mcgraham

I know one person who has perfect pitch, and he uses it to great effect. But he suffers as a result in various ways (e.g. love/hate relationship with harmonies that use correct intervallic ratios like African gospel choirs). He has done research into it, and has said that it [i]can[/i] be developed by singing a [i]lot[/i]. When you consider that singing teachers teach their students (at an intermediate level) to sight sing in actual pitch, that is essentially the development of perfect pitch. There was an interesting thread on this over on TB. In fact the general concensus (even from a number who have perfect pitch) was that it's much better to have excellent relative pitch as it serves the same purpose, is more flexible and ultimately less painful for the 'user' Mark

Do you mean hit a G with your bass or your voice? If you mean your bass then simply drawing out a chart of where the notes are is a good start. If you mean your voice then you're talking either perfect pitch (i.e. singing a G without any prompting or starting note) or good relative pitch (i.e. sing a G based on the key you're currently in). Relative pitch comes with efficient practice of a wide variety of scales (modes were good enough for me!) as it is a result of ear training. Perfect pitch [i]can[/i] be achieved (so I'm told) if you practice a lot (particularly singing), but good relative pitch requires less work and will be less painful for you in the long run. Feel free to PM if you want a breakdown of what I did to develop my ear in this way. I'm at work so can't really spend the time typing it all out on the forum right now. Mark

Though some are blunter than others Mark

Transcription is good! Broadening your horizons is great too! +1 to trying doing guitar/keys for a bit. Do you want to be a excellent bass player or an excellent musician? I'd rather be the latter rather than solely the former. I go through phases where I focus primarily on bass, others where I focus on guitar, others where I'm caught up in writing, and others where I'm working on my ear without any instrument other than my voice and my mind (if that can be called an instrument). It's fab! Mark P.S. Since posting about classical instruments in another thread, I'm feeling a violin phase coming on. I'm itching to get home at lunch and practice.

I think the merits of having a lined fingerboard are pretty clear. I'm also uncertain how sound the reasoning is for saying that if classical musicians can do it on an unlined board without issue, then we should be able to without issue. For example, I am a novice violinist; a big difference that I noticed between my playing of an acoustic wood violin and an electric violin is resonance. When playing the electric, my intonation sounded fine even when it was slightly off due to a lack of resonance in the body, and it didn't give me any physical feedback telling me it was wrong. However when it was slightly off by the same amount on the acoustic, it was unpleasantly dissonant, both to my ear and by feel. From this, I would suggest that there is the additional feedback by feeling resonance with classical string instruments that simply doesn't exist to such a great extent with electric instruments. There is of course the heavily commented landmark issue (i.e. basses have fewer identifying features along the length of their fingerboards to help identify fingering position and intonation, whilst classical instruments do), but I (personally) only foresee that being an issue if your bass position relative to you keeps shifting, i.e. muscle memory should be the dominating factor. Any other thoughts? This was just my experience. It'd be good to hear from some experienced classical musicians. Mark

+1 to Mike's comments on setting achievable and measurable goals. I have always made the most progress when I set my sights on a target and made plans on how to get there. +1 to Carlos's comments on trying out another instrument. It will benefit your bass playing by seeing music from a different perspective. I found that leading a band from guitar really helped me to see the functional aspect of the bass more clearly, rather than just an instrument that occupies a given register. +1 to Wulf's advice on listening and transcribing pieces. Transcribing things either in your head, on paper, or on your instrument will help to broaden your vocabulary (doing it without your instrument is a [i]fantastic[/i] workout). Transcribing will improve your ear/listening ability, it'll open your ear up to a whole host of new ideas that you'd be unlikely to come across yourself, and will help you to develop your technique in order to play difficult phrases you've heard. While doing this, you're likely find other phrases/ideas while trying to figure something out, and afterwards you'll more than likely end up with further ideas that have 'mutated' out from the pieces you figured out. All in all there's some good advice already posted above! Mark

By taste and restraint I don't mean that I wish to tie him down and lick him; I mean that what I've heard from him so far shows an imbalance of technique over musicality. I'd like to see him in a group where notes and phrases are more carefully placed. Mark

I'd love to see him do something like that. With a bit of taste and restraint coupled with his chops, that could yield a mighty fine performance! Mark

No. The majority of bassists play with the bass anchored to their right hip (assuming they are right handed). So if you were looking directly down from above, there is a 45 degree or greater angle formed between the bass and the player. This is a contributing factor to having a bunched up plucking arm as the heel/butt of the bass is angled into that side of the body, and a contributing factor to bad form in the fretting arm as you're having to stretch (compared to the other arm) to reach the bass. Effectively fighting to achieve a stance that will allow you to reach and play the bass. Again, looking down from above, bring the whole instrument into the fretting hand side, i.e. decreasing the angle until it is more parallel to your body. This corrects both issues. It feels better on the left arm instantly, but feels a bit odd on the right as the bass is being pulled away from it. This 'evens' up the ergonomics on both sides. Good example, look up older Gary Willis vids on youtube. If anyone knows the ones I mean please post them, or I will do it when I'm home. If that's not clear please let me know and I'll try harder. Mark

Jake, that's exactly how I feel about him. Technique is great, I find it really inspiring for practice sake, but it literally appears to be him going flat out all the time with little variation in speed, rhythm, tone, taste etc. I watched a clip of him with a drummer and either a band or backing track at either Bassday or European Bassday, and it genuinely didn't sound much better than dissonant noise to me. And I enjoy some pretty bizarre bits of music. Disclaimer: Please don't think I'm bashing Hadrien, or belittling his obvious talent/technical ability simply because I have not achieved it. I recognise the talent, I recognise the ability, and I'm merely saying it doesn't do anything for me, beyond providing some technical inspiration. Mark

