Earbrass

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363807649' post='2018039'] Which of course raises the question 'what's wrong with being an actor?'. One acts in one's music videos, so what is the problem with 'acting' music on stage? [/quote] Nothing at all against acting - some of my best friends etc... but the post I quoted referred to miming and the question of musical "worthiness" or some such. I can't see how pretending to make music can be as [i]musically[/i] worthy as actually doing it, however worthy it may be in other terms - to me it's like asking why an actor who portrays a sportsman in a film isn't as deserving of a sports award as a real sportsman. Both may be good at what they do, but they are different things.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363802784' post='2017942'] Seems miming is viewed as appalling, disgraceful, cheating. Why, since we are entertainers, is miming your own originals seen as dread (you played on the recordings and wrote the song, right?), when playing live cover material is perfectly fine? Why are we caught up in this musical worthiness trip? [/quote] If you are miming, you may be entertaining, but you are not entertaining by being a musician - you are doing it by being an actor - pretending to do something you are not actually doing. Your musical skills are largely irrelevant, and it is entirely possible that a non-musician, or someone with only rudimentary musical skills, could do the job better than you. Especially if they have bigger [s]t*ts[/s] stage presence. For me, the interesting question in the covers v. originals debate is why there is this sharp divide in the world of rock/pop while it seems to be more or less irrelevant in other genres. Go to a jazz or folk gig, for example, and whether it's a top performer or a band in your local pub/club, you are very likely to see them perform a mix of originals and tunes written by others.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363684845' post='2015623'] I'm writing an album at the moment, and when it's done, hopefully by the end of the year or early 2014, I intend to put a band together to play it and get some gigs. However, I am not going to be in it, I just want to watch the band playing my music, so in that sense I am both gigging and not gigging at the same time I think [/quote] [quote name='Wil' timestamp='1363685219' post='2015635'] That's a genius idea. All the satisfaction of hearing your music played live, while being able to sit down with a drink and enjoy it [/quote] I used to get a similar buzz from the theatre/film/tv soundtrack work I used to do. All the buzz of being "part of the show" without the hassles of performing

[quote name='JamesBass' timestamp='1362606922' post='2002191'] I had a few mats who used to charge £30 for an entire gig between 5 of them! [/quote] Well, they're just letting people walk all over them. (sorry - couldn't resist)

I remember [i]The Green Leaves of Summer [/i] being played a lot on the Dansette when I was a nipper. I am also reminded of an edition of [i]I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue [/i]in which Humph was explaining the rules of a "spot the connection" round - "For example, if I said Alan [b]Ball[/b], Kenny [b]Ball[/b] and Johnny [b]Ball[/b], the obvious connection is that none of them has ever fully mastered the trumpet". RIP to them both.

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1362610902' post='2002279'] A pop song is a popular song in the charts, or, a pop song written by someone/people, who want that statment to be popular. Pop is U2, Beethoveen, Beatles, M, Radiohead, Steely Dan, Black Sabbath, Rennie And Renatta, Wings, Piolet, etc, etc, etc, ... [/quote] As opposed to all that music created specifically to be hated by everybody.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362574134' post='2001469'] Who told you you ought to respect pop music, or any music for that matter? [/quote] Without wishing to get into an unseemly semantic hair-splitting debate, I think you did: [quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362521181' post='2000865'] I don't think pop gets the respect from musicians that it deserves. [/quote]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362572960' post='2001439'] I LIKE IT! However, do you think there are ethical problems with mass market music production? I don't. Can anyone say with any real integrity that Destiny's Child are more or less worthy than Weather Report? [/quote] Depends whether they are battery-reared. I have no problem with pop music - I don't bother it and it doesn't bother me. I have a problem with being told I [i]ought [/i]to respect it and its creators simply because it's commercial successful.

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1362531152' post='2001064'] Intriguing........how many bass parts were written in medieval music [/quote] In a lot of early music scores, instrumentation is not specified - the idea was that you used whatever you had available. So you could argue that bass guitar would be a perfectly reasonable choice for a bass line (check out my soundcloud in the link below for an example of this approach - apologies for shameless plug ).

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362521181' post='2000865'] I don't think pop gets the respect from musicians that it deserves, it is not easy, and it's usually misjudged by the cognoscenti. [/quote] Do Bernard Matthews Turkey Twizzlers get the respect from chefs that they deserve? Creating a commercially successful product that reaches a mass market undoubtedly requires skills that most of us don't possess - many try and only a few succeed. But we should understand that those are not necessarily the same skills required to create a quality product. Most people with a love of cooking are not trying to emulate the success of the mass producers, they are engaged in an entirely different project for entirely different reasons, and to tell them they should have more "respect" for the creators of successful mass-market food products would be just plain silly. It's no different with music. The public are in general no more discerning when it comes to consuming entertainment products than they are with food or anything else. Is the Sun a better newspaper than the Independent because it sells more copies? Producing a paper like the Sun takes a lot of skill - these people are very good at what they do and it would be wrong to suppose that anyone could emulate them and achieve similar success. But that doesn't make it great journalism, or mean that people who are interested in quality writing should respect it or try to emulate it. In the field of creative endeavour, it's a great mistake to confuse commercial success with artistic success. Neither is easy, neither is something that just anyone can achieve, but they are different things.

