Bilbo

A Rush tribute band!! Fanbloomintastic!!

Aren't human beings wonderfully complicated (except tBBC). Even I like the look of that bass, IncX. Get it recorded and post some links here! Have a great Christmas, if they have that in the Phillipines!!

I have loads of transcriptions I have done over the years and was thinking of posting some here for people to use as learning materials but I have a question the someone may have some thoughts on. I understand that a lot of music publishers will frown upon transcriptions like this due to the obvious implications for the potential commercial sale of transcription books. The issue is that most of the stuff I transcribe is probably never going to get anywhere near commercial production (John Patittucci's bassline on Manhattan Transfer's 'Sing Joy Spring', for instance, Ron Carter's lines on Wynton Marsalis' 'Hesitation' or the opening solo on 'Mbanga Kumba' by Richard Bona etc). As this is not a commercial site per se and noone is going to earn any money off this, would I be compromising the site by posting any transcriptions like this? I have just learned how to convert a Sibelius document into a pdf so am intending to transfer some handwritten transcriptions onto pdfs that can be posted or sent. Seems a constructive thing to do!

+ another one - its either laziness or a pitiful attempt to hide the fact that they don't actually KNOW what key the song is in.

Sibelius for me. So versatile. I had one called Music Publisher when I was just getting into IT but that is notation only and cannot play stuff back to you.

It happens a lot in jazz ('I'll start, you join in. You'll pick it up' ). It works sometimes and crashes and burns badly at others!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='355634' date='Dec 16 2008, 09:14 AM']Y'know, I don't think I've done any gigs recently where I've been given a chord chart. Usually, they run around the chords a few times or, if I'm lucky, I get a demo to listen to beforehand.[/quote] High production values, eh?

I did an audition once for a London band. After a first run through of the tune I was to play, I asked, 'it's in C, isn't it'? 'We don't bother with that muso s***' the guitarist said. 'We just play what we feel' I smiled at him, made my excuses and left.

Professionally self taught Really, tho', I am primarily self taught is as much as I have had very few lessons (3 or 4 in 28 years of playing) but I think there is a serious point to be made here. Firstly, finding a good, inspirational tutor, someone who can give you weekly sustained tution over a period of time, is not as easy as I would like if you are living in in a rural area (as I have done all my life) and the better you get, the harder it is. I could travel to London and have a lesson with someone like Lawrence Cottle but add £30 traveling to the cost of the lesson and its harder to justify when you are making your way in the world. Secondly, and this is my main point really, the cost of tuition is actually prohibitive for many ordinary working class people. £30 an hour is the current rate and I would consider that to be too expensive for most parents or young people trying to make ends meet. Some of these college type environments are increasingly iffy, due to the way they are funded, and there are some colleges where the tutors are only mediocre, even if you can afford to attend (either by paying for the course of by affording to live while you attend). The kind of intensive learning that is available out there is actually a fairly middle class indulgence, in my opinion. (I can't afford it and I earn well above the average wage). I suspect most people are self taught through necessity. Also, a lot of valuable learning is done through rehearsals, jam sessions, gigs etc., any time spent with more experienced musicians outside of formal lessons - stuff that money can't buy. I genuinely believe that everyone is fundamentally self-taught because I know many 'students' who have lessons but fail to progress significantly because THEY don't do the work (i.e. their tutor keeps them fed with things to work on but they chose not to and, as a consequence, fail to get any better). A tutor can only give you direction. You'll only get good if you work at it, teacher or not.

Jazz bassist, Dave Holland: "When you find yourself struggling against the challenges of the music industry and your rent's due, those are the difficult times when you are tested. Each musician has to make their own decision about how they want their music to serve. When you make the commitment to stay true to your musical voice instead of giving into the temptations of some fantastic offer, that is when your music gets stronger. That's something I see as a positive result of this commitment: renewed energy. In the end, people do recognize that commitment."

14th, 18th, 20th, 21st and 31st dec, then 8th Jan and we're off again, I'd play every day if I could. I love it.

[quote name='7string' post='352148' date='Dec 11 2008, 09:03 PM']Death Jazz. I'll have to check that out. It's true that you learn something new each day[/quote] If ever there was a label that could be used as evidence of poor branding, this is it

[quote name='4000' post='349165' date='Dec 8 2008, 10:22 PM']Can you define how these pop bassists are "a bit weak"? Is the fact that they play for the song not sufficient? Was Jamerson "a bit weak" because he played pop? I know where you're coming from Bilbo and on some levels I agree, but sometimes it might help if you could get off the "jazz is [i]so[/i] superior to all other musical forms" soapbox. Besides which, there are many reasons for liking a player and many ways in which a player can be good, and it's not all to do with having the greatest technique or most sophisticated note choice, unless you only tend to think of music in intellectual terms, which for me is rather missing the point. (Sorry, I've had 45 years of this from my dad and it gets right on my Wilkenfelds!!!!).[/quote] My point was that the suggestion that a handful of high profile female pop bassists are carrying a flag for feminism in contemporary music fails to acknowledge the dozens of classical and jazz players out there who have been solid working professionals for decades. I know of one female friend who wanted to play the double bass but was told by a male d/b player that women couldn't play it because it was too physical - I'd like to meet the guy who told her that . Of course some of these players that are being discussed are perfectly credible bass players and are probably very capable but my point was simply that the 'phenonmenon' of a female bass player should not be seen as a novelty anymore than a female doctor, dentist, solicitor, judge..... For the record, I think discussions about 'female' anything are chauvanistic and indicative of a patriarchal attitude to women and to what they can achieve. PS Jazz is superior - its not my fault!

