Musical turning points

[essexbasscat]

I'm going to address the title of the thread 'musical turning points' and not follow on 'bass playing turning points'.

This may rather age the discussion a bit, but hearing 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd for the first time was an introduction to seeing music from somewhere totally new, at the time. It really was revolutionary in it's day.

T

[Rayman]

Well from the point of view of a major turning point in my life musically, of a [i]non bass [/i]nature, then I have to go back to the day my brother brought home a copy of 'Unleashed In The East' by Judas Priest in about 1979. I was 14, and only really been listening to Beatles records of my parents, and an ELO EP we had. My brother said listen to this and gave the LP to me. I stuck it on the Teak radiogram we had in the front room, and turned it up. That was it, I felt like I'd been born again. I can remember staring at the front cover of the record and imagining I was watching them live on that stage in Japan as I listened to the album over and over again.

I was a rocker instantly, and with the discovery of bands like Rush too, I was engrossed in music for ever more.

While I'm not a heavy rocker as such anymore, that day I first heard that music changed my life.

[OliverBlackman]

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='923721' date='Aug 13 2010, 12:27 PM']I'm going to address the title of the thread 'musical turning points' and not follow on 'bass playing turning points'.

This may rather age the discussion a bit, but hearing 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd for the first time was an introduction to seeing music from somewhere totally new, at the time. It really was revolutionary in it's day.

T[/quote]

My taste in music has completely followed my ability and taste on bass. So im still keeping to the post

[Kirky]

Grotesque by The Fall turned me away from ELP and the ilk forever.

[Cat Burrito]

As a very small boy I remember wearing out my parents old vinyl records - 60s rock, country & soul. When I hit my teens I was into Glam & punk but as I started to get bored of the newer bands coming through I began to trace the influences of the bands I'd discovered... guess what? I wound up going full circle!

[Lozz196]

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='924596' date='Aug 14 2010, 01:44 AM']As a very small boy I remember wearing out my parents old vinyl records - 60s rock, country & soul. When I hit my teens I was into Glam & punk but as I started to get bored of the newer bands coming through I began to trace the influences of the bands I'd discovered... guess what? I wound up going full circle![/quote]
Turning point for me is kinda three-fold.

Firstly, seeing the video to Bohemian Rhapsody, specifically the live bit - at that point (even tho I was abt 8) I knew I wanted to be a musician.

Secondly was hearing Pretty Vacant by The Sex Pistols, and seeing the video to the song on Top of the Pops - at that point I knew what direction I wanted to take.

Lastly, hearing the bass in The Jam - I then knew which instrument was for me.

[warwickhunt]

When someone actually explained to me what the difference was between a 'major' and 'minor' scale!

I'd been a self taught bassist for some years and knew exactly what was needed to make a bass line work (even if I did need to run through something a couple of times i.e. not knowing Maj Or Min) and learning songs from recordings didn't require me to know Maj/Min. However, when a shocked fellow bassist realised that I genuinely had no idea what the reference to Maj/Min meant (I'd done LOADS of gigs and I could find any note on the fingerboard easy enough) it took about 3 minutes for him to change my whole percetion of how things 'worked'!

Never assume that everyone knows what you are talking about.

[risingson]

Hearing Jaco Pastorius play Donna Lee after around a year of playing bass guitar. I couldn't believe someone could do that with an instrument I was so new to... didn't even think it was a bass at first!

[Johngh]

When I was a kid, Slade were massive and I was a huge fan. Then I went around to my mates one night and he played me the Machine Head album by Deep Purple.

Also

Seeing Level 42 on Sight and Sound in concert on BBC2. Never really saw a bass being played like that before then. Brilliant.

[ahpook]

ian masters' playing on 'the comforts of madness' by the pale saints was a real sea change for me.

a perfect example of how great, inventive basslines don't have to be played at 100 miles an hour.

lovely voice too...

[derrenleepoole]

I have two, first: listening to Charles Mingus, in particular Slop and Song With Orange. I was walking to my mates house listening to him on the headphones around 1990. Had been playing bass for a few years, and my mate mentioned that he was a great bassist. I wasn't into jazz at all at the time, and had the album for some, but I just didn't understand it. I decided to give the album another go and it was about 15 minutes into the album when I suddenly had a moment of clarity - everything clicked into place; the basslines, the drumming, the horns, chord sequences etc... I suddenly understood what was going on and how it related to other music. It was an awakening that lead me to many other genres of music.

