Bilbo

This 'start on alto and move onto soprano later' malarky is a bit frustrating. I have little enough time as it is without playing the wrong blooming instrument. But is it a case of 'more haste, less speed'? I have looked at hire and it seems that sopranos are more expensive to hire that tenors and altos. Bloody typical; the smallest costs the most. Story of my bloody life.

[quote name='spike' timestamp='1332433619' post='1588354'] This is the one you need Bilbo, very reasonably priced too [url="http://www.sax.co.uk/acatalog/Selmer-Series-III-Soprano--125th-Anniversary---Solid-Sterling-Silver-226135846.html"]http://www.sax.co.uk/acatalog/Selmer-Series-III-Soprano--125th-Anniversary---Solid-Sterling-Silver-226135846.html[/url] [/quote] I'll have two of them.....(they are nice, though)

[quote name='Ed_S' timestamp='1332413275' post='1587842'] Mauriat..? [/quote] Mais oui....

I'm still using Cubase but my approach is not as sophistiacted as some here. I just use it for sketches rahter than 'proper' recording. If I ever find it doesn't do what I want it to do, then I will have to consider and upgrade but, so far, it has been fine. I tend to only record real instrument and am not that into midi/sequencers etc as performance tools (takes too long and bores me. Sibelius is my home turf. Love it.

Not sure if I ever learn any. I learn them, write them down and then forget them. The most recent one was Henri Texier's Soweto Sorrow (a year ago?) but I couldn't play it now if my life depended on it. I guess the only lines I learn now are the ones I write for my own compositions. If I don't learn those, nobody will BUt if I write them, I am not learning them, am I? I am writing them....

Ghost notes, muted notes and grace notes are, for me, one of those elements of playing that really define the 'feel' aspect of playing. I think it applies equally to electric and double bass. When I try to write melodies and bass lines into Sibelius, the kinds of nicks and knocks makes so much difference to the overall feel of the piece. I guess its like the difference between a great actor and an oik reading from the written page. Its not the text that defines the performance but the nuances of the performance. Same with playing. Its not the actual notes that define the experience but the way they are played.

I'm lovin' it...... Did this tune with my first jazz/funk band, Dick Hamer's Rhythm Method in Cardiff 1988/94.

It makes me laugh to think I could be GASing for software but I am!!!

Bass as in ass? Never heard it called that before anywhere. Bass as in face, grace, case, lace, mace, pace and race.

Noone is looking down on anyone, mate, just sharing what worked for us in an effort to help someone else move forward. I spent hours working on my car when I was a kid and was always grateful when older/more experienced guys could save me time and aggravation by pointing me in the right direction. Same with DIY. 'Just do it' is a great way to waste a million hours getting to where you could have been years ago.

What you need is a cassette player where you can move the tape back and forth in tiny increments and pick out each individual note and learn them that way.......oh, no. That wa 1974. I recommend Transcribe from seventhstring.com. Its about £30-40 and allows you to slow down cds and audio files without the pitch changing. I currently use it for examining sax solo phrases rather than basslines as bass parts are pretty obvious to me in most cases. But you really need to learn to write and read music on a stave. Not because you are going to do reading gigs but because it is a great way of recording stuff and it really helps you make sense of the music you are playing. It is not nearly as hard as everyone thinks and really is time well spent.

Haven't read all of this but I am forming the view that one of the barriers to a definitive concept of authenticity in this case is the broad range of uses to which popular music is put. There are those who live eat and breathe the stuff and those for who it is merely a soundtrack for their lives. To some it is merely the noise that occurs between the interesting talky bits on the radio and to others, it is the soundtrack to their shopping experience. SOme use it as a soundrack to their XBOX activities and others as a soundtrack to their predatorial 'man/woman hunting every Friday and Saturday night. Each audience will have its own perspective on authenticity depening on the purpose to which they put the stuff. The commercialisation of it all via Cowell and his predecessors is entirely legitimate if you 'use' the product the way you would a ready meal or a air freshener. It is only if you are looking for the Art element; self expression, the voice of a generation etc that authenticity becomes relevant. The ethnomusicology of popular music is getting more and more complex and Popular Music is now as diverse as other genres like Classical and Jazz. You get these authenticty arguments in Jazz (where some think it stopped at 1935), classical (the 'period instruments' brigade) and folk (not electric instruments, only play geographically relevant instruments etc). Pop music has become a varied field and someone who considers Eminem authentic will be shouted down because he doesn't play conventional instruments etc. My beef is calling DJs 'musicians' but am I the authority that determines authenticity? Of course not.