Like the Suffolk NWOBHM Tribute band Ipswichfinder General !!

Just saw this on Amazon Marketplace for less than £15 new. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Live-Village-Vanguard-Wynton-Marsalis/dp/B00003A9NY/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1229010384&sr=1-9"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Live-Village-Vangu...0384&sr=1-9[/url] Its a 7 cd boxed set of Wynton Marsalis and his Sextet Live at the Village Vanguard. I bought it for nearly £60 many years ago and that was good value. Getting it this cheap is a steal. Some absolutely great jazz with the great Reginald Veal doing that thing he does, BOOM!

More sophisticated doesn't necessarily mean more complex but it usually does! I agree that composing is a great way to stay interested but, again, writing a 3 chord blues is not particularly satisfying if you have been playing/writing them for 30 years! I don't disagree with the spirit of what you say but simple is rarely satisfying enough to hold my attention for long (the recent exception being Javier Navarette's music for 'Pan's Labyrinth')

She's crazy!

The only way I can describe it is that learning theory is like learning any language. The more you know, the more you can express yourself and, over time, the more complex the ideas you express become. That doesn't mean you can't see the value, depth and strength of a simple statement such as 'I think, therefore I am' or 'His voice is much deeper than anything he ever has to say'. But it does make it hard for you to enjoy Carry On type innuendo and jokes about changing light bulbs! I did a wedding on Saturday and we were so in the pocket the drummer, a generally quite reticent man and a jazzer at heart, was laughing, actually laughing because it was grooving so hard. We were all smiling at the end and sharing a sense of a job well done. Fantastic feeling. If, however, I had to do that 4 nights a week, every week, I would get very bored very quickly (like after 3 gigs ). Just as a book of 'inspirational quotes' can cease to be inspirational, the enjoyment one gets from simplicity in music can pale quite quickly if its all there is available. Because people who study music tend (and this is a generalisation) to spend more time with it, they won't get the buzz you do out of a three chord trick because they have probably spent more time with it and know that it is a tiny part of the art form's wider potential. Its not that they don't see its value, its that they also see its limitations. I guess when all of us get into music we start with pretty basic stuff but we all move on because we look for somthing fresh to reinvigorate ourselves. If you keep looking, you need more and more sophisticated ideas to get you excited. I guess it also depends on what kind of mind you have, what kind of personality. Mine led me to jazz and Walter Piston's 'Harmony', 'Counterpoint' and 'Orchestration'

Just one more point that I thought of last night. The music notation we are all speaking off has particularly severe limitations when you move into ethnic musics like African, Indian, Latin music etc. For instance, the 'swing' that defines a folkloric samba groove, as defined by the sammmba schools in Rio De Janiero, could not be written down using conventional notation. It can be approximated but, unless you can hear the groove, you won't be able to play it just from the dots. But the dots undoubtedly remain the most credible means of rendering tunes performable accurately without rehearsal/pre-warning. They facilitate the use of deps without compromising the quality of your fundamental product, they reduce the cost of professional performance by reducing the number of band calls. They facilitate learning on a much deeper level than rote learning/mimicry and allow musicians to communicate much more effectively than other methods (tab is a particularly poor short cut). Mainly, and this is a VERY important point, the ability to read music DOES NOT and has NEVER impeded anyone's ability to improvise or be creative. If someone can't improvise or create original lines, it is because they have never learned how, NOT because they can read.

I'm with Sean. A good reader is one who can make the notes sing and you can't do that unless you have a good ear and a real sense of the music being performed. Session musicians got a bad rap in the 70s because there were loads of recordings made by musicians who didn't understand the music they were performing. They read the dots but didn't [i]play[/i] the music. Classical musicians who can breath life into a classical piece but can't play a jazz piece just don't understand jazz. Its not their reading or their ears that are at fault. Its their understanding of the idiom. Learn to read and develop your ears. You need them both.

I lived inCwmbran 'til I was 23 and then Newport from 1988 - 1994. Have they finished it yet?

Nope - my motive are purely the need to feel loved :wub:

[quote name='Merton' post='346534' date='Dec 5 2008, 03:43 PM']Kinda miss the trombone a bit, I have to say[/quote] I often miss the trombone - I think the sights on my rifle are out

Gulp! I have more guitars than basses! Gibson ES175, Adamus steel string and Takmine nylon. Only because guitars aren't as versatile as basses. I use the guitars for writing and recording not for gigging (have done 2/3 gigs on guitar over the last 20 years but, whilst I can pull it off, I would rather be a capable bass player than a weak/mediocre guitarist). I did think about gigging on guitar recently because most of the guitar players around me aren't actually that much better than me but, as I said, I am not really attracted to mediocrity. There's already too much of that around.

[quote name='SteveO' post='345248' date='Dec 4 2008, 12:17 PM']playing Jazz is more rewarding on the bone than the bass (sorry Bilbo)[/quote] For who?