Bilbo

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1026693' date='Nov 17 2010, 10:52 AM']Use yer computer keyboard! Still a bit slower than hitting the note on a bass or a piano, but I got an average of 0.81s and a title of Bass Clef Great Wizard. <--- (if only that was a wizard's hat)[/quote] Good advice! Av. 1.34 = bass clef wizard!!!

I got Bass Master (av. 1.7) - says more about my mouse control than it does my reading

Welcome, friend. I have been researching a biography on Paul Chambers who hails from Detroit so have had to deal with several people from that area. Good to have you on board.

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='1025829' date='Nov 16 2010, 01:19 PM']Think Bilbo's might be longer![/quote] Its a cross I have to bear

[quote name='chris_b' post='1025696' date='Nov 16 2010, 11:53 AM']I guess even pop songs can be a challenge.[/quote] Have you [i]heard[/i] JCS? I Don't Know How To Love Him and the title track are easy enough, its the timing changes, sixteenth note grooves, slap etc etc. Its more like Opera than pop. Its not the PLAYING of it that is hard, its the reading of the charts!!

Three works for me. If its Close To The Edge, Supper's Ready and The Ring Of The Nibelung

I am doing a show next month; Jesus Christ Superstar, and got the charts through on the weekend. Spent some time with them yesterday and, 'kin 'ell, they're hard to read cold. I got there in the end but, flamin' Nora. I didn't know he had it in him!!

Poor - 120 in 2008, 50 in 2009, 40 in 2010 Better quality gigs, though so not all bad news!!

Try soloing on one string (and, no, I am not joking). Try soloing with just three notes (any octave but only three notes).You need to break some habits and free yourself. In order to do that you need boundaries.

That and the fact that paint/laquer etc usually covers second rate lumps of wood I think a little of it is that wood doesn't date quite the same as some coloured finsihes. And many people just have an aesthetic preference for wood - wooden tables, wooden beds, wooden doors, windows etc.

[quote name='lowdown' post='1019899' date='Nov 11 2010, 12:07 PM']No it's when the someone gets lost in 'So What'...[/quote] Someone [b]ALWAYS[/b] gets lost in 'So What'.....

Learning to read music does not require a 400 page tome but a short 'these are what the dots mean' explanation. THe difficulty (which is less so now) is finding source material to [i]practice[/i] reading. In my day, the books were full of Campdown Races, Franki and Johnny and excerpts from The Trout and had no value for me as a player then or now. Nowadasy there are more options (many transcriptions are on here). FOr instance, learning what each note means is easy. Take a blank sheet of music paper and write a series of notes in straight crotchets, four beats to the bar (i.e. no rhythms to read). Write out 8 bars of two notes, say A and B in a randon sequence (ABBAABAABABBAABABABBABABAABAB, for instance) - concentrate on reading those two notes alone until you get the 8 bars right (if you find you have learned the sequence, write out another one - you are learning to read, not to play this sequence of notes). Then Write out eight bars using only A, B and C. THen try 16 bars of A, B, C & D. and so on. I recommend you don't learn those mnemonics (All Cows Eat Grass etc) because they tie you into a process that slows you down. Just learn two notes, then add a third then a fourth and so on. You will be reading sraight crotchets in no time. Then you can start looking at reading rhythms after you know what the notes are.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1018953' date='Nov 10 2010, 04:30 PM']It's a harmonic minor with a sharp fourth, is it not?[/quote] A kind of bastardized Harmonic Minor/Blues Scale hybrid.....

Don't know it. But I think it is, in any event, unhelpful at the stage the OP is at to start throwing in obscure variations that are not common currency. Just looked it up. This scale is obtainable from the Arabic scale by starting from the fourth of that scale. Said another way, the C Hungarian minor scale is equivalent to the G Arabic scale. That's clear, then There's the Neopolitan Minor The Welsh Minor (deep and dirty)

That is a good cd but look for a Wynton Kelly cd called Blues On Purpose. It was recorded around the same time as the Smokin' lp and is really strong. PC does a 10 chorus solo (12-bar blues) that just lifts and lifts and has the audience really whippedu up and he takes it further that any other solo I have heard him play (and I have heard hundreds and hundreds)

Welcome. I had a Bath once.....

