Bilbo

Reggae is easy; play less and never go above the fourth fret. What is interesting is that almost all of the above posts reference difficulties with techniques that are practically useless Fopr instance, I don't slap particularly well and double thumbing is weak. The reason for this is primarily that, whilst the techniques in question undoubtedly turn heads, I DON'T LIKE THE MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED USING THEM AND NEVER PLAY THE MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED USING THEM. So, in short, the techniques are of no real use to me. Hence, I do not practice them, hence, I am not very good at them. When I was a fledgling bass player, I learned lots of the required party pieces that use odd techniques (5G by Jeff Berlin, Schooldays by Stanley Clarke, Motherlode by Berlin, Country Music by Stu Hamm etc). I also learned to play Pat Metheny's 'Are You Going With Me' as a two-handed extravaganza. As I moved on, however, I realised that these techniques are pretty much peripheral to the world of music making. I suspect the above list of 'difficulties' reflects that fact that most of the things we have 'difficulties' with are not bass playing but party tricks.

Putter Smith

http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=t0Wf2SP0rJ4

Jeff Berlin depped last time. I wonder if he will get the gig again? I am free, otherwise.

I know Jazz musicians who know 1,000 standards and can play them in any key (I am not one of them). I think this may be about the kinds of dep gigs you have. I do quite a lot of deps and never learn anything because I ask for charts (usually chords only) that are sufficient for me to 'fake' it. To put this in context, I play in two different bands who will regularly put new tunes in the set ON A GIG without asking me if I know them (and I invariably don't). So the first time I play the tune is when the audience hears it. It rarely crashes because most tunes are fairly predictable and a lot of the links can be managed with eye contact, established cues and a tame drummer. I saw a thread on-line the other day where guitarist Nigel Price (a monster player who knows EVERYTHING insude out) was detailing how he had to resort to the 'real book of shame' to play a Jazz standard he had forgotten in an odd key. He related a great story where he was on a gig and didn't know the changes to a tune. After floundering about a bit, he turned to the band with a 'OMG, help me out' look on his face, only to have the DRUMMER, wearing a bag ass grin on his face, call out the chords to him. I did a gig with Gilad Atzmon where I needed a real book and he poured (good natured) scorn on me for not knowing the tunes. Truth is, I don't even know the ones I wrote.

I always try to alert developing bass players (and other young musicians I come in contact with) to the fact that being able to play complex pieces made famous by other hot-shot bassists (or other instrumentalists) does not put you anywhere near being in their league. In my day it was Teen Town, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Jeff Berlin's 'Bach' or 'Dixie', Stanley Clarke's 'SIlly Putty' etc. Nowadays it's Victor Wooten's 'Amazing Grace' or Marcus Miller's slapped version of Teen Town or a two-handed tapping version of the Super Mario Brothers theme etc. The simple act of learing someone else's party pieces is far removed from functioning at the level required to contribute to the art form in a meaningful way. Understanding the music requires considerably more insight than that gained from 'knowing where to put your fingers'.

Massively good post, SS.

Your point is valid, though. In the 80s and 90s, after studying for years and successfully learning things like Jeff Berlin's stuff on Joe Frazier, his intro to Bruford's Five G, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Teen Town, Achool Days, Stu Hamm's Country etc, I always operated on the belief that everything was learnable given enough time and attention. I still believe that is the case broadly speaking but, over the years, I have met and played (one gig mostly) with some astonishing musicians and I really got a sense that there is a whoie 'nother level that cannot be reached by rote learning but which requires 'insight' as well as 'knowledge' and 'motor skills'. The problem, as I see it, is that, in order to develop this additional insight and to move up to that level, you need total immersion in the genres in question; Jazz in my case but I have no doubt that the same applies to other genres like classical etc. My three hours playing a week isn't going to get me there,

I wouldn't say most music, just most popular music!!

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1431606469' post='2773087'] I love your examples of 'Pop' (a term not used by anyone under 20 since 1983) are both from the '60s. Late '60s mind so you're not too out of date. [/quote] Gigs I do also include Good Times, Valerie, Mercy, a couple of Jesse J tunes, Maroon 5, Happy - it's all in there. My point was that most of it was playable by me when I was two or three years in .

Hate Canteloupe Island and Watermelon Man. Always pulled out by Jazz bands that want to pander to a crowd by playing something 'funky' but they invariably aren't.

Here we go..... https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/wrong-key-serenade

Ref: Dad's Four track. I have to agree. There are times when old fashioned hardwear is so much easier to use. I have some old cassettes of things I did on one and they sound great. I am not altogether covinced that progress is anything more than going round in circles faster. It's all good.

Biggest audeince ever - 4,000 at a Jazz gig. Smallest - nil (bar staff excluded) at a Rock gig. Same band also drove from Wales to London to play for 3 people. We did have an audience at some gigs though, honest. I don't do nerves. I am a bass player. No-one knows what I am doing so they don't know if I have done it wrong.

I do like these basses. I would never have thought it but there you are.

No worries, mate. I have merged the two threads as I didn't see the longer one and missed your earlier explanation. Your points on why a female teacher are perfectly rational. Good luck with your search. Is Evelyn Glennie in London?

