Bilbo

There is a link to my soundcloud page in my signature. Enjoy....

Oh and I have jsut noticed Kenny WHeeler's Windmill Tilter has finally been released on CD. That's gone right to the top of my wish list!!

Welcome to the world f six string bass playing. The whole string dampening thing becomes a science in itself and there are several solutions. There is a video of Kevin Glasgow on here somewhere where he has a wrist band wrapped around the neck of his bass whiilst he plays it to stop the open strings from vibrating. I foudn myself that I had to use my right hand to stop that opens strings whilst I played the upper strings. THere are other solutions and others will have something to say but, in short, you are discovering one of that hazards of Extended Range basses. To be blunt, it was one of the reasons I never really enjoyed the instrument (mine was a Status Energy 6). Never got comfortable with it. My bad. I just didn't get anything from it that made me want to keep going.

Listening to Alex Sipiagin's Prints Cd. Good writing. Been trying to listen to 'new' stuff (for me, not neceessarily new in chronological terms). David Binney is doing some nice stuff. Chris Cheek is an interesting player. There's also Ryan Kisor, a Dave Holland sideman who has done a couple of nice cds, one a quartet with Chris Potter and no harmony instrument. Kevin Eubank's 'Zen Food' is a great CD (I have liked him since his tenure with Holland for the Extensions LP - saw that band at the Bath Jazz Festival. This cd is really strong on performance and content. I listened to that Wyntn Marsalis interview on Jamie Cullem's Radio 2 programme last Tuesday and he said something that strucka chord. HE was talking about his father showing him the 'joy of seriousness', the idea that taking something seriously and commiting to and investing in it brings its own pleasure, its own fun. A lot of people here talk about ;its supposed to be fun'. Well, I agree and working hard at this stuff is the [i]best[/i] fun I just wish I could go home now and write some tunes.

I have the K&K Sound Double Big Twin Upright Bass 5 string pick up and, with a Fishman Plat Pro, it sounds great. And you fit it without any modifications to the bridge. http://www.gollihurmusic.com/product/1426-KANDK_SOUND_DOUBLE_BIG_TWIN_UPRIGHT_BASS_PICKUP.html

There is a cd by Glen Moore (Oregon) and Nancy King called 'Impending Bloom' (see link) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Impending-Bloom-Nancy-King/dp/B000000NQ5/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1317310514&sr=1-4 A track on Claudia Acuna's cd Wind From The South called Alfonsia Y El Mar where she duets with Avishai Cohen. And there is a Kurt Elling video on Youtube where he duets with a bass (its absolutely stunning but I can't recall the title of the track or the player).

Pat Metheny Secret Story

S***. Steve has done a few repairs for me and it has always been a pleasure to deal with him. I am going to have to find someone else now. Not easy out here in the sticks!!

Randy Tico (Airto and Flora Purim) Bunny Brunel (Chick Corea) Brian Bromberg Neil Murray (Whitesnake but also National Health) John Mole (Colosseum II, Gary Moore)

I have one that I got for double bass so I didn't have to always plug in my Behringer Rack Mounted tuner. I got the Behringer so I could detune accurately in the dark (my eyes are not great and I find the little tuners hard to see in the half light of most stages). I fit the clip on to the bridge of my double bass and it works a treat. Cost £7. Also an aid to accurate intonation in the early stages of practising. I use it with electric on doubling gigs and it works fine for both (I clip it on the headstock on the Wal).

Excellent point, Pete. This stuff is not complicated and 'tricks' to memorise the whole thing are not that important. Just learn the damn thing

Actually, this is what you need, lobematt. David Baker's How To Play Bebop vol 2. (Vol 1 & 3 are equally useful) http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Play-Bebop-2-ebook/dp/B004O6LMIA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317286156&sr=8-2 Its only about £7 and will fill in the gaps you are trying to plug. I was looking at it last night and thought 'Bingo'! You can get it as a Kindle book as well if that's easier.

A shedload of jazz players that noone ever mentions Dave Pegg (Tull, Fairport) Ken Sinnaeve (Kim Mitchell) Carles Benevant (Paco De Lucia) Jimmy Haslip (Yellowjackets) Dudley Phillips Mike Mondesir (Django Bates)[youtube]YXTzzT8x918[/youtube] Chris Minh Doky

And you think we are bad....

Jeff Berlin recommended an exercise where you play the relevant scale starting on a low E (or and going up the scale from there but, when the chord changes, you keep on going up the neck changing the relevant scale degrees each time until you get to the top of the neck where you turn around and go back down. It forces yyou to hear the differences in scales in a way that running one actave scales starting on the root doesn't.

