Bilbo

I am finding it so easy to touch the wrong button on the screen of the Kindle. WHen links are close together as they care on BC, it is easy to find yourself going places you hadn't indended (if I open the bloody tc electronics ad again, it's going out the 'kin window)

I think it is entirely legitimate to class some players as poor. This ia a bass player's forum, not a fan site. If someone is held up as a special player because of their technique or the creativity of their lines then its a matter of taste but if someone can't hold a tune together without messing up, only ever plays root notes and is out of tune, then 'poor' is the appropriate term. Once you put yourself out there for 'consumption', you have to take the rough with the smooth. Liking everything out of politeness is just being undiscerning.

Jazz guitarist Jim Hall tunes down a 4th to get a really warm sound.

Write your own?

[quote name='lastnotleast' timestamp='1356694705' post='1912443'] It turned healthy robust young men into shriveled skeletal zombies. [/quote] Bit like becoming a Jazz musician, then...

Not a chance. Won't even wear shorts or a short sleeved t-shirt!!

Solution....

This is normal. When trying to set up a computer based recording facility at home, it is a legal requirement that you spend at least the first three months trying to find out how the different pieces of equipment involved work together so you can even get a noise out of it, let alone record, save and copy a file so it can be played on anything other than the original PC e.g. as a cd or an mp3. If you get to record any quicker than that, you have not evidenced the required tenacity and can be barred from the Recording forum here for life (or longer). |Learn to love the egg-timer)

Robert Hurst (Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Tony Williams, Mulgrew Miller, Harry Connick Jr., Geri Allen, Russell Malone, Steve Coleman and The Tonight Show band) said that a bass player shoud 'get off on making other people sound good'. I could not do Cliff WIlliams' job in 1,000 years; I lack the discipline (although I am getting better as I get older). And shocking as it may sound, not every bass player is just a bass player; sometimes they write songs, do b. vocs, add glamour at some level or another, multi-task (Geddy Lee is not half as good a bass player as he is made out to be (same with Peart's drumming)) etc etc. Being the bass player in a lot of rock 'n'n roll/pop/metal bands is rarely about being a great musician. Often 'good enough' is good eonough.

I got a Kindle Fire HD. How is that bass related, I hear you ask... I just watched (listened to) a Miroslav Vitous solo bass gig in work (there is no-one else here) while typing a report. I also downloaded a music reading app to practice my sight reading on (I am trying to learn to read bass, treble, Bb and Eb clefs).

Addictive behaviours are, for me, defined primarily by the investment that the individual has in them. A drug addict, in the conventional sense, has a physiological and psychological addiction in that the withdrawal of the substance, say heroin, will have effects that are both physical and psychological, the latter often being the harder to break. Cannabis is supposedly non-addictive physically but, in my experience as a Probation Officer, the psychological addiction is very real in that the user has to learn to 'cope' without it. Music is not physically addictive but, psychologically, it can have a profound effect in that the listener or performer invests massively in it. This may be cultural (membership of a social group like mods or rockers etc) or may be status orientated (celebrity or perception of self as artist etc) but the question is always; can the 'user' cope without their 'durg of choice' and what are the consequences of the removal of the behaviour in which the user invests so much. Personally, there have been periods in my life when I have felt that denial of the opportunity to practice has created anxiety in me but I put this down to the belief that, if I wasn't practicing, I would be losing the skills I have developed. As I got older, I began to value the motor skills aspect of performing less and the creative aspects more which has created its own pressures but, in short, (too late!!) denial of the opportunity to work on 'my music' remains stressful for me. Like Sklar, I have never drunk or done drugs (stone cold sober for 49 years so far) so comparisons with conventional substance misuse are difficult for me to make but I do believe that I have an investment in this behaviour (musiking) that can be considered to be unhealthy by those who do not share it.

I have two basses (electric and double) and 3 guitars. I bought all but one either on-line of by mail order, including both basses, a Gibson ES175 and a Takamine CD132SC nylon acoustic. I have had no problems with any of them. I also bought my soprano saxophone on-line (Thomann) and the feedback from my sax player is 'astonishing value for money'. It is important to do your research in advance but I don't think it is as dangerous as some seem to think. The thing is, I don't subscribe to the idea that there is a perfect bass/guitar out there but work on the premise that I have to learn to play it rather than it needing to fit me. I am not convinced that you can 'buy' a good sound or great technique (i.e. a great nexk) but need to learn to play the thing you have in front of you.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOntJp6Inw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOntJp6Inw[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHEWFlp2Lk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHEWFlp2Lk[/url]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aslM8-7JaPA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aslM8-7JaPA[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI9ZGTO9eVc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI9ZGTO9eVc[/url]

They use unicorn horns for truss rods and mermaid scales for inlay.... I thought everyone knew that....

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1356345915' post='1909296'] ... no genre is innately superior to any other. [/quote] Jazz is - you're just in denial.

Billy Sheehan - 'Ladies Night In Buffalo' off Dave Lee Roth's 'Eat 'Em and Smile' Chris Squire - 'Gates Of Delirium' off Yes' 'Relayer' John Patitucci - 'Cool Weasel Boogie' off Chick Corea's 'Elektric Band' album Marc Johnson - 'Bass Desires' off his ECM album 'Bass Desires'

I don't think of what JG plays as Jazz but I do like sprouts as well.

Eric Revis - Tales of the Stuttering Mind

He's [i]rad[/i] I'm getting old. Great idea, tho. I downloaded one of his a few years ago from CD Baby but lost it when I changed computers. I don't feel guilty gettting another copy for free!

It sometimes frightens me that I can drive 50 miles without thinking about driving! One accident in 30 years which was when I was parking

My gig last night was pants. Played like a knob.

It is important to note that the mode to use over a chord is determined not only by the chord you are playing but by the one that precedes it and, most importantly, the one that follows it. So a minor chord can be aeolian, phrygian or dorian (probably the most common as it is the mode that stabilises the II in a II, V, I sequence. The modes of a major scale are important of course but, increasingly, jazz tunes contain modes of the melodic minor (Major scale with a flattened third) and this single npte change causes beautiful chaos. You also need to understand the role of slash chords, augmented etc. Al lot of the decisions about the note choices in walking lines are about the intentions of the composer so a sus4 chord in a head may be less important when soloing that when playing the head but that's a aesthetic decison. But you perspectives are generally there, iconic. Keep working at it and it will alll start to make sense.

I never see other bassists. I just realised that I have not seen another bass player playing since I saw Jasper Holby (sorry about the lack of proper grammatical inflection, Jasper) playing with Phronesis (and he sounded remarkably like Jasper to me). Before that, I have no idea but it was probably the bass player with Osian ROberts and Steve Fishwick a year earlier. S***, I need to go see more live music.