endorka

I always try to raise the speaker cab as this avoids feedback and allows me to hear myself onstage without deafening the other musicians. My only wish is that everyone else would return the favour - I have noted that many musicians who are guilty of playing too loudly yet claim to be unable to hear themselves do the "speaker next to their feet on the floor" thing, or worse, have the speaker in front of them, subjecting everyone but themselves to their dreadful racket. Of course they can't hear themselves, their ears are not at their ankles! I have a tilting combo stand to raise my amp, or if travelling light use whatever is available - small table, chair, beer crate. Jennifer

[quote name='Beedster' post='961066' date='Sep 19 2010, 12:01 PM']Monitoring - or the lack of - was a nightmare, and as had I to rely on the bass itself as monitor, I had to play hard. The pain kicked in about mid way, the muscles in my left hand started to fade to the point that I was swapping between fingers on the same note. Then I started getting blisters on my picking fingers. Then, as if I wasn't in enough trouble, the muscles in my right handed started to fade as well. I just made the last note of the last song, and only just [/quote] Nice one! Welcome to the profession, as my old double bass tutor says :-) I would come to the same conlusion that you no doubt have, that playing hard due to not being able to hear yourself tired your muscles more quickly than would have happened if you could hear yourself. So happens one of the first lessons of playing DB live: never rely on a monitor engineer you don't know, and always bring an amp to use as your personal monitor just in case. Jennifer

[quote name='JTUK' post='959095' date='Sep 17 2010, 08:23 AM']Understand this...but when this guy winds up, there is really nothing lacking in his technique...and I mean nothing. I wouldn't call him an animal as he has way too much finesse for that, even though he comes from a rockier background, he can cook up some nice grooves. I often ask for a restrained session in the first set, which can work really well, but I know something is lacking.[/quote] I hear what you are saying :-) That's the reason I mentioned that drummers such as this may have poor or limited technique - in this case his ability to play well is limited to high volume levels. There is no need for this, he has simply not spent enough time practicing at lower volume levels. Jennifer

[quote name='JTUK' post='958857' date='Sep 16 2010, 09:46 PM']The only thing that will shut our drummer down...is a quieter kit, which would suit us, but not his heavier bands. Him hitting the skins quieter looses something, IMV.[/quote] I know this is the case with some drummers, but it doesn't have to be, it is just down to poor or limited technique on their part. I know some drummers who can groove or swing like nobody's business, while playing in a restaurant at conversation level. Unfortunately they are rare beasts, who are always busy. Funny that :-) Jennifer

Hi Bruno, I love the Iron Maiden basslines, looking forward to checking out the other stuff :-) Jennifer

[quote name='TGEvans' post='955751' date='Sep 14 2010, 09:49 AM']I really like the idea of tuning a five string to EADGC. Will most five string basses handle it without needing to swap out the nut or any other technical issue? If this works, would it also be an option to add a hipshot for drop D duning on the E also? Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance. T[/quote] I've done the equivalent on a 6 string, EADGCF, and it worked just fine. I suppose it is possible that the slots in the nuts would be a bit wide for the thinner strings, and could buzz, but it didn't on the instrument I did this with. You may need to tweak the truss rod a bit to maintain your current neck relief after doing this. I can't see that adding a D-tuner would cause any problems either, assuming one is available that is compatible with your instrument. Jennifer

[quote name='Truckstop' post='949414' date='Sep 8 2010, 01:39 PM']Oddly enough, i've never had problems 'getting' odd time signatures. I just used to soak it up. I'd just remember where the riff ended, and then play it again. Trying to think about accents and tapping really puts me off. I always thought that techniques like that just made it a bit more complicated than it should be.[/quote] I agree that what you are saying works well when learning these lines by ear, in which case you are getting some of the immersion "for free", as it were. I guess dancers do a similar thing when dancing to Money, Take 5, etc. Subdivisions and accents are incredibly useful when you haven't heard the piece, and are having to read the part without any real idea of how it should be sound in advance. Some of the best orchestras in the country use this approach; the conductor will go through the piece telling the musicians where to pencil in the aforementioned triangles and slashes that denote the subdivisions. In this case it is also useful that all the musicians will be feeling the subdivisions in the same way; left to their own devices, they may well arrive at different interpretations. Jennifer

[quote name='Bilbo' post='950677' date='Sep 9 2010, 02:48 PM']I do bow to tip three or four times and then try it for size.[/quote] In my experience, the key is doing this quickly. It would appear that the transference of rosin from the cake to the bow is caused by heat melting the rosin, which then sticks to the bow hair. The heat is generated by the friction that moving it quickly over the bow hair generates. If you do this correctly you'll see little tracks from the bow hair on the cake of rosin afterwards. All this carry on with rubbing the thing up and down endlessly is for fiddlers with their powdery rosin. How I wrote this post with a straight face I will never know. Jennifer PS The Yita CF bow I bought got going quickly when rosined when new; another bow I had re-haired took ages before it would work properly.

