Bilbo

Many of you know I work with offenders. One of the tools we use relates to enhancing thinking skills and to do that, it is necessary to understand how we think. One of the interesting aspects of this relates to the ways in which people justify their behaviour (any behaviour, even murder). There are all sorts of ways; denial, self deception, minimisation (I only steal for companies not from individuals, I only drove 300 yards, I had to get home because the kids were ill), justification (everyone does it, I drive better when I have had a drink, it was only a bit of puff etc). The important thing is that most offenders don't actually know they are doing this. Anyway, in looking at the way people think, it long ago dawned on me that these traits were not just about offending but about ALL behaviours. And, as with offenders, people generally don't know they are doing it. Think about people who diet, who give up smoking, who shop with credit cards etc. They will talk themselves into it even though they know it is ultimately harmful. Relating this to the topic under discussion, what we have here (in general terms; this is not an attack on anyone), we have a situation where many members of the musical community seek to find ways to justify their decisions so they can still feel ok about their abilities. When the likes of the Major, Doddy, Jakesbass and myself advocate for musical literacy, there are always those who respond with the 'X is great and he can't read' argument, or the 'I knew a guy who could read but couldn't groove' position, or 'readers don't play with good feel' etc etc. The arguments presented are what I would call justifications, position statements that allow individuals who haven't learned to read to justify their lack of a well established, legitimate and tried and tested skill. They avoid the simple 'I can't read because I can't read' admission in favour of 'I can't read because I don't need to', 'its a waste of time', 'it will ruin my feel', 'it will undermine my creativity', 'I don't need it', 'it will undermine my originality', 'it will make me lazy', 'it will ruin my ability to play by ear' - its all b/s. Its not rocket science. Readers who can't improvise can't improvise because they haven't learned how, not because they can read. Classical musicians can't play funk or jazz because they haven't spent time with the genres, not because they can read. There is no causal link between reading dots and any musical shortcoming whatsoever. People who can read can do something others cannot and will get gig unavailable to others - end of. It doesn't mean that others can't do something that the reader can't do; the two things are unrelated. If you can read, you can read. No more and no less. Its a skill that is worth acquiring - and, incidentally, is of considerably more use than double thumbing, tapping, raking or crimping. You wil get calls for gigs you wouldn't have got before (of course you didn't need it before. Noone would call you for a reading gig if you couldn't read). I can see NO reason why anyone who can read would tell someone who couldn't read to learn to do so so that they would be worse musicians. I CAN see why people are dismissive of the skill; if YOU don't learn, they don't have to feel bad about their own musical illiteracy and, more to the point, YOU won't get a gig in place of them. Do it. Start now.

Image is very important; not in the glossy celebrity pretty boy sense but in the sense that we want to create an impression, even if its simple professionalism (suit and tie for a function, dj for a wedding, casual for a festival etc). Turning up with egg down your shirt and holes in the arse of your jeans won't cut it. Also, wearing a MOtorhead t-shirt for a jazz gig can be cool if its ironic and crass if its disrespectful to the bandleader. Its a matter of personality, I guess. Image over substance is what offends, I believe. Looking the part but not delivering - like many of our 'autotune' generation. IME, a bass that is good, looks good. The ones that fail are the pointy, black skull featuring, shape of a gun, pink flower, polka dot ones. A polka dot finish on a Les Paul, however, is image AND substance. If the money has gone into the finish instead of the guts of an instrument, it will show. If the money has gone on image AND content, thats ok.

Its also helpful to think in terms of the gaps between the notes also. It is so easy to get into the stream of consciousness string of sixteenths idea. Yu can, if you have a good accompanist, leave lots of space to make you ideas stand out. Its not about being a saxophone player, its about being a bass player. Don't think of out playing everyone else; think of out musicking them

[quote name='bassace' post='790609' date='Mar 30 2010, 02:13 PM']Well done Bilbo. Did you go home smiling - I bet you did![/quote] As the great Alan Freeman said 'Not arf'!!!! Now I am at the point where I am getting frustrated at any time NOT spent playing the bass. Now I know I can actually do it, I want to get as good as I can at it. One of the great hurdles, I find, is the fact that you go from being a credible/good electric player to being a real beginner on the double bass in one moment. I can pretty much hold my own in most settings on the Wal but struggle to play anything other than triads on the upright. What does transfer is your musicality so I have that as a starting point but, technically, its like starting all over again. But its good to revisit the basics again.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='790458' date='Mar 30 2010, 11:58 AM']Nice one Bilbo! That's a lot of playing for a debut.[/quote] It felt like it, it really did and I was sweating like a blacksmith at noon on a summers day in Death Valley. My strategy was to keep going until blisters were a possiblity then pick up the Wal. But, after two sets, my fingers weren't even sore. Halfway throught the third I thought 'uh-oh', that familiar burning pain so I stopped. But, by then, I had already done twice as much as I had expected and some of the tempos were much faster than I had thought I was capable of so it was helpful to be pushed past my comfort zone. Staying focussed on maintaining good left hand fingering and not over playing with the right hand stood me in good stead. I rarely went above the fifth position and only went to the thumb once (ouch) but it was fit for purpose. As I said, it wasn't perfect by any means, but I didn't make a t** of myself either so here's to the future!!!