You will probably struggle to find one locally but there are drum female teachers across London. Lorraine Baker and Corrina Sylverster are both brilliant and were in London but have moved out Greenwich and Hertfordshire respectively. I don't know of any others. There is another angle on this, however. Can I ask why the need for a female teacher? I understand the issues on one level but wonder what messages you are sending? Most teachers now have criminal record checks to prove they have no convictions etc. It's pretty tragic if the working assumption is that male teachers are a potential threat when, statistically, this is highly improbable?

Four knobs on a Wal; volume, mixer between pick-ups, bass, treble. Volume on 4, mixer slightly, but only slightly, favouring treble, bass up full, treble on 9. I keep the volume low because, in the musics I play, an 'awesome' bass sound doesn't work. It needs to sit comfortably in the mix rather than overwhelm it. Actually, reviewing the above, I realised I do change it at times. I do a pop gig with the occasional reggae tune and then I pull the treble back and increase the mix in favour of the bass pick up. I also, once in a while, do that guitarist's trick of using the volume control to mirror the effect of a volume pedal. The controls have an incredible range on a Wal and I can actually recreate a wah pedal as well, albeit less effectively than the volume trick. The bass tone knob is less accessible.

Andy Watson and Simon Hurley. Here is the webpage for the gig. http://jazzeast.vpweb.co.uk/This-week.html

Lovely Jazz quartet gig with two guitars, bass and drums. Beautiful playing from all parties and some sublime interplay across the piece. Big smiles all round.

For my money, the problem with Yamaha instruments is that, when they first started appearing in the lates 70s/early 80s, they were essentially all copies, both guitars and basses. As a result, the mind set was (and, to my mind, remains) why buy a copy when you can have the real thing (be that a Fender,. Gibson etc). They have undoubtedly moved on but, a bit like Skodas, it remains difficult to shake the historical rep. People who came later are less likley to recognise that history and just hear/see what they hear/see, clearly a more sensible approach. So, in response to the OP, the 'best' Yamaha would, in many people's eyes, be starting with a compromise. Unreasonably so, I am sure, but there you are.

I had an interesting discussion with a musician friend last night after doing two gigs with him in three days. The first gig was a 'pop' gig on electric bass, a function full of generally run-of-the-mill pop standards; Alfie, Son Of Preacher Man etc. The second was a Jazz gig on double bass playing charted arrangements of standards. The discussion related to the fact that, as most of my gigs are now on double bass, I commented that I had found my electric chops were more than a little rusty on the earlier gig and that I felt that I needed to get them back up to scratch. THe problem is that I only seem to be playing about 4 gigs a year on electric and, as those are pop gigs, the question was 'how much technique is enough'? I am not going to be doing Victor Wooten stuff or even 'Rhythm Stick'; it's all a lot more 'functional' than that. My friend suggested that, as I was doing so few electric gigs, it didn't matter that much. We got talking about the concept of a musicans 'fantasy life' versus their 'real life'. I have spent decades playing music and, thoughout that time, have invested a lot of time and effort in developing my technique. I listen to the best players and try to emulate the best qualities of each. Whilst I generally fail in the absolute sense, this is more a case of 'if you reach for the moon, you may get to the stars' (or whatever the saying is) and that, whilst I cannot quite cut Jaco, I can play most of the more difficult stuff within reason and, with proper rehearsal, can usually nail the rest. The problem is that I never will. I 'real life', I live in an East Anglian seaside town with a population of a few thousand. The quality of local Jazz is defined pretty much by me in that I put the main gigs on around here and no-on else is doing anything in which I am likely to be (or even want to be) involved. There are a couple of guys working locally who are cool players but they are certainly no better than I am. The other (non-bass playing) musicians are just doing their thing and mostly use double bass players like me; no better and no worse. All of them require functional bass players and never write/arrange anything that requires Neils Henning Orsted Pederson quality playing, just the usual quarter notes with the occasional written part in arranged sections. We came to the concusion that, as we live in the sticks, we are never going to get called to dep on a Weather Report gig or the replace Matt Garrison with Herbie Hancock, nor are we likely to get Miguel Zenon turning up with a set of charts that massively catch us out. These 'fantasy gigs' are for London players, New York players, people whose lives have taken them to the large population centres where these tough gigs are born. For the kinds of gigs I do, I probably had the requisite technique when I was about 20. Knowledge of music, knowing what works in making good music, is much more important than chops. (For the record, last night's gig was a real pleasure).

I used to knock around with these guys (if you look closely on the credits on the album, I am mentioned as 'the other Rob Palmer); they toured with Magnum and had Grant Nicholas from Feeder as lead vocalist for a period, They have reformed and are about to play some Prog festivals etc. Some ok material and I don't like to be disloyal but the name....?

Remember when singles were 7" and we all had the pleasure of an unexpected b-side? Occasionally, you would get what they called a 'double A side' with the two faces alternating in air-play etc but, mostly, the b-side was an album track or even a track not available anywhere else. A couple I remember being quite impressed by were 'Own Up, Take A Look At Yourself' by The Sweet and, a song that I have loved for years now, 'Evidence of Autumn' by Genesis (b-side to 'Misunderstanding'). There will be others but I always remember thinking that, often, the b-sides were the better songs.

I would say at the D also. Try blowing over it and you will find the scales you use change at the D not at the A.