Bilbo

I play Jazz. I don't need to tune up.

Did a gig in Enfield when I was 17 (heavy metal band). The roof was leaking onto the stage so I did the gig stood on a beer crate surrounded by a great big puddle with the power leads gaffa'd to the top of the amps. When I think back, I must have been insane (or probably just 17)!!

I was walking the dogs the other evening and got to thinking about bass solos. Why are they there? What is the purpose? What’s the best way to put one together? What renders a solo pointless? What makes it integral to the piece being performed? I was thinking about saxophone and trumpet solos and how they generally deliver a more satisfying listening experience. The ability to sustain notes, the ability to manipulate them one they have begun, the dynamic and frequency range of the instrument etc etc. The bass, double or electric, has many of its own characteristics that, wihlst they don’t mirror those of a horn, can certainly provide a similar range of detail and textural interest. But, here’s my point, most bass solos don’t have that range. Most of them seem to come from an ethos of ‘ooo! look at me go’. I can play with unusual parts of my body! I can play a zillion notes an hour! You can’t catch me….’. All a bit juvenile and immature. Most bass solos, to my ears, seem to exist to offer an attempt to out do the next guy, to impress the technicians etc. For me, one of the most beautiful uses of the bass to provide a solo theme is Weather Report’s ‘A Remark You Made’, a piece which is actually very easy for even a learner bass player to play. Stuff that’s hard to execute often offers very little musical satisfaction; just a little party trick to showcase the players chops. Edgar Meyer’s Bach Cello Suites are pretty pure in their intentions and, whilst being bloody hard to play, aare just pretty melodies. There are many other great examples but so much of the stuff we hear from the players that are often the most highly rated exponents of our shared instrument is really clever but, ultimately, futile. When you get past the chops, there’s often not a lot there.

[quote name='xgsjx' post='1225876' date='May 10 2011, 09:31 AM']Oi!!!! That's not a bass! [/quote] Not fair. It has a narrower range than half of Dood's basses?

I have these also if anyone wants them and is disappointed because someone else got there first for rmorris' copies.

10,000,000 string players can't all be wrong. I have to say, I do smile when people say 'wow! its a fretless'. There is a tacit assumption that fretless players are in some way a cut above fretted players. Its nonsense. The 'additional' skills required to played fretless over fretted bass are about 1% of the whole package. The big issue is learning to listen to what you play rather than to assume that becasue you are on the thrid fret, you muct be in tune (I have heard plenty of fretted basses played out of tune. A fret is no guarantee!! ). If you can't hear what you are playing on a fretless, you may experience problems. However, IME, if I can't hear it, noone else can either so it matters not a jot Don't be frightened of it. Its not hard. Just different.

Don't worry about lines or about how 'hard' it is to play a fretless. Its not that hard and you can use it for anything you can use a fretted for. I have used mine for everything for 25 years without any issues or complaints from other musicians. Intonation takes a bit of work and attention but we are talking hours not years.

I know what you were saying, iconic. I just think you are making it more complicated for yourself than it needs to be. You are trying to find an alterrnativc word which you already understand for something that there is already a word for that you [i]already[/i] understand (otherwsie you could not articulate your concept). All I was saying, in my obtuse way, was that you only (only, he says?) need to understand the individual sounds of the modes and associated chords to find a use for them. Calling them major and minor or bluesy or flamenco is just replacing perfectly usable names with other perfectly usable names so you can simplify and already fairly simple concept.

Ionian = think Ionian Aeolian = think Aeolian Mixolydian = think Mixolydian Phyrigian = think Phrygian Dorian = think Dorian Lydian = think Lydian Locrian = think Locrian or, alternatively Ionian = think Major Aeolian = think Major a minor third tone above Mixolydian = think Major a fourth below or fifth above Phyrigian = think Major a major third below Dorian = think Major a whole tone below Lydian = think Major a fourth above or a fifth below Locrian = think Major a semi tone higher

[quote name='paul_5' post='1221632' date='May 5 2011, 09:46 PM']I had 'A Love Supreme' on in the lounge today, and Mrs_5 came in and said "it's too busy". She like Coldplay...[/quote] A marvelous album that grows and grows everytime I listen to it. I have been looking at it a lot lately for one reason and another and, despite having first heard it over 20 years ago (my copy is on CASSETTE!!), I am still finding new perspectives on it. Tell your wife to try again. There is actually a book about it by Ashley Kahn. Well worth a read id you are interested in Coltrane, as is Lewis Porter's Porter's book and Frank Kofsky's 'Black Nationalism & The Revolution In Music' (there is a used copy on here for 42p). While we are at it, try Val Wilmer's 'As Serious As Your Life'. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Supreme-Creation-Coltranes-Classic/dp/1862076022/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304669911&sr=1-1"]A Love-Supreme - Kahn[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Coltrane-Music-Michigan-American/dp/047208643X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304669980&sr=1-1-spell"]John-Coltrane - Lewis Porter[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Nationalism-Revolution-Music-Kofsky/dp/0873481291/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304670096&sr=1-1"]Black-Nationalism - Kofsky[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/As-Serious-Your-Life-Coltrane/dp/1852427302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304670168&sr=1-1"]As Serious As Your Life - Val Wilmer[/url]

[quote name='hillbilly deluxe' post='1221235' date='May 5 2011, 04:35 PM']Faith in Jazzers restored,you are not all tw4ts.[/quote] Yes we are.

