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Oh don't worry about that, you can just make it up 😃

Agreed! 😎👍

I jammed with Ritchie Hayward of Little Feat once, with Pre-Feeder Grant Nicholas.

Wot about reading rythm? That to me is the hard bit of sight reading

Apologies, the -> were meant to deonte moving from one note to the next

I know that 'Music Theory' is an academic subject but in my humble opinion, knowing note names, knowing which notes to play when and why *IS* music theory. Someone could have decent music theory knowledge without having studied it academically, surely? If a guitarist told you what chords he was playing and you knew which notes to play (or even just where to put your fingers) to make it sound good, that's music theory, surely? Maybe we should seperate it into Music Theory and music theory? Potato/Potato, Tomato/Tomato, let's Carl the whole thing Orff 😃

I would suggest, from long experience, that this is patently untrue. Not to decry the benefits of reading, but the Knowledge can, and is, put to Good Use by thousands of musicians, all over the Planet, every day, with nothing written at all, nor understood even if it were. Ears, on the other hand, can be useful. Knowing, from experience, how chords are constructed, and why, rhythmic notions to recognise different styles, and play to adapt to them, improvising over a piece never before heard... All of this, and more, much more, can, and is, achieved with no idea of notation, of any sort. Reading is Good, but it is only a part of Music Theory, and maybe not the most important part.

I've had one most of the time since I was a teenager in the 90s, it comes out relatively seldom these days but I enjoy it when it does. It's on two tracks of the album my band is working on, but live it's easier to just play one bass, and sometimes it gets brought out for free improv stuff if I fancy electric bass that day - the extra expressiveness and variation over my fretted bass makes it fun to work with for that. My current fretless is an odd beast, it's the bass I built in my parent's utility room when I was 18 and defretted much later. It's shaped like a pointier Jazz with a funny angular paddle headstock, and a walnut body a full 2" thick that weighs an absurd amount. The pickups are a ceramic single coil under a mudbucker cover that I wound myself in something close to Rickenbacker bridge position and a Kent Armstrong toaster added later right up by the neck. The bridge is currently a brass Hipshot ric replacement. But with those pickup positions and the hefty body, it's surprisingly good as a fretless.

Odd choice of words - A C E is an A Minor Chord.

By a Neapolitan Second Chord, I assume you mean a Neopolitan 6th (flattened chord II.) I think we're talking semantics here if we're honest. It sounds like I'm talking from the classical training world and you're talking from the popular/jazz training world. Basically, 'Music Theory' is an academic subject which we teachers teach instrumental students in order to fill in the gaps when they're learning to play.

Off topic, but it’s the other way round. Reading as no use other than communicating musical ideas. Music theory is the building blocks of composition. You could know a key signature on the fretboard without knowing it on a stave and get through a tune. If you can read the stave but have no idea where it relates to on the fretboard, you’re screwed.

Yes, it is! That's why A -> C natural -> E will sound better under an A minor chord

I respectfully disagree - IMHO 'Music theory' is everything from knowing note names to knowing when, why and how to substitute a Subdominant for a Neapolitan Second chord and everything inbetween.

Cleaning is Mrs Lurks hobby, so I don’t mind contributing to cause 😁

No, I am talking about the 'academic' Music Theory examinations held by the ABRSM. You're talking about what people just happen to know. Two completely different things. Oh, and A - C# - E is an A Major Chord in Root Position.

Cut Off My Right Arm — Johnny Copeland Listen out for an absolute honker of a bumnote on the bass at 1:19

Not necessarily - 'Music theory' means knowing which notes to play over under which chords - A -> C natural -> E will (generally) sound better under an A minor chord than A -> C# -> E for instance, even if you couldn't read them on a score. You all know some scales and triads, even if you don't know that you know them!

Great song that i once played in a band. Had another great song we did that i just loved the bass part. Let It Roll by Little Feat if you fancy giving it a try Rob. Lot going on in the song with horns, guitars and keys and i found it hard making out the bass part. Dave

Sounds good with a passive bass à la P-Bass, way too nasal for other basses and never try a fretless with it : all the cats will leave the neighbourhood. I had 3 or 4 over the years, including a brand new one when it was released, but always ended up selling them because of that nasal tone, and the weight too, especially nowadays.

Au contraire. The Music Theory should work along with the Sight Reading. If you don't know how key signatures, time signatures, rhythms and chord progressions work, all you'd be able to read would be seven basic notes. Yes, the ABRSM Grade 5 theory is vastly more useful than an 'O'Level (or GCSE) in Music, but any teacher worth their salt will teach some theory as you go along with lessons, otherwise you'll be left with large gaps in your knowledge. If you had no reading ability whatsoever, music theory would be utterly meaningless.

Indeed. Many moons ago, I helped out a youth orchestra based in West Sussex. The man behind it was the head of music in the County. He was a cellist and could read anything put in front of him, faultlessly. One day I was noodling on an upright bass and asked what I was playing. I just said I was just improvising something and he was completely stunned that I could do that. A weird situation in which each of us was in awe of the other.

Gary bought a preamp off me. All good, straightforward transaction and good comms throughout. cheers John

I thought about getting a double bass, but what with the price of Mr Sheen / Pledge these days I’m not sure I can afford the upkeep. ☹️