That's a perfectly credible option but you would quickly find yourself playing in little boxes. What I would recommend is that you take a solo off a version of these changes by someone you like and transcribe/learn the solo by ear. Then when you play the solo you have laerned over the changes, you will start to 'hear' the chord movement you have been studying. Its is only when you have internalised it that you will be able to play it. At the stage you are at, it will be hard to make anything sound convincing. If you want to look up some bop tunes with those (rhythm) changes so you can cop some licks/solos, try some of these.... Anthropology, Boppin' A Riff, Calling Dr Jazz, Celerity, Crazyology, Moose The Mooche, Move, Oleo, Ow, An Oscar For Treadwell, Passport, Red Cross, Room 608, Rhythm A Ning, Salt Peanuts, The Serpent's Tooth, Steeplechase, Turnpike, Webb City, Jay Jay, Eb Pob, Goin To , , ntons, Fat Girl, Sonnyside, O Go Mo, Dot's Groovy, Down For The Double, On The Scene, , 52nd Street Theme, Flying Home, Seven Comes Eleven, Lemon Drop, Lester Leaps In, Apple Honey, Tuxedo Junction, Love You Madly, Cheers, Merry Go Round, One Bass Hit, Oop Bop SHa Bam, Ah Leu Cha, The Theme, Cottontail, Dexterity As you can see, a useful set of changes to learn

As for only sounding like Karn if you had a Wal? I understand that most of his stuff was recorded without a Wal. From Wikipedia.... 'Karn played an aluminium-neck Travis Bean bass on all Japan albums up to Gentlemen Take Polaroids. In 1981 he moved to Wal basses, purchasing two Mark I instruments, one with rare African tulipwood facings, the other a cherry solidbody. Karn recorded Japan's last studio album Tin Drum with the Wal and had continued to use these, along with a headless Klein 'K Bass'

BbM7 Gm7 | Cm7 F7 | BbM7 Gm7 | C7 F7 | What you have here is a I chord followed by its relative minor and then a II/V/I (in Bb), then an ambiguous minor which is the relative minor of Bb but which is also the II chord of a II/V/I in F but which resolves to an F dominant instead of F maj which works because the C7 to F7 is within the cycle of fifths. You can play a Bb major scale over BbM7 Gm7 | Cm7 F7 | BbM7 Gm7 then sharped the E for the C7 before flattening it again for the F7. If you take care with the Eb/E (use them as passing notes on weak beats etc), you can pretty much use the same Bb major scale for the whole sequence. The secret is to ensire that your solo lines have their own internal logic and aren't just random notes from the Bb major scale..

Lots of sax players use these 5 against 5, 7 against 4 11 against 4 etc. Examples I can think of include Joe Lovano, Coltrane, Chris Potter etc But the best example of rhis in its purest form is the head of Jeff Watts' arrangement of Autumn Leaves off Wynton Marsalis' Standard Time Vol. 1. The bars are as follows: 1 = semi breve 2 = 2 minims 3 = 3 agsinst 4 4 = 4 crotchets 5 = 5 against 4 6 = 2 crotchet triplets 7 = 7 against 4 8 = 8 quavers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xi-emWNePw [youtube]4Xi-emWNePw[/youtube]

Its not all about us, guys! For the record, the fact that an alto and tenor are different (Eb and Bb respectively) is so that, when you are reading a chart, the notes before you correspond with the keys on the horn. When a sax player sees a C on the chart hhis fingers go to the same place, its just the notes that you hear that are different. For years, I thought that reading Bb and Eb meant that sax players had to learn two different clefs. The don't. SO reading a bass chart that goes up to alto or treble clef is harder. But, as has been said, there are many different instruments that are tuned to different clefs and a legitimate orcestrator has to know whether the line needs on of a number of different clarinets, horns etc in order to meet the composers intentions. Now, as for using a capo..... Or the transpose key on a keyboard

Bassbod's solution hit a bull's eye. The pick up is now working 100%. the more I think about it, the more I relasise that this may have been a problem for a little while. Because I put the blend pot central but a notch towards the bridge, the failure would have been that much harder to spot but I have, with hindsight, experienced a little bit of distortion that I put down to my playing too hard. I have a gig this weekend where I can check it properly but I think it may have been an issue for a while. Thank's again, bb.

Will try that and report back. Thanks.

This site is playing up and won't let me upload so the mp3 is hosted on my soundcloud page and called 'diagnosis' (should be at the top of the list). http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks

I have just discovered a problem on my Wal and hoped someone here can help with a diagnosis. When I turn the pick up selection pot tot he bridge pick up, the D string is a=barely audible and crackles. I assume the pick up has died? Am I right? If I turn it to the neck pick up, its fine across all strings. I attached an mp3 to show you the problem. I play a straight G major scale staring on the low G and go up to the D above middle C. You can hear the E F G are dead. Can anyone advise?

If you go to a teacher, don't second guess him/her. Let them teach you. Nothing worse than a student that already knows everything.