Don't know that one but I have several Cohen cds. It is interesting to see the immediacy of this 'inaccessible' stuff when people are exposed to it. If you like Avishai Cohen, try Scott Colley, Dave Holland, Marc Johnson, Chris Potter, Chris Cheek, Claudia Acuna, Jason Linder...

What's the track, Zmech (can't play stuff here)?

Yes, it is that simple, although by playing the octave, you are just repeating the root. I would suggest root, fifth and third (10th). Two notes is nto technically a chord, its technically a double stop, but that's splitting hairs. Where bass chords are concerned, chords over three notes are generally too muddy to be useful. Chord theory as it relates to playing bass is odd because your voicing options are limited by the scale of the instrument, the number of strings and the difficulties that occur when you leave out a root note but you can play a lot using just root, third, fifth, seventh and ninths. You will need to recognise the ifference between major and minor intervals quite soon, though, or you options will be [i]very[/i] limited.

Recent additions to my ipod include two by Puerto Rican alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon, who I mentioned a couple of months ago. One album is called Jitaro and is a really strong Latin inluenced set (I think it is on Spotify), whilst the other is called 'Forward Motion'. Not as strong but still nice to listen to. I also got hold of the famous Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln recording - 'We Insist!! Freedon Now Suite., a cd I had wanted to hear for years. Its is an important recording that was made at the time of the US civil rights movement. Definately worth looking out for (as are most of the classic albums that are talked about in similarly reverential terms) and highly indicative of the tenor of those times.

[quote name='derrenleepoole' post='1220780' date='May 5 2011, 11:02 AM']Do you think Miles Davis would of been so influential if he hadn't embraced other genres such as funk or rock? By your arguments and reasoning, this lesser form of music isn't skilled enough, yet Miles certainly found inspiration from it! If it's good enough for Miles, it's good enough for everyone [/quote] Straight answer is that Miles was influential well before his forays into rock and pop music and that his greatest influences were his Birth of the Cool stuff, his first 'great' quintet (Davis, Coltrane, Garland, Chambers and Jones), his Kind Of Blue Sextet the Davis/Gil Evans series and the second great quintet (Davis, Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams). His Bitches Brew influence was considerable but that was as much to do with his established standing in the industry and the fact that he changed to so called rock (BB is so NOT a rock album) [i]at all [/i] not what he actually played. His later pop/funk influenced stuff was not actually that influential at all (and, in any event, how much of it was him and how much his producers?). Miles inspiration, by this time, was financial and he wanted to play in front of big crowds like the rock stars.

You're being reasonable, Derren. I can't argue with the core principles of what you say because all of this is subjective but I am not here to defend everything else, be that other genres or crap jazz musicians, I am advocating for Jazz as an art form. I have played rock/metal, funk, pop, reggae, shows etc and can do most of it standing on my head (extreme stunt musicians, atheletes and jugglers excepted). I have not played classical as there is no repertoire for electric bass but I have no doubt that some of it is easy and some of it really hard. But, on a balance of competences, in my experience, playing great jazz is a s***load harder to do that playing the other genres I have explored. THis is as much to do with the fact that most modern genres are based on repetition - a two bar riff played again and again (or, in the case of Higher and Higher, for teh whole song). I work at being a jazz musician it because I love the results, increasingly better jazz, not just because it is hard. The improvisational element is particularly tricky to master. If it was all about doing hard stuff because it is hard, I would be up there at the front at Wooten gigs with the rest of 'em but that stuff is hard but not beautiful. Great funk bass lines like 'Good Times' are all well and good but the music it underpins is mostly, to my ears, bubblegum. Great bass lines like 'Shy Boy' are all well and good but the music it underpins is adolescent drivel. Even Rush, who I used to adore; great bass lines but, overall, the results are a bit clumsy and, in many ways, quite immature. Peart, the drummers drummer everone votes for every year, is a thug compared to the greatest jazz drummers. The finesse required to play the best jazz is, on almost every instrument, way beyond what most people are able to achieve - jazz musicians have expanded the potential of almost every instrument available. The work required to operate at the highest level is prohibitive to many - those who think that success is measured in the size of the paycheque vs time spent practising - but, as John Lewis says, the music is its own reward. Once you understand that, its is difficult to accept the idea that playing rock and pop etc is in any way comparable. Of course, the quality of the results is, in many ways, subjective but, in others, it is less so. Just like literature: some may prefer Shakespeare to Dickens or Wordsworth to e. e cummings but few would argue that Jeffrey Archer is the king of the hill. Some think 'its all good', I don't. Some of it bores me as a player and as a listener. Some of it doesn't and that is the stuff I will reserve praise for.

Just bouncing off Heathy's 'Sgt. Pepper' thread, I was just thinking whether I had ever tried to learn the basslines off a whole album. I learned quite a bit of Alphonso Johnson off Face Value, Steve Harris off Iron Maiden's 1st, a lot of Chris Squire off Tormato, a wodge of Jeff Berlin off Feels Good To Me, Gradually Going Tornado and One Of A Kind, lots of Jaco bits etc. But I don't think I have ever put work into getting a whole album learned. My own thoughts are that the learning gained from working on tunes is going to vary song to song and some of it will be not be time particularly well spent. Learning the bassline of Mull of Kintyre because it was on an album would, imo, be wasted effort, for example.

That'll be an hour well spent

Keith bought a K&K Sound Double Bass pick up off me. Quick payment and good comms. Would deal again anytime without hesitation.

I have absolutely no idea.