Victor Wooton Ain't So Great

[xilddx]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1381513526' post='2240199']


Wow, you're really confused mate. I could care less about people agreeing with me. It's about knowledge and taste and understanding and appreciation. I guess you missed that point, but I guess you have to understand it in the first place.
[/quote]
That all you could come up with after such a lengthy dump?

[paulflan0151]

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1381415848' post='2238773']
Basschat's own Andy Saxton does this better than anyone, in my opinion. Here's one of my favourite's of his - an oldie, but a goodie:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAmX3yDkx2M[/media]
[/quote] Cane across this guy on youtube by fluke, great playing and a style that's so different to what most (dare I say any?) other virtuoso style bass players are up to. A breath of fresh air. Shame he plays Warwicks. Oh and check your Emails Schol

[peteb]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1381513526' post='2240199']
Wow, you're really confused mate. I could care less about people agreeing with me. It's about knowledge and taste and understanding and appreciation. I guess you missed that point, but I guess you have to understand it in the first place.
[/quote]
Actually, I kinda agree with much of your original post.

I’m not sure what people would expect from a solo piece from the bass player on a Carl Palmer gig, but I thought that it was OK. I don’t think that it stood up as a great piece of music in its own right, but it certainly wasn’t unmusical and I thought that the execution was fine for a live performance. Some might feel that his choice of notes was insufficiently romantic, but in the unlikely event that I had been in the audience I am sure that I would have been suitably impressed without feeling the need to own a recorded version anytime soon!

On the other hand, Michael Anthony (a very capable bass player) plays a very simple part that fits Running With The Devil perfectly, so why would anyone want to change it?

It seems that some people are intimidated by anyone better than them and some expect that every single piece of music meets some unobtainable ideal. And if these people claim that it doesn’t bother them, then why would they take the trouble to have an opinion??

Edited October 11, 2013 by peteb

[skej21]

Until that guy with the bow can produce something as well crafted/executed as this, then I have to say the OPs opinions will be the polar opposite of mine. Wooten would wipe the floor with that guy everyday of the week!

http://youtu.be/5BPwEPm90Gs

[Skol303]

[quote name='paulflan0151' timestamp='1381517672' post='2240285']Oh and check your Emails [/quote]

Hehe, I got 'em mate! Looking very good indeed I'm going to update the build diary next chance I get...

[oggiesnr]

I suppose it depends on how you see the bass.

For me bass players are at their best when they're anchoring the music, supplying depth and timing to the rest of the band, holding that bottom end together and allowing the other instruments to soar. Doesn't have to be staid or boring, can be incredibly ineventive but it's doing a particular job in the ensemble. The point at which I get bored is when a bass player gets to the solo. Most electric bass solos are (to me) just depressing, how fast can you play, how flash can you look and guess what? as everyone else has gone for a fag break it don't matter what you play. So that was meant to be a riff round the 12th fret and you did on 13? Don't matter, nothing else happening, no discords so who's going to know?

There are exceptions, you can get the sheet music for this and check his accuracy, I just stand back and gape

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgZ_-f7pVk4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgZ_-f7pVk4[/url]

Steve

[Lowender]

[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1381519899' post='2240325']
Until that guy with the bow can produce something as well crafted/executed as this, then I have to say the OPs opinions will be the polar opposite of mine. Wooten would wipe the floor with that guy everyday of the week!

[media]http://youtu.be/5BPwEPm90Gs[/media]
[/quote]

I didn't realize it was a competition. : )

[Lowender]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1381515985' post='2240259']
That all you could come up with after such a lengthy dump?
[/quote]

If the shoe fits...

[xilddx]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1381525925' post='2240452']
If the shoe fits...
[/quote]
Ahh, that's why you were such a long time

[Ziphoblat]

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1381507688' post='2240094']
I'm obviously a cultural heathen, as my idea of a bass solo is still Cliff Burton's 'Anesthesia'!

...it's what made me pick up a bass as a grebby young teenager. From my experience, you can mask a helluva lot of mistakes with sufficient amounts of fuzz and wah
[/quote]

Mistake would imply that he knew what he was intending to achieve in the first place.

Edited October 11, 2013 by Ziphoblat

[KevB]

[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1381525823' post='2240445']

There are exceptions, you can get the sheet music for this and check his accuracy, I just stand back and gape
[/quote]

And he's playing with only half the number of strings of the guy in the OP, doubly impressive!

[skej21]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1381525884' post='2240450']


I didn't realize it was a competition. : )
[/quote]

It's not. It's not even close

[Mr. Foxen]

How about this guy then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyUZh_Cbw6Q

[timmo]

Nothing to do with playing the bass
[url="http://youtu.be/E8H-67ILaqc"]http://youtu.be/E8H-67ILaqc[/url]

[risingson]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1381527263' post='2240480']
How about this guy then?
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyUZh_Cbw6Q[/media]
[/quote]

Great, massively entertaining!

Although as a wise man once said, music isn't entertainment, it's art...

Edited October 11, 2013 by risingson

[Lowender]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1381510552' post='2240139']
That was jsut him getting the dirt out of his strings to make them sound new.
[/quote]

That was nice. Don'tt love the sound of Fodera's though.

[Lowender]

[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1381525823' post='2240445']
I suppose it depends on how you see the bass.