A lot of it is inevitably about promotion - and having the contacts and influence to plant stories in the press and elsewhere, get the right people to talk about it in the currently favoured media, and generate the required "buzz". Same as in the movie bizz. There will always be the unexpected outsider that grabs the public mood and bucks the trend, for whatever reason (Crazy frog?), but the big payers will always have the advantage. When it comes to understanding what makes mass sales, focusing on the quality of the songwriting, production, performance etc is missing more than half of the picture.

Hmmm, let me see...not counting the "just at home for fun" stuff.... Played bass in avant-garde free jazz ensembles and a couple of rock bands (one middling originals/covers, one heavyish pagan originals) Played piano in jazz/blues duo (with female singer) Been a composer for theatre/dance/film/tv Currently playing squeezebox for border morris. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1362248852' post='1997595'] Maybe that's why guys on here keep changing what they've got, they're searching for something that can't be bought. [/quote] This, or else they're searching for something that can be bought, but has nothing to do with music - new toy gratification (it never lasts).

Another vote for piano.

Let's compromise on the strings issue and have 5 at the nut and 4 at the bridge. We can then set up a sub-committee to blue-sky some ideas for interfacing the two. (A lifetime in IT has taught me a few things ).

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361967883' post='1993701'] Maybe I am being too sensitive. [/quote] Maybe. The threads you start about Kit's music / gigs / videos always seem to be well received, so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. And you make a good point about basschatters' music. I have a bit of a history of posting stuff that seems funny/pertinent to me at the time but turns out to be horribly misjudged, so I wouldn't let anything I say disturb you over much.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361964427' post='1993623'] I am sorry it seems to you that I'm starting threads to promote my own band's music. [/quote] Please don't take it to heart - it was meant as a gentle leg-pull. I would have added "and the music of other basschatters" on the end but it wouldn't scan. I'll accept 3 points on my poetic licence.

Well, if we're doing poetry now... [i]Our Nigel has started a thread[/i] [i]With a subtext as plain as your head:[/i] [i]"Stop debating the details[/i] [i]Of the greatness of Beatles[/i] [i]And listen to my band instead!"[/i]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361876477' post='1992163'] Some are like music is only for people who 'appreciate' music for its intrinsic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic values in isolation, rather than as a reflection of the people creating it, a reflection of context. [/quote] Not exactly sure what point you are trying to make here, but it's worth pointing out that the context of the listener is important too, not just that of the creator. To take some examples, a western listener and a Javanese listener might both enjoy gamelan music, but one might experience it as intriguingly exotic and strange, the other might experience it as comfortingly familiar, and a sound of home. When we hear, for example, baroque music today we may find different things in it from those noticed by its contemporary audience because we have also heard so much music that has been written since. I find dixieland jazz music rather bland and a bit cheesy, but once it was new, vibrant and even shocking. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure there is such a thing as the "intrinsic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic values in isolation" - the listening experience will always be at least as much a reflection of the cultural context of the listener as it will be of the cultural context of the creator.

As a consumer of recorded music, no, it wouldn't bother me as only a tiny fraction of the music I listen to is new (created in the last five years). As an occasional gig-goer, it would bother me a bit - I don't want to be restricted to covers bands or originals bands churning out their old material forever - they'd be bored and boring - plus what about improvised music / solos? As an even more occasional producer of new music, it would spoil my fun somewhat (or would it just stop me feeling guilty about not producing more new music??).

Lucky escape by the sound of it. Been in "the business" all their lives, but still only semi-pro? Probably a bit crap then as well as being t*sspots.

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1361392358' post='1985362'] Davied was a member of Soft Machine but when they toured France in 1970, being Austrailian meant he couldn't visit France, didn't have the necessery papers. [/quote] Not quite, IIRC, Daevid Allen went to France with the Softs but wasn't allowed back into the UK, which led to him staying in France and forming Gong. Daevid and Kevin were both founder members of the Soft Machine, but the band changed hugely over its lifespan, morphing from their psychadelic roots in the late sixties to a jazz-rock/fusion outfit by the early to mid seventies (that's when Alan Holdsworth got involved). Kevin Ayers had left by the time Soft Machine Volume Two was made, replaced on bass by Hugh Hopper. Daevid Allen never even made it to the first "official" album, though he does play on the "demos" which were later released under the name "Jet Propelled Photographs". All of this is from memory, so apologies if any details are incorrect. EDIT: just checked by copy of Soft Machine Vol I, and Kevin Ayers is credited with lead guitar (no bass credit - I suspect he did that too).

Very sad. So many great songs. Here's one that always makes me smile. Thanks Kevin. RIP indeed. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNtZXd_LTM"]http://www.youtube....h?v=TkNtZXd_LTM [/url]

I think in this situation one needs to be very honest with oneself as to how much the guests are likely to enjoy the performances. If the band is really good, and the guests are largely within their "target demographic" then I'd go for it. But putting guests in the position where they feel obliged to pretend to be enjoying your set because it's your big day isn't fair to them, or to the rest of the band.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1360850625' post='1977353'] Basschat continually evolves, and changes, through [b]it's[/b] members' contributions. The spelling police seem very scarce these days [/quote] ...but the apostrophe gestapo are alive and well