[quote name='jakesbass' post='790052' date='Mar 29 2010, 10:28 PM']I feel a quiet sense of pride... [/quote] And so you should. Were it not for you, all this would still be an 'I wish....'.

I once did a wedding with Bobby Orr. Who? says everyone. Bobby had, amongst others, played with Benny Goodman, Joe Harriot and, at that time, had done every Bond soundtrack since Dr. No. He could even play Donna Lee on a PENCIL....... (Yes, I saw him do it. He put it in his mouth, against his teeth, tapped the pencil with his fingernails and shaped the notes with his mouth. And it swung like the clappers

In broad brush terms, I would break it down into chunks of key centres. If you are playing Oleo in Bb, the A sections are essentially in Bb major, the first two bars in the B section are in D mixolydian, the next six are in two bar sections of G mix, C mix and F mix respectively before returning to the final A section which is, again, in Bb major. Everything else is substitutions and passing tones. After that, its a question of practice, familiarity, taste and experience.

Well, I did it. My first double bass gig. Three 45 minute sets of jazz standards in a piano/sax/bass trio (the b******s made no concessions to my limted skills - I played faster and longer last night than I have since getting the bass in December!!!). Exhausting for me and my playing was not exactly radical but everyone was happy and was offered another gig on the strength of it. To be honest, I had the Wal with me but only turned to it for the last two tunes having started to get the beginnings of a blister on each hand. I have managed to avoid those developing. More importantly, no hand pain after the fact - a bit sore (like if you have been shifting bricks or something) but, after a nights sleep, no problems. Technique was not perfect but whatever was wrong with it, I wasn't doing any harm. Lots to think about, to process and more learning points that I can count but, quiet victories, I did it.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81903&hl=manu"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81903&hl=manu[/url] I like the sound as a generic 'double bass' thing but am very much still developing my own perspectives on playing so, like most of us I guess, its a work in progress.

THey are all as good as each other really. Its the doing of the thing that is hard and takes focus. The concepts are quite simple.. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Reading-Rhythms-Workbook-Instruments/dp/0793573793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269608981&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Readi...8981&sr=1-1[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Music-Scratch-Neil-Sissons/dp/0851622682/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269609014&sr=1-3"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Music-Scratch...9014&sr=1-3[/url] [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Read-Music-Mysterious-Symbols/dp/1845282787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269609091&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Read-Musi...9091&sr=1-1[/url]

It a question of mental discipline, oggy. A lot of learning to read is about learning to apply yourself to the discipline of looking at the page and playing what is written and not what you THINK is written or what you expect to have been written. The best thing to do is to find scores that are not based on anything you know but on pieces that are unfamiliar to you. You read them once and then put them aside before you learn them. Playing a piece of music off the written score is a very different discipline to playing by ear but, nevertheless, you will use your ear whilst you are reading to tell you whether your playing of the chart is correct. THe converse of that, however, is that you will sometimes unwittingly trick yourself into believing that the right note, as written, is wrong because you can't 'hear' it as the composer did. Its tricky but it is just a part of the discippline of learning. My advice to you is to look for some dots that you don't know the tunes off (there are loads here under the Theory and Technique thread). Make it so your natural ear can't help you.

[quote name='Wil' post='784244' date='Mar 24 2010, 12:32 AM']I was about to say, what this is lacking is a room full of drunken revellers, and then pow, half way through, there they are [/quote] Both of them!!

Something we knocked up in two hours last Sunday!! We had fun!!

[quote name='lanark' post='783655' date='Mar 23 2010, 04:45 PM']I still fully intend to become comfortable reading dots for bass though.[/quote] Ok, I'll let you off then. This time

[quote name='cheddatom' post='783618' date='Mar 23 2010, 04:11 PM']Fair enough if no pros use it, but it seems perfectly acceptable to me. What am I missing?[/quote] The universality of the system, ct. TAB only works for guitar. Dots work for an infintie variety of instruments. If I have to write a part out for a sax or, alternatively, need to learn a line written originally for a trombone, flute or harp, I can do so without any real difficulty. Also, and more importantly for me, my study material doesn't stop at bass/guitar music but can include everything up to and including a full orchestral score. That's what I mean by it being good for getting you out of a rut. Learning a Coltrane sax solo or Marsalis trumpet part is far more challenging (and useful) than learning a Victor Wooten circus trick any day .