What Ironside said - absolutely brilliant. Jennifer

Another link for the party, the aforementioned Bartok Divertimento - brilliant but incredibly tricky to play! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vemkwcuNiT4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vemkwcuNiT4[/url] Jennifer

[quote name='Sub_Drop' post='945770' date='Sep 4 2010, 11:30 PM']I understand the theory behind it and know how the rhythms are grouped and felt but actually 'feeling' the count while playing is something I cant do[/quote] In my experience, the reason Western musicians cannot initially grasp the feel of odd time signatures, but can comfortably feel 4/4 and 3/4 is because they have had a lifetime of exposure to the latter, but virtually no experience of the former. The only way to gain this ability with odd time signatures is to catch up with your lack of immersion in them; As Dood says, listen and play a lot of stuff like this and eventually playing it will feel natural. It can take a lot of work though; you likely have decades of experience listening and/or playing in 4/4, but probably a few minutes of 9/8 or 11/8. That's a lot of catching up to do. Some ethnic music is based around odd time signatures - one of my deepest experiences of this was playing Bartok's Divertimento, which is based largely around Hungarian rhythms, such as 11/8. It took a lot of practice for me to "get it", but in the end I did :-) Jennifer

[quote name='Starless' post='943664' date='Sep 2 2010, 05:03 PM']I recently acquired a double bass and decided to check on t'interweb for the correct way to hold a French bow. Waste of time, there are 101 different experts out there who advise 101 different ways to hold it - so I'll do what comes naturally. What's the point of paying money to a teacher who, after trying various hand positions will declare, "Hmm.. just do it the way that feels most comfortable for you, that'll be £17.50 please" - Ker-chinng![/quote] Interesting approach - in my opinion, playing double bass with the French bow, unlike pizzicato bass guitar, IS akin to rocket science. There are an astonishing number of ways to do it incorrectly, which will limit your ability to play well with it. I have studied many different approaches to the French bow, and can confirm your observation that there are many people with seemingly different approaches, each claiming that theirs is the definitive one. For example, some hold the bow with the fingers at a right angle to the bow, others with the fingers angled in towards the bow. The truth is that both can be right, and both wrong - depending on the relative lengths of your fingers, one or the other will be more appropriate. Use the wrong one and your ability to play will be seriously limited. This tiny aspect of the French bow hold is incredibly important, but I've never seen it written down or spoken about anywhere. Some students flail about aimlessly with poor technique for years trying to resolve a problem such as this... a problem I can fix literally overnight for a £25 lesson. If it saves years of frustration, I'd say it's £25 well spent :-) As others have pointed out, I think one of the big strengths of music tuition is the possiblity of cutting out years of re-inventing the wheel, and getting to the actual music making more quickly. Jennifer

What a great thread, too many good contributions to list :-) Being initially self taught for many years, and only later becoming formally educated in music, I can appreciate most of the points of view put forward here. Like much in life, the danger is in thinking that one system has all the answers to everything. Any approach taken in isolation or extremes will have its limitations. Balance is required, and there are many pitfalls for the unwary. Jennifer

[quote name='Beedster' post='941026' date='Aug 31 2010, 02:55 PM']A bit off topic I know (in that I'm talking live not studio now), but is there anything in the manufacturer's claims re reduced feedback from this specialised DB mic that might still however make it a better bet live than a wide-range but more general mic? We saw a band yesterday afternoon and as soon as the DB started it was feedback city, and given that our guitarist is prone to similar problems, the last thing we need is the two of us at it![/quote] I know nothing about that particular mic, but I can tell you a bit about my experiences using mics with DBs in live situations. At low volume levels they alone are fine; if you go to medium levels, say a small band with light drums, or a pit gig, you're probably going to need a pickup to ensure you can hear yourself well. At medium levels my preferred setup is to put the pickup into my amp for monitoring purposes only, as using the mic for onstage monitoring will tend to result in feedback. The mic goes to the front of house. This system can work really well, although the onstage sound will not be as good as the front of house. This is something you'll need to get used to though, unless you use headphones or in ear monitors. For loud situations, the mic will likely be unworkable because of feedback, so the best you can hope for is to have a blend of mic and pickup in the front of house, but for all the difference it makes, the engineer will often just use the pickup. Amplifying a DB is an interesting dilemma; we are expected to have a good sound, no feedback, and to play with good pitch in sonic situations other strings are not. For example, most professional shows with strings will have perspex shielding round the drums, or similar, to lower onstage volume sufficiently for the strings to do their thing well. This tends not to happen for double bass players, so you usually just have to make the best of it :-) Jennifer

I've used a microphone mount called an "H-Clamp" that is useful if you tend to move about a bit, or don't want the worry of getting the instrument back into the exact same position each time you put it down/pick it up; I've also found it useful live in quiet to moderately loud settings, such as pit gigs, and it really comes into its own if you do a lot of bowed playing, which I think is the area pickups tend to perform most poorly at. I have used both pickup and mic for recording and live work; even if you only use the mic, the pickup is useful as a backup in some cases, such as excessive mic bleed, or if you sneeze during that perfect take - the mic will reproduce the sneeze, but the pickup won't. I much prefer the sound of a double bass recorded through a mic, but a pickup can sound ok when processed by a good sound engineer. Jennifer