For me bass players are at their best when they're anchoring the music, supplying depth and timing to the rest of the band, holding that bottom end together and allowing the other instruments to soar. Doesn't have to be staid or boring, can be incredibly ineventive but it's doing a particular job in the ensemble. The point at which I get bored is when a bass player gets to the solo. Most electric bass solos are (to me) just depressing, how fast can you play, how flash can you look and guess what? as everyone else has gone for a fag break it don't matter what you play. So that was meant to be a riff round the 12th fret and you did on 13? Don't matter, nothing else happening, no discords so who's going to know?

There are exceptions, you can get the sheet music for this and check his accuracy, I just stand back and gape

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgZ_-f7pVk4[/media]

Steve
[/quote]

Insanely great.

[Lowender]

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1381529923' post='2240515']
Great, massively entertaining!

Although as a wise man once said, music isn't entertainment, it's art...
[/quote]

All art is entertainment and most good entertainment is art.

[Lowender]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1381526110' post='2240457']
Ahh, that's why you were such a long time
[/quote]

Nice try.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1381530987' post='2240520']
Insanely great.
[/quote]

'Tis truly amazing. I know they are flat strings, but no squeaking going either.

Funny how with solos people spend most of it up the dusty end on the G string. I suppose the more normal register is a bit heavy and indistinct sounding on it's own but it means it become less to do with being a bass.

[LukeFRC]

I kinda wish I had had a music lesson in my life. I wish my parents had had the money and I could have been taught the piano or classical guitar properly. As it was they didn't have the money or any musical background and when I was 17 I just picked up a bass and taught myself.

I love bass, I love rhythm and the soul it gives music.... but there is a certain point with bass with however amazing it may technically be.... it's rarely up there with the best classical guitarist or paianist.



anyway I was looking for something else and this is good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fc3hffDNr8

Edited March 24, 2014 by icastle
Link fixed.

[BassTractor]

Let me be a little clearer then, since I seem to be one of the very unmusical ones who have a grudge against able people *) , and who also have terrible other capacities - as so eloquantly worded by Lowender.

I would never ciriticise the playing of the bassist in the OP if his contribution was not used as an example of greatness. Initially, for me, he's just another bloke on a stage performing some music to the best of his abilities - nothing to get overtly critical about.
Just like him, I too can be just a bloke on some stage playing some notes to the best of my abilities. Nothing to get worked up about either.

However, the OP is what the OP is, and it strongly invites people to respond - whether this be Lowender's wish or not. People responded honestly, and from there it went downwards terribly fast and terribly unnecessary, becoming another sad example of what forum threads can grow into.


OK, here goes then:
The bassist in the OP already ruins the piece during the first 16 seconds. His timing is uncontrolled, amateuristic and flat. As a result it becomes musicality-defying.
From there, the piece only goes downwards.
There, I said it.
The songs he plays for the most part are NOT free timing stuff. They're quite romantic small pieces with their own harmonic, melodic and rhythmic drive. The bass player lets the audience wait for musical information while he gets his fingers to the right places. Now while he may be a very musical person and a great bassist, in this exact performance things go terribly wrong because the musical drive is victimised on the bass w***ing shrine.


Someone get me a ladder!


*)
For reference and clarity: I'm a classical composer and organist, and have taught electronic music at music college. While I think this makes for me not having a grudge against able people, it does probably in part disabilitate me as a judge of solo bass versions of old prog songs, since the rock world embraces stuff that the classical world tends to look upon as amateuristic, but I still do love both ELP and the Sex Pistols.

[RhysP]

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1381538492' post='2240571']
The songs he plays for the most part are NOT free timing stuff. They're quite romantic small pieces with their own harmonic, melodic and rhythmic drive. The bass player lets the audience wait for musical information while he gets his fingers to the right places. Now while he may be a very musical person and a great bassist, in this exact performance things go terribly wrong because the musical drive is victimised on the bass w***ing shrine.
[/quote]

This is essentially the problem I had with the clip.

My other main thought was "does this bring anything new, or improve upon, the original piece of music?" and for me personally the answer is a definite "NO". "Take a Pebble" for instance, is (IMO) a beautiful song with some lovely piano work by Emerson, which in this clip has just been reduced to a horrible clanky rattly bass solo with none of the feeling, expression or harmonic content of the original.

If you want stand on stage with your cock out then good luck to you, but please don't beat a really nice piece of music to death with it while you're up there.

[steve-bbb]

one thing i did find vaguely entertaining was the contrast of his apparent smugness with his own playing and his irritation of his hair getting in the way

[XB26354]

The fact is that most solo bass performances don't wash because the electric bass does not have the melodic expression capabilities for a piano, saxophone or cello, cannot play significant chord melody because of the lack of available notes, size of the strings and the scale length. What it boils down to is that any of these performances (apart from the piano and db, which was extraordinary) would have sounded better on almost any other melody instrument or set of instruments. The guy with the TRB was very good and what elevated him above the OP's vid (although that was a live performance) was the tone, execution and feeling. As has been said, that piece would be easy fodder for a classical guitar and would have sounded better.
I may have missed something and am not familiar with the song on the original vid but it was poorly executed, no sense of time, movement or melody, as if it were under-rehearsed or he was lacking in confidence.
Where opinions are free to be had is when music is performed for public consumption. Performance demands a standard of execution appropriate to the music, and he did not have it. To me it had no heart. Music should be performed with passion, conviction and confidence. Whether you care for classical music or not, the performance in oggiesnr's video fulfills all those criteria in spades. The OP's video fulfills none of them. Doesn't mean that player can't do it, but just not in that performance. As for bass players that have no life, victor Wooten would be well served to put his bass down, sit at a piano and come up with some great music that needs no double thumbing, tapping, tricks or anything other than a straight bass line, but great music.