with the chord riff in I'm a Hog for You Baby. Sparko seemed to pull it off effortlessly.

Right. Well, that's all good. But then you are in fact making it out by ear.

Which of course doesn't really have much to do with reading music in particular, but in turn reminds me of an interview where Ritchie Blackmore recalled asking Ian Anderson about how he found his bearings around the rhythms of a particular song. "Oh, I just count to two." "But you can't count to two in 9/8!"

And I agree with most of what you're saying here! It seems my early snark-laden reply might have been premature and I apologise for turning the thread a bit nastier in tone - no one needs that on Easter. But I would argue that the thing that sets jazz musicians apart from both classical and pop musicians is their affinity for improvisation. And I do think the guitar is an uncommonly complicated instrument to read for (the bass guitar, not so much). A piano is dead easy if you know your notation as there are zero ambiguities, it's strictly one-to-one in that you can only play one note in one place. Your classical string instruments are more ambiguous but more often than not if both you and the composer/arranger are familiar with the instrument you're probably playing it with the intended positions. Guitar parts typically use many more different positions. Consider an atypical chord played on a guitar using five strings, two of them open. Now consider that two of those notes might actually be the same, but one is played open and left to ring, while the other is fretted and simultaneously slid down to another note. An atypical example, maybe, and one that could be tricky to learn by ear (certainly if the part is not prominent in the mix), but I also think it would be quite difficult to translate properly to, and quickly grasp from, notation. I'm nitpicking of course, but what I mean is that classical notation is not a perfect system. If you can indulge my straying from the subject a bit I'd like to claim that no way of translating a sound to a piece of paper could be perfect or complete. I suppose technically you could write down a digital audio file in binary code, but you would need a lot of paper and a lot of ink!

Never said you couldn't. Not at all what I did. The user I quoted implied that the only viable way for musicians to communicate is via sheet music. I don't agree. For a big band? Sure. A chamber ensemble? Sounds reasonable. A large orchestra? Of course (and adding a conductor). Now, I will admit that I don't know what sort of band the thread starter plays in. But I am fairly certain that most of the gigging bassists on BC are part of function or tribute bands. And to suggest that any and every pub band to ever crank out a set of golden oldies should have the same sort of discipline and adherence to sheet music as the examples mentioned above would be ridiculous, unrealistic, and yes, I do think it would smack of elitism. And of course, if we are dealing with popular music, you run in to the problem of actually finding the sheet music. And if it does exist, you can be certain (barring old standards, musical numbers and the like) it wasn't written down by the composer. This is very different from classical music where the notation should conceivably contain everything the composer intended for the performers to know. I don't think reading sheet music is elitist. If you can learn a piece quickly from (fairly reliable) notation that sounds like something you absolutely should be doing. I have no gripes with that at all.

I would never suggest that a symphony orchestra sit down and separately learn a movement by ear. I was reacting to a tone of dismissiveness I perceived in your post (which there is a possibility I could have misread, of course), and taking a bog-standard function band as an example. I stand by my view that if your audience wants to down a pint while shouting along to The Chain or Mr Brightside (for whatever reason) you'll be better fit to serve them well if you know what the song sounds like when they hear it on the radio.

With words, perhaps? Hardly seems an insurmountable problem to me. Even people who don't read sheet music tend to know what a chorus is. Your elitism is showing. But I suppose that's the point. If you're a cover band who trades in somewhat accurate renditions I think giving the record in question a few spins might serve you quite well. There's more to a song than note values and pitch. After all, if they had invented audio recording in the 17th century, we wouldn't have academics bludgeoning each other over just what an historically informed Bach performance actually means all these centuries later.

Listen, I indulge in a fair bit of Yank mockery now and again when appropriate, but this just seems petty. What would nationality have to do with it?