Intros/endings are really important - if you mess them up, it tends to be more noticeable and memorable to the audience than any other part of the song. Messy intros/endings will give the audience a poor perception of the band. Jennifer

Thanks Joe. I'm trying to work out a plan for long term musical development at the moment, and that is really helpful. Jennifer

Thanks for that Joe. I've usually spent less time on my transcriptions, sometimes by omitting the deep analysis stage of the process you detail above due to time constraints, or the playing stage, if the transcription has been undertaken as part of writing an arrangement for other instruments. I can definitely see the benefits to your approach, however, so in future will attempt to set aside more time for analysis of some of the pieces that really appeal to me, including those for other instruments. Do you think there is utility in performing "quick" transcriptions, or even just playing along with a track and seeing how much you can work out without stopping the track? Sometimes I have to do this due to time constraints, and I find it beneficial, although to some extent it does seem to emphasise different part of the ear/brain/hand connection than the more detailed process you describe. Jennifer

Some of my basses have a ramp and some do not - the ones for more likely for "gentler" use have them (6 strings), the ones I use for more aggressive tones do not (P-bass clone). Despite what many claim, to get the right tone for some types of music, it can be necessary to dig in a bit. They do work as advertised, but I find that if they are too close to the strings they can become irritating. You can make a nice one really easily in a couple of hours - get a decent piece of wood, e.g an offcut from a store, cut it to size, then sand it to a radius equivalent to your fingerboard using a Radius Block. These can be bought from Stew Mac for about £10. Then apply varnish or wood oil - not absolutely necessary, but it will become grubby looking if you don't. Attach with double sided sticky tape. This may sound cheap and nasty, but is very effective, and has the advantage of being able to return your instrument to its exact pre-ramp stage without damage if you find you don't like it. Jennifer

[quote name='Joe Hubbard Bass' post='936021' date='Aug 25 2010, 02:37 PM']Another important point to focus on is the time spent doing this. Depending on your level you should be spending at least a month on every transcription you are working on- sometimes many months.[/quote] Joe, If you have time, I'd be really interested to hear about the process you go through to realise a transcription such as this? Jennifer

I would have thought anyone competent with a soldering iron could fix this. If you yourself are such a person, you could buy a replacement socket from, say, Maplin, and do so. Jennifer

[quote name='Doddy' post='932730' date='Aug 22 2010, 01:24 PM']I guess this means me. I've listened to Louis and he's cool. However,I really don't get the whole Acker Bilk style of 'British' trad. I've played it at gigs,but I find it difficult to listen to. The bit that always gets me is when the front line all 'solo' at the same time over a chorus. I just don't find it nice to listen to.[/quote] Indeed - all of them soloing simultaneously, none of them listening to each other - it can often descend into cacophony. A bit like the "everyone solo" at the end of the song we were discussing in another thread. I asked one of the proponents of this genre about exactly this phenomenon, and why it seemed to work in the old days, but not now. He claimed that it was because back then the parts were arranged in advance, and thus made collective musical sense. I used to play in a trad-ish band and they were great, but we had quite good arrangements and were well rehearsed, which would back up the above point somewhat. Jennifer

I had become stuck when attempting to build websites for my bands, and after a PM to Simon asking for some advice on this he was a great help, sending loads of info and much needed encouragement. We were still working on the websites, and I was really looking forward to the day I would finish them & be able to thank him, and it saddens me that I'll never be able to do that now. Jennifer

Hooky was, and remains, a HUGE influence on me. His work on Joy Division's "Atmosphere", for example, is simply definitive. I can't imagine a better line for that song. I had to work out the bassline for U2's "All I Want Is You" last week - and pretty damn decent it is too. Some nice improvised bits, nothing overstated. Just right I would say. I think many understimate the talent of bass players like those I mention above; to survive in a group for so long in a very tough business they must be doing something right. [indent] "I tell you folks It's harder than it looks It's a long way to the top If you wanna rock 'n' roll"[/indent] Some of my proudest moments in bass playing have also been the simplest. Jennifer

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='922194' date='Aug 12 2010, 12:09 AM']I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to not use my third finger. I'm not doing it, just in case it's important to not do it, but I can't figure out why yet.[/quote] The Simandl method has been in use for at least 100 years (?), so I'm guessing the reason for its success is that it works most of the time for most people, is an excellent technique for developing good intonation, and will make you less prone to hand/wrist stress & injuries. You do use the third finger though, usually when you move into whatever position it is that has you playing F, F#, G on the G string - the third finger is used for the G, instead of the fourth. That's not to say that just because it is traditional it should be always used... if you can find a better way then that's great. My double bass tutor uses 1 finger per semitone in all positions, and it works really well for him, but in my experience the finger stretches required for this are beyond most people. Jennifer