My second was hearing Krystof Penderecki's Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima - it left me speechless and in tears, I never thought it was possible to emote so much feeling in music so seemingly abstract. Enough said.

[JamieBenzies]

Jazz Weather Report, then Metheny, Bona, Eric Dolphy and Janek - just some of the music that very quickly changed my life.

[thodrik]

Probably Kyuss - Un Sandpiper when I was about 16/17

I'd been playing for 4/5 years on the electric bass, originally playing lots a mixture of rock and blues Hendrix, SRV, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Sabbath, Led Zep. Then I got into Tool, Rage and Queens of the Stoneage. I was also playing a lot of classical double bass in orchestras and doing my grades and theory exams, so I was probably more into Vivaldi and Stravinsky than Sabbath at the time of discovering Kyuss.

But when I heard Kyuss, I pretty much knew that this was the kind of music that I really knew that was for me. Loose, loud heavy, melodic with a prominent role for the bass. I also liked the improvisational nature of it, as most of the magic hadn't really been composed into it, but rather just happened.

I did get into Jaco, Marcus Miller, Wooten and Mingus afterwards, but most of it doesn't speak to me in the same way, though they are all great muscians.

[Bloodaxe]

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='924596' date='Aug 14 2010, 01:44 AM']As a very small boy I remember wearing out my parents old vinyl records - 60s rock, country & soul. When I hit my teens I was into Glam & punk but as I started to get bored of the newer bands coming through I began to trace the influences of the bands I'd discovered... guess what? I wound up going full circle![/quote]

Snap! (nearly). I was brought up with a Dansette & my brothers' cast-off Beatles 45s. Turning Point 1 was this:



Still gets me today (40-odd years on!)

Fast forward 10 years or so to 1979 & I discovered Stuart Coleman's Rock 'n' Roll show on Radio 1. Loads of mixed-up stuff, as well as the Usual Suspects - Elvis, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee etc. For me that music had all the energy of Punk, but threw Melody into the mix too. That was Moment Number 2.

Hop to 1981. My dad's job (GCHQ) took us to Hong Kong (better for spyin' on the Chinese with rays I guess ), & I was in the 6th form out there. A bit of a fish out of water musically, tbh. No love for The R 'n' R amongst my peers who were roughly split into Disco & NWOBHM camps with a few Punks & Mods in the corner. We had a stereo in the common room, & much stuff was played, most of which I hated - including Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner, which I regarded as noise of the sh**e variety. One day, someone tripped in with "If You Want Blood..." & Angus' solo in Let There Be Rock was Turning Point 3. That little pastiche boogie run he does? That bit. That was the link. Blagged a few albums off my mates & taped them (Overkill, Vol.4, British Steel & Wheels of Steel), then bought "Made In Japan".

The same year I was back in the UK for the summer & went to Port Vale and Donington, started growing my hair & cut/tore the sleeves off my denim jacket. Happy Days.

So from Bill Haley to seeing Frank Marino, Ozzy with Randy Rhodes, & Motorhead (Port Vale), Slade, Blue Oyster Cult, Blackfoot, Whitesnake & AC/DC in the space of a couple of months.

Lately though I've gone back to TP 2 & I'm still enamoured with the '50s tunes, with the bonus of all the other stuff I picked up on the way.

Edit! Forgot one! It'll have to be TP 1a. Back in 1973 we were doing our first stay in HK, & I went to the pictures to see [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV9ysMZamxs"]Rollerball starring James Caan...[/url] The title music? Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor. Didn't get hold of it until 1980, but that stuck. I do like a massive organ

This version to be precise:



Glorious.

Pete.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Bloodaxe

[Bassclef]

[size=2][font="Arial"]In 1983 I was listening to Motorhead, Rush, Buzzcocks and Costello. All great stuff and nothing else mattered. Then I took a course about the history of Classical music. We had a list of "recommended listening" covering musical styles across four centuries. Much of it did nothing for me and still wouldn't, but a handful of pieces completely blew me away: [color="#0000FF"]L'Orfeo by Monteverdi[/color], [color="#0000FF"]La Mer by Debussy[/color] and especially [color="#0000FF"]The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky[/color].

I still get great pleasure from rock, prog, jazz and fusion but that course was my musical turning point.
How different it is to see disciplined performers playing the written notes, exactly what the composer meant, without w***ing off on their own ponsy solos.[/font][/size]

Edited August 15, 2010 by Bassclef