I am glad I am not the only one who thinks Alembics are designed by blind guys. Their custome jobs are almost universally gross. I think there are a couple of old Series 1 and 2 basses that I would play and the Stan Clarke model is not too bad but some of them.... Have a look at this freak show.... http://www.alembic.com/info/fcvault.html

Tell Matt about this (please)..... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/170862-hering-6264-deluxe-chromonica-now-l50-explanation-attached/page__pid__1579755#entry1579755

May be a bit specialised but Charles Mcneal's site is full of pdfs of saxophoe transcriptions. You woudl have to transpose them down a whole tone etc but they are a great source of reading material. http://charlesmcneal.com/Transcriptions.html

Actually. the more I think about it the more its an elephant in the room. The detailed definitions will differ across the board but we all pretty much know what comes from the heart and what comes from the desire for wealth for its own sake. Some pure pop (real lightweight stuff) can genuinely come from the heart and some real hardcore stuff can be manufactured but you can't fool all of the people all of the time..... I saw something on the tv the other day where Trevor Horn admitted noone from Frankie Goes To Hollywood played on Relax. NOOOO!!

Phwoar....

I think it is a case of manufactured over organic. If the impetus comes from the creativity of individuals who are in the bands, then there is a level of integrity that is missing when the 'band' are the front for a corporate hit making machine. The Beatles = authentic. The Monkees = bogus Genesis = authentic (they met at school). JLS = bogus (they met at X Factor auditions) Take That = authentic (one of them writes all their stuff). Girls Aloud = bogus (its all written for them) and so on

I think its sometimes hard for folk to like stuff that pre-dates their own generation. Bands like LZ were, to some extent at least, 'of their time' and things have moved forward so it is hard to see what they would have been like 'fresh out of the box' and without a modern reference point like Dream Theatre or whatever. I felt that way about Hendrix and Cream - didn't get them at all - and was into Magnum and Maiden and The Enid (late 80s Rock). Never been a Beatles or Stones fan, never liked Floyd etc as they all peakd before I was aware of what was going on out there. As for growing out of bands, I think you always carry some nostaligic fondness for the stuff you used to like, just never go to it when you want to listen. I have moments on Spotify when I 'go back' for old times sake but they seldom last more than a few minutes and I almost never listen to a whole track of the 'old' stuff.

Not heard MM for a long time but that usually means I didn't like what I did hear

Don't worry, John. In truth, nobady here gives a rat's a*** what anyone else thinks about the bands they like. Its all done in good humour.

Never mind the musicians, How many muppets only have one hand?

WHere I grew up it was LZ vs Deep Purple and I was inclined towards DP. As I got older I heard the whole LZ catalogue and love some of it (Rain Song is one I adore along with Kashmir, When The Levee Breaks etc) and hate some of it (the reggae song on HOTH? Stairway to Heaven etc). Same with Sabbath (and Ozzy); some great racks, some miserable. Ozzy can't sing, never could but it wasn't about that. Now, as I near my 50s, LZ have retained a credibility that BS lack but I never listen to either of them. My overall perspective is that BS were for kids, LZ for adults. Ref: Bonham. He was a feel drummer with a great sound. His technique was limited but you alway knew it was him. He was always in the pocket and grooved like a mofo. Certainly a tough act to follow.

My point is that those trumpet players and sax players may be full of s*** but they may also have a legitimate aesthetic preference. The eb is a different instrument. Take away the value based idea of better and worse and you are still left with different. If an MD wants a db, then he has a legitimate preference and should make sure he follows his vision (for the record, sometimes a piece is written with an individual PLAYER in mind and the argument is not about whether a DB is the right instrument but which DB player is the right individual for the piece). Whether the db player he books can or cannot also play eb is irrelevant, just as a clarinet player booked for a gig may or may not also play sax. Some are booked because they double whilst, in some cases, the fact that they double is of no concern to the MD. I know some great drummers I will only book as a last resort because they are 'fusion' drummers not 'jazz' drummers. Punters may or may not recognise the difference but to me its chalk and cheese. Same with bass. And if I was asked to recommend a player for a jazz ensemble, I would always recommend a DB. Another great example I can't post here is Al DiMeola's work. If you listen to a cd like Casino (Anthony Jackson on eb) and then listen to his album Soaring Through a Dream (Chip Jackson (no relation) on db), you will hear the difference in overall ensemble sound and the role of the bass within that. The difference is massive. AJ is by far the more technically advanced player but CJ plays the gig to perfection. The decision to feature DB is entirely musical. Pat Metheny is another interesting arranger; it is interesting to see where Steve Rodby uses eb over db throughout the Metheny canon.

There are two arguments going on here, the one about eb vs db and swing and the other about what is tradition and what is not. The latter debate is insulting as this is not about what is 'correct' for jazz. The former discussion is academic. I am of the opinion that db swings 'better' or 'more' or 'more convincingly' that electric most of the time, not all of it (although I certainly have never heard an electric swing better than a db!!). No mention was made of 'tradition'. When I buy a cd with tunes on db and tunes on electric (say a Mike Stern cd), the db tunes swing better, to my ears. I find, increasingly, that my ipod/downloads no longer feature electric players; not because I hate electric players but because the music that I like tends to feature db (I rarely download 'classic' jazz cds older than a few years because I have so much of that stuff and am looking for interesting new stuff). The eb in jazz (in the broadest terms), for me, has become a precursor for superficial histrionics and rarely (not never!!) produces a satisfactory effect.