[quote name='thunderbird13' post='783495' date='Mar 23 2010, 02:38 PM']Am I missing something [/quote] Your call. I guess it depends on what your musical ambitions are. If you only every play within your comfort zone and rarely play with other readers, you may not find it that useful. I rarely do a reading gig but I do use the skill a LOT on gigs (my fake books are in Bass clef so I can use melody lines as prompts for solo ideas etc and to make for more interesting arrangements). Here's a for instance: I recently took up the double bass (December) and, in an effort to find some inspiration over and above scales and improvisaed noodling, I spent last Friday evening playing the famous Bach Cello Suite in G Major (the wole thing, not just the first bit that everyone knows). I learned it (by rote but from the sheet music) in around 1986, before I could read properly, and last played it around that time. I read it through this week without any difficulty (its a relatively easy read, in reality) - how much time did that save me? That evening, I also played (IIRC) a Dave Holland chart, a Paul Chambers transcription (one of my own) and started another transcription of a Dave Holland piece. Had I relied only on my ear (which is good), I would still be on the sixth bar of the cello suite and probably playing it wrong. I have been to rehearsals where, in three hours, we have looked through You're Everything by Return To Forever, Aja by Steely Dan and The Goodbye Look by Fagen. Trying to nail all that by ear/rote would not have been possible in the time available. We could, of course, have played Fly Me To The Moon, Take Five and Autumn Leaves but I was doing that in 1988!! I get that people don't NEED it but all I am saying (again and again) is it is REALLY useful thing to be able to do. And, as I stress time and again, its not that hard. Why would you not?!!

[quote name='Ray' post='783321' date='Mar 23 2010, 12:44 PM']The truth is that I can only play these tunes because my technique is pretty good and I can remember where the Tab told me to put my fingers. I don't necessarily understand why I'm playing the notes I'm playing, I.E. the relationship between the notes and the chords they're being played over. Tab has made me rely on shapes and muscle memory which I find limits my playing. Unfortunately, it's a rut I'm finding difficult to get out of...[/quote] I think you hit the nail on the head, Ray. TAB is a tool, agreed, but it is like taking the wheel nuts off you car with a spoon. Its often the wrong tool for the job. The fact is that reading music is the Swiss Army knife of the music world. It is not just about sight reading charts in studios and at show gigs. It is one of the most tried and tested means of communication between composers and players, teachers and students, arrangers and performers etc. It is a fantastic aid to learning and can save you vast amounts of time if you can do it to a functional level. I can't read fly s*** because I don't read enough but I can get by on most gigs most of the time. What I can do is write things down for rehearsals so less time is wasted - or read things that others have written down. It is a tool that provides me with an infallable memory, unlike the 'learn by ear' players I often play with who struggle to remember the arrangements they thought they had learned last week. I may write out a whole chart or just jot down a core groove, unison line or scale for soloing. It makes you play things you would never have thought of by yourself and gets you out of ruts in a minute. It is not a perfect tool: it doesn't communicate many of the idiosyncracies of genre or groove, for instance, but it does give you a massively useful tool that can be used in all sorts of ways to make you a better musician. It is NOT just about sight reading on gigs. The man who persuaded my of the usefulness of reading and started my passion for the skill was saxophonist Iain Ballamy, one of the UK's leading [i]improvising musicians[/i]. Go figure. Don't listen to people who tell you its not useful. I agree its not 'necessary' in an absolute sense but don't let that con you into thinking its ok to be lazy because you can get away without it. Of course you can but you limit your options unnecessarily. Reading the dots well is a flippin' marvellous buzz (I still remember the feeling I had when I read 'Sir Duke' for the first time cold on a gig - you can't buy that feeling) and is a lot more useful that tab. People like tab because it makes sense on day one. Written music may take a week to get to understand. Big deal. It is time well spent. The irony is that, once you 'get' it, its no harder than tab anyway.

Its a Sibelius thing, Jake. Sometimes it just defaults in ways I can't fathom (or resolve easily). My version is old (version 2 or so, its now on 5) so I guess some of these bugs have been dealt with but, yes, I agree, its not the most readable way of presenting things. I also had to put a bar of 8:4 in there to get a 3 against 4 feel across a bar line. Technology, huh? Can't live with it, can't live without.