Good point! Strain on the left wrist is something to watch out for. Suddenly the absolute stretch you can reach is a lot larger, the palm ends up being parallel to the fingerboard but the forearm is still perpendicular to the neck, thus giving a pretty severe angle at the wrist. I've mentioned this before, but I've found the issue of playing ergonomics is greatly mitigated by bringing the entirety of the bass closer into the body, i.e. so that the plane of the bass is almost/more parallel to the front of your body. This evens out the distances your arms have to cover in order to 'reach' the bass, and gives everything a much more ergonomic natural angle. Mark

Whenever I meet someone who clutches the neck like you've described, I demonstrate this... Situation 1) I place my hand on the neck as you've described, with the thumb anchored around the top side of the neck, then show the other player how many frets I can reach at full stretch whilst keeping that thumb anchored. You'll get 2-3 max, depending on where you are on the neck (around the 7th fret say?). Situation 2) I switch to thumb behind the neck, and show how many frets I can reach with my thumb behind the neck, usually 4 or 5 depending on where I am on the neck (around the 7th fret again). I then get them to try it; I've not encountered anyone who doesn't acknowledge at least the ergonomic benefits. Keeping the thumb behind the neck rather than anchored on top of it will help relieve tension in your playing, will give you greater stretch along the freboard, as well as making it easier to stretch across it. Mark

I was discussing this was bassjamm recently. I own 3 (soon to be 4) basses, but I only [i]have[/i] one of them (soon to be two). I also have two electric guitars (boutique and workhorse) and an acoustic. I am like Bilbo; the instruments are not an end in themselves, I genuinely only play one bass all the time, the others just sit unused until I need a backup (e.g. main one in for a setup or repair). I'd love to be down to just one instrument, but I play both, and to a level that I'd need at least a main and a backup. Mark

OTPJ, I definitely agree with you about good jazz pianists. Tis amazing. And saying that, Hiromi definitely gets my vote as one of the most amazing musicians out there. I also agree about drummers, when you get a good one it's a dream, when you get a 'clunker' it's a painful experience. Bizarrely enough, Hiromi's drummer Martin Valihora is a drummer whose style and chops really speak to me. Derek Phillips is another good drummer I like (Charlie Hunter 'Right Now Live'). Guitarists- Joe Satriani and Paco DeLucia, both truly inspirational musicians. Violinists- Maxim Vengerov, flipping heck this guy is phenomenal. Mark

I thought so too

I've only ever done one audition [i]per se[/i] and it was quite recently. I asked a number of questions prior to the meet up and he said he'd find it easier to explain in person (this was for second guitar by the way; marginally technical). If I'm honest it was a bit of a sham. In short, he had his own room at the studio, was a self-titled 'professional' musician, and was terribly vague, imprecise and generally unhelpful about what he wanted. Needless to say I've not heard back. Whilst he was pleasant enough, he put out vibes of false humility all over the place. I just can't work with people who make themselves out to be more than they actually are, coupled with putting down others even just in their own mind in order to enlarge their own egos. Mark

I assume that we're talking about improv in a solo sense, i.e. not necessarily/only holding down the groove. When I improvise I work on shape, feel, tension/resolution and coaxing melody out of these qualities. - By shape I mean the general 'flow' of the improv, i.e. not just limited to the notes/pitches I'm playing, but the intensity, the dynamics, the techniques, the tone, etc. Essentially making it 'read' well. - By feel I mean incorporation of different styles/genres, rhythms, emphasised note choices (or lack of note choices), scales, key centres (or lack of). I try to give the improv 'life' this way. - Tension/resolution I think everyone knows about; trying to find new ways of creating tension and creatively resolving it, or perhaps dragging it out? Who knows? I try to keep the improv 'interesting' the whole way through this way. - And I try to tie it all together by crafting melodies out of the improvisation. That's always subjective and up to the musician, but I try to pay attention to what I'm playing and when something leaps out at me, make an effort to get on the back of that and pursue it. Bilbo is right about theory/transcription/...etc , none of this would be possible to anywhere near the same degree without those bits of background info. They help provide a solid base on which to improvise and figure out where you wish for your improvs to go. I will say that I don't think about it constantly, but I had to do so initially, and still switch on my mind when I play certain things. Mark P.S. Sorry if the above sounds pretentious (I hate that), but I know no better way to explain how I go about it.

There we go Alex, summed up what I was trying to say in a few lines Re: aging guitars, was browsing the net and came across [url="http://www.acousticguitar.com/Gear/advice/vibration.shtml"]this[/url] Mark

I remember reading about Tony Grey's practice regime once, quite a good way of doing it (though it doesn't work for me). He practiced 4 hours a day (roughly), and split it into 8 half hour units. In each one he'd attack a certain aspect, e.g. technique, transcription, reading, listening, ear training, theory, writing/arranging etc. Whilst I don't do all of those every day, I focus on technique, transcription and writing/arranging. Generally about 1-2 hours a day with an instrument split about 1-1.5 hr technique and 0.5-1 hr transcription, and whenever I can with my iPod doing transcription and voice for writing/arranging. Decide what you want to achieve, and find exercises that obviously lend themselves toward you developing your goals. If you'd like a PDF copy of Hanon please message me. This is a piano exercise book that is challenging on bass (but doable!) that develops your technique wonderfully. Mark