Bilbo

I have been doing these great gigs for a couple of years now with some of the UK's top Jazzers; John Etheridge, Tony Kofi, Jim Mullen, Art Themen, Steve Waterman, Jason Robello, Ivo Neame, Clark Tracey - the list is long and exciting. When I do these gigs, I am regularly offered the opportunity to solo; no surprsies there, it's a Jazz gig after all. I recorded a lot of these gigs in the early days for reference purposes (I stopped doing so a long time ago as it was becoming unhelpful) and several of them are on my ipod so they pop up occasionally What is troubling me is that, when everyone else is soloing, there is a massive bed of harmony and rhythm on which they can draw and against which the gaps in their lines can sit. When the bass solos, more often tthan not, this whole tapestry disappears and you are left with a hi-hat and air. Obviously, sometimes there are subtle chords and rhythms and, In some ways, it is lovely to have the space but, when I listen back to the performances, I wish other musicians wouldn't drop like a stone every time a bass solo comes by!! I remember one gig 1000 years ago (in Cardiff) where I was playing in a piano trio and, when the bass solo came along, for reasons which were not altogether clear at the time, it took off and went up a notch instead of the whole backdrop disappearing. I know the double bass doesn't carry that well but it still feels like I have been abandoned!! Any thought?

It's Paul Chambers' 80th birthday today. It is also the birthday of Charles Mingus and Barry Guy!!

It's all here in a logical order. For free.. http://basschat.co.uk/topic/74284-the-majors-bass-boot-camp-session-index-1-36/

A lot of ghost notes are just the notes between the notes you actually play. A lot of it comes perfectly naturally.

Absolutely. I am a staunch ad ocate for reading music but there is definitely a difference in reading slowly as a learning thing and learning to sight read cold. The former is a must, in my view, the latter an ideal that is achieved over years and need to be maintained like any form of skill. I read once of a literate woman who went blind and recovered her sight twenty years later. UPon being able to see again, she had to learn to read from scratch because she had 'forgotten' how to do it.

http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=yYOQ01zPnt8

They say you taste food with your eyes, why not hear sounds the same way? The maple LOOKS brighter so the ears perceive it as brighter. NB I don't know sh*t.

Have checked it out and tea up on the theory and, to be blunt, I think there is sufficient ambiguity for us all to be right It would be necessary to speak to the composer/copyists to clarify their intentions or compare charts with other musicians. Obviously, as the machine plays naturals, it is obvious that this was his or her intention. The use of accidentals in parentheses is, for me, the safest option.

[quote name='dustandbarley' timestamp='1429183888' post='2748832'] Bilbo, I didn't realise you can't see the dots. Can I ask you to [url="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4894275/F%23.png"]follow this link and have a look?[/url] [/quote] Link doesn't work on my work computer. Will look at it later.

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1429101851' post='2747992'] I wonder what Bilbo's contribution to the thread will be ??? I'm sure he'll be along soon to let us all know.......for the 100th time !! [/quote] This is important stuff. Until there is an outright ban on it, it will remain on my agenda.

Timmo - Have you tried Transcribe! software (seventhstring.com)? It lets you slow music down by up to 75% (without changing pitch) so you can isolate notes and figure things out. It's not overly expensive and massively useful for study.

I cannot see the dots here so cannot comment on the chart being discussed but, is an accidental appears in a bar then all notes of that kind are effected unless they have another, different accidental. The only exception is a tied note.

Often the naturals are simply there to 'remind' the reader of the fact that the notes in the second bar that are NOT tied to the previous bar's accidental should be played as naturals. The purpose of notes is not to be accurate but to be played. When a computere reads them, none of this matters as it is not 'reading' the chart, it is reading the 1s and 0s that make up the programming. When a human being reads the chart, the notes need to be presented in a way that makes it readable.

Sounds like NHOP to me (tone and note choice). Also, there was a long string of Storyville albums by Marsh and Konitz with NHOP on bass (6 lps recorded at a club in December 1975, I think). The performance of April on those is 2 seconds longer than the one on your Spotify link so I reckon you have answered the question yourself.

I broke my foot about 15 years ago and have a loose piece of bone floating around in there. When it moves, it hurts. I was on a gig when, for no apparent reason, the bone went walkies and I was overcome with most appalling pain and associated waves of nausea. Got through the gig but had to pack up on my knees. Fortunately, at that time I was driving an automatic otherwise I would have been screwed.

A bew bridge wouldn't break the bank in a worst case scenario and a lot of players replace it as a matter of course. I wouldn't see it as a problem in itself.

There a=is more than one direction you can go in as a player. The temptation is to get more and more technical and faster and faster but you can also go deeper. I played electric bass for about 28 years before I found the double bass and, in my late 40s, I knew I wasn't going to develop a monsterous technique so, instead, I have tried to get into thinking about the bass in a different way. As a consequence, strange things have happened. I occasionally do what Jazz bass players call 'walking bass solos', i.e. your featured solo consists solely of a walking line; straight quarter notes. When you are doing this, there is something zen-like about the space you can get into and there is no question that, by avoiding 16th notes and be-bop lines, you get deeper into the music. i guess what I am saying is that, wherever the instrument takes you, enjoy the journey. The more you play, the more it will reward you.

And here is a photograph of paint drying.....

I bought a soprano saxophone as B-stock. £225 or something mad. It was fine. My sax player played it and was gutted as he said it felt as good as his £2k horn

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Here is my entry for this month.[color=#333333]My interpretation of the image related to the idea that these soldiers were waiting for an attack from the enemy. I thought that 'the wait' would be felt very heavily by the people involved because they were surrounded by images of what would probably become of them; hence 'the wait' became 'The Weight'. I think the themes capture that idea[/color][/font] [url="https://soundcloud.com/robert-palmer-1/the-weight"]https://soundcloud.c...er-1/the-weight[/url]

The search for the answer to that question is generally referred to as 'your career'.

I have written my core piece, a kind of Adagio, but it has a few clinkers in it which I need to sort out before I transport to Cubase and start populating with Miroslav Philharmonik/Edirol samples. All a bit Gorecki!!

We are doing classic rock and don't want any hippes engineering it? Like the 400,000 who were at Woodstck watching Ten Years After, Hendrix, Canned Heat, Santana, Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Winter, Blood Sweat and Tears etc etc. The first session I ever did with the BBC was engineered by a middle aged guy in a white lab coat. Sounded awersome.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1427970010' post='2736405'] I've just put on Wind and Wuthering (having got it to study for a classic rock project :-) ).... Eleventh Earl of Mar hits its stride and I have to say "Mike Rutherford!" [/quote] You are right. No-one ever mentions Mike. I guess it's the curse of prog.