Sometimes but not often. I like hearing some of what's about in the genre but seldom buy any. For me, the tension arises from the fact that jazz is about the sound of surprise and funk is about repetition. As the repetition in jazz funk is primarily on the part of the rhythm section, I usually get frustrated quite quickly and look elsewhere. But there are exceptions.

[quote name='urb' post='1018688' date='Nov 10 2010, 12:43 PM']Looking forward to the London Jazz Fest Bilbo...? See you on Friday Cheers Mike[/quote] Absolutely - all set for the experience and really looking forward to it.

Dave Holland, Steve Rodby and Jeff Berlin

Just rediscovered a CD called [b]Unison[/b] by French double bass player [b]Jean Francois Jenny Clark [/b]- what a player and what a tone! Some pretty demanding free jazz but his playing is so strong it is impossible not to get involved! I will be looking for more recordings with him on. Also downloaded a great cd by [b]Chris Cheek [/b]called [b]A Girl Named Joe [/b]- it features Marc Johnson on double bass. Some great writing on there. And a Joe Lovano CD called [b]Sound of Joy [/b]with [b]Anthony Cox [/b]on bass - another massive sound and a really strong player. Where are these guys and why aren't they more renowned?

Its what got me into jazz Series of teenage rock bands w bad singers (no real prospect of 'making it') so Got into listening to instrumental rock bands then Got into fusion etc then Got into Jazz Now know loads of singers....

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1018244' date='Nov 9 2010, 11:07 PM']And hands up how many of you tried two-handed tapping before you tried reading music? I know I did![/quote] Me too. Jeff Berlin's 'Motherlode', tunes off Stu Hamm's 'Radio Free Albemuth', some Dave Lee Roth era Billy Sheehan. And I never used any of it again. I have since recognised it for the shallow circus trick it generally is and have focussed my energies on more meaningful (and less time consuming) musical study. I think bass tapping is almost universally the worst sound you can get out of a bass without driving over it....

Re: Reading Reggae. All notated music requires the musician to have idiomatic knowledge. Classical musicians often can't read jazz charts and jazz musicians often can't read classical etc. I did a show recently which included Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now'. When that tune was played, it was clear that some people could 'rock' and others couldn't. My early experiences were in Heavy Metal and, accordingly, I could make the chart live. When I was trying to play some Sweeny Todd stuff, it didn't gel because it was written for arco bass which I don't play so, even though it was an easy read (tied minims FFS), it didn't 'sing'. Nothing to do with reading but to do with understanding the idiom. A reggae bassline written down will work perfectly well but only if you understand reggae and its idiomatic characteristics. For the record, my 'fixed view' on reading is for Basschat eyes only and serves as a foil for the 'you don't need to read' school of thought that many espouse all too readily here. I like where reading (and writing) has taken me over the years and value it highly. I advocate for that reason alone. If noone here ever reads a note again, I think it would be a shame but, at the same time, it doesn't matter a jot. I just wish I had met someone like me when I was 17, who could have given me this stuff ten years before I found it myself. Its a truckload more useful than two handed tapping.

[quote name='paul h' post='1017642' date='Nov 9 2010, 03:04 PM']I have read posts where a reader states categorically, and completely seriously, that jazz fans are more intelligent that everyone else. A reader has also said (and I paraphrase) that playing cover versions, something a lot of us do, is infantile and beneath him.[/quote] That was me!!! I am a troll and I didn't know it!!

All good stuff but only if it is not used to justify NOT seeking to improve your knowledge and skill base ('I'll never learn it all so there is no point in learning any of it'). Just be yourself or try to be the best self you can possibly be? Your call.