AdamWoodBass

Geoff me old mucker! Hows sunny Manc? I thought it was high time I got into upright playing as there seems to be quite a bit of work out there. It's a real pain though learning what is essentially a new instrument! I keep listening to Avishai Cohen and thinking "I wish I could play that!"

Thinking I may have to go to one of these dates!

+ 1 for Ged, great attention to detail and a top bloke. His custom basses are pretty tasty too!

Hey guys, so I've sorted my self out with some lessons with a guy called Dave Spencer (Liverpool based player). He's a great player and a good mate, gonna do a trade off with him where I teach him electric and he teaches me upright! I think I've pretty much got my pizz technique down, just need to work a bit more on my intonation but we're getting there! Haven't started learning arco yet but it is very much so on the to do list. Hopefully I'll be confident enough to do a gig on it soon.

Hey Jimmy No one has the right to make you feel bad for something you can't do anything about. Don't let it get to you though, a good mate of mine at uni had really bad dyslexia and left with a very high 2:1 in Business and Management and he was only a few marks off a 1st. He now has a really good job in high level management for a big company and earns about £40,000 a year. And he's only 24 years old! Whether or not you have dyslexia has nothing to do with how intelligent you are. My girlfriend is a psychologist and has told me about a lot of very interesting theories about how our brains work. Basically because you suffer from dyslexia your brain processes information differently to someone else. It doesn't effect the way you think or how clever you are, it's just different that's all. Take colour blindness for example. My brother in law can't tell the difference between brown and purple but he has a masters degree in English Literature. Another friend of mine gets her words mixed up when she talks sometimes (I don't know what her condition is called sorry!) and she's currently in her last year of a PHD in Advanced Medical Chemistry at Oxford University. Just because you have dyslexia doesn't mean you can't make very valuable and welcome contributions to the forum. A warm and sincere welcome to you. Adam

PM'd you mate

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='669858' date='Nov 30 2009, 11:17 AM']Bizarrely, I was listening to EMF on the tube this morning ...[/quote] Lol I must admit it took me a while to make the connection there!

Anyone go to the Aintree Racecourse Guitar Show yesterday? I did and I stumbled across a 76 Jazz in absolutely fantastic condition. Most people know I'm not a big fan of Fender as I find them so over priced for what they are but this was a masterpiece! It was effortless to play and sounded amazing no matter what tone you dialed in. Just wish I'd had the money for it I'd have bought it there and then, it was £1500. The pic isn't the one I saw yesterday but looks exactly the same. Anybody else been pleasantly suprised by a bass they thought wouldn't be worth the money? Adam

A few months ago I did a mellow soul gig for a 2 day corporate training thing. We were the entertainment for the big party they were having at the end. The client had specifically booked a very mellow soul trio: 2 guitars, vox and bass. We turned up nice and early to get a decent amount of time to set up and the event organiser (who booked us) comes over and hands us an envelope full of cash which worked out £170 a man and told us that our meal and drinks for the night were paid for! Excellent! We go on to do our first set which goes down like a lead balloon! Instead of wanting chilled soul and jazz (which the event organiser had booked!) they wanted Oasis and The Kieser Chiefs! We did half our first set and were asked to put the bloody Ipod back on! So naturally we stuck a playlist together and sat in the bar not paying for a single drink! We laughed about it all the way home!

Oooooo! My turn! My turn! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWWsYh51T8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWWsYh51T8[/url]

I absolutely love your sound! Its just got that real gritty old skool R 'n' B sound thats missing from so many blues records nowadays! Grooves like a mother as well! Excellent job mate.

More guts mate, try an eq and crank the bass. You're defo onto a winner there but it just needs that little extra rumble.

Cheers for the advice guys, I'm gonna be getting lessons. I found out you can do really serious (ie career ending) damage to your left hand if you dont use correct technique!

He's an old mate of the family, he didn't have room for it anymore so wanted it to go to a good home. Just wish I could play the damn thing!

Hey guys, So I got given an upright, really nice looking thing and feels nice and sturdy... thats about all I know about it! Thing is I've been wanting to learn upright for about 10 years but never had the cash to justify buying one and out of the blue I get given one! Any recommendations for technique? Do you know of any instructional vids that are worth watching or should I just go find a teacher? Cheers Adam

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='653224' date='Nov 12 2009, 11:45 PM']What if they forgot the guitars too? [/quote]

Ultimately I think the general vibe here is each to their own. I didn't really intend for this to become so heated but that fact that it has is very interesting and says a lot about the "meat and spuds bass player" versus "virtuoso". It's interesting to see some peoples responses to this. I personally look at Michael Manring and say "Wow look how much he's pushing the limits of what a bass can do!" and others are saying "yeah but he's no James Jamerson". Thats a fair comment, Michael Manring has played on no where near as many records as Jamerson did and is probably no where near as influential. I think there's too many levels to a bass player let alone music for people to say "this is what a bass player should be". For example you wouldn't put Robert Trujillo (sp?!) in a band with Chick Corea same as you wouldn't put John Patitucci in Pantera. Totally different stylistically but still genius at what they do. Personally I think of Michael Manring as a composer rather than bass player, same as Steve Lawson. Put it this way, if someone creates beautiful music using synths and computers are they any less of a musician? Yeah they aren't actually playing stuff more programming it but they still had to have the idea in the first place.

[quote name='chardbass' post='652596' date='Nov 12 2009, 01:13 PM']IMO when he plays like this he isn't a bassist- he's a musician/composer expressing himself through a (modified relative of a) bass guitar.[/quote] My thoughts exactly. People bash Jean Baudin for playing a 14 string bass but he doesn't actually describe himself as a bass player anymore and when your bass has a greater range than a grand piano I suppose you aren't a bass player anymore!