Bilbo

[quote name='stevie' post='346439' date='Dec 5 2008, 02:18 PM']Question to the fluent readers on here: I've heard that mentally whispering the time to yourself as you go along is a bad idea - you should just see a bunch of notes and automatically recognize the pattern. What's your view on this?[/quote] Absolutely. You need to recognise massive chunks of material at one glance - sorry, that sounds intimidating, but I'll explain what I mean. If you take the word antidisestablishmentarianism, many of us will read it in a glance and not by going through it with a fine tooth comb like we did when we were learning to read. A + n = an, add at T = ant. The I makes it anti etc etc and so one. When you look at the above, you have the skills you need to see the whole word in one glance. With reading music, if you practice regularly, you quickly begin to see whole bars (and, eventually, several bars) at a time rather than having to labouriously count time in order to lock you playing in with the surrounding meter. The counting is useful as a means of making sense of it all at the outset but, in the longer term, you need to ditch it in favour of a more organic approach. Trust me, it will come. Just like reading books. Word of warning, though. If you neglect the skills, you will lose the knack. Did you knoo that, if a literate person goes blind for a long period and then regains their sight, they will have to relearn how to read. They will have simply forgotten how. Reading is like that, If you do it often, the skill improves immeasurably. If you don't, the knack fades.

In my one man quest to get you all to educate yourselves, I am drawing your collective attention to a resource I consider to be particularly useful for helping people who are trying to learn to read music music to develop the ability to read rhythms. The book stars on simple quarter note rhythms and, over 270 pages, gets more and more complicated. The progress is incremental and you almost don't know you are improving until you find yourself reading all sorts of weird stuff. It will take time but it is time well spent (and can be used away from your bass - so its something to practice when you are not at home). I am going to offer a prize to the first current non-reader who works throught the book and then gets to read page 265 without making any mistakes. [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Reading-Rhythms-Workbook-Instruments/dp/0793573793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228485072&sr=1-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Encyclopedia-Readi...5072&sr=1-1[/url]

[quote name='thebeat' post='345619' date='Dec 4 2008, 04:07 PM']I resolve to stop pretending that i give a f*** and admit that i don't...[/quote] Yes you do, youknow you do. People that say that always do.....

I need a dep. You free next Tuesday?

[quote name='L1zz1e' post='345580' date='Dec 4 2008, 03:52 PM']I have obtained "New Method For String Bass" Simandl and a few others including "The Cycle of Self Empowerment" Dom Famularo. Do you think these will help?[/quote] Don't know the Famularo book but the Simandl is an industry standard so its perfect. But the truth is it doesn't matter as much as you think. At this stage, the information you need is in almost every bass book you can buy. Its also out there free on a dozen website including this one (dlloyds primer thread). You need to get as much information in your head as you can and make sense of it. Just take the time to digest the information and learn one thing at a time - and REALLY learn it. If you practice, it will come.

To only play what I hear and not to wiggle my fingers indiscriminately, however superficially impressive it may look/sound

[quote name='Sarah5string' post='345075' date='Dec 4 2008, 08:55 AM']I like a warm, soft and mellow tone and have a dislike of treble. lol[/quote] So lose the pick

There are a million exercises that will make a difference and they will all work on some level. In my prime developmental period, my own regime was to play two octave scales in all keys and all modes followed by two octave chord tones up and down the neck in all modes and all keys. Took about an hour a day but I developed a lot of technique that way. I would really recommend that you learn to read the dots as soon as you can: a teacher is a good idea but F. Simandl's books or Rufus Reid's Evolving Bassist are good books to start with. When you have the rudimentary skills (i.e. you don't need to be able to sight read to do this), you can start transcribing bits of songs you like and to develop a vocabulary of your own. Then your playing will really start to improve. The very fact that you are even asking this question is indicative of a positive attitude to learning and you should be congratulated for that. The best piece of advice I can give is 'remember that the most difficult thing about finding your true path as a player is the realisation that you are already on it'. Everything of value that you will ever learn will come to you incrementally. There are a couple of things that may come to you as an epiphany but these are very few. Most things come from tedious repetition and, despite your protestations to the contrary, I would argue that just playing through scales at X bpm etc probably is working for you already, just not as quickly as you would like. Most things you learn in the practice room today won't appear in your playing for at least six months!Patience is of considerable value in learning an instrument, alongside the understanding that, if you haven't got that knot of frustration in your stomach as you practice, you probably aren't learning anything of value! You are on a wonderful journey that will last your lifetime. Enjoy.

[quote name='Rich' post='345289' date='Dec 4 2008, 12:41 PM'][size=1]Speaking of that argumentative beardy (JB, not Bilbo),[/quote] He's got a 'tache not a beard! PS That's the only time I will ever been compared to Jeff Berlin.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='344597' date='Dec 3 2008, 07:09 PM']LOL Bilbo you're not telling Ped and I anything we weren't already aware of. [/quote] I never doubted it, CK. I just think people should know what they are doing with their forum! Plus it lets me have a dig at people that don't study properly! Perhaps I should be doing that on guitar forums!

The reality is that playing any instrument well is a difficult thing to do properly. I don't think a bass is harder than the guitar but it definately isn't easier either!

It also doesn't account for how LONG each post is i.e. a gear porn thing would have a post that says 'WOW' or (+1) whilst a theory post may be 400 words or more. My subtle point was that all of the stuff we talk about here and only 1% of it is about actually PLAYING the instrument I just thought it was funny!

In a moment of autistic delight, I have collated some statistics relating to the use of this forum, specifically identifying what we, the 4,514 registered members, use it for, assuming that these are the things that matter to us most as a collective. Firstly, we have a list of forums/ subject areas in order of frequency of usage: Forum Number of threads Off Topic 3,341 General Bass Discussion 2,866 Items Wanted 2, 749 For Sale: Amps, Cabs & Effecs 2,567 For Sales: Basses 2,203 Bass Guitars 1,889 Amps & Cabs 1,436 For Sale: Other musically related stuff 1,400 Ebay Links 1,280 Repairs and Technical Issues 1,025 Introductions 831 Effects 798 Gear Porn 717 Miscellaneous Equipment And Accessories 648 Feedback Section 607 Gigs 531 Recording 524 Theory & Technique 296 Bassists Wanted/Available 291 Double Bass 211 Recycling Unwanted Items 195 Basschat Affiliates 194 Build Diaries 178 Site News 132 Basschatter’s Reviews 120 Ask an expert 90 Bass Tutors 85 Groove Library 25 The headlines are that the greatest percentage of threads, at 15.89%, are Off-Topic. So, in a nutshell, we use it most to talk about stuff that has nothing to do with basses (actually it means that 84.11% of our discussions do relate to basses so that’s encouraging!). General bass discussiosn form the second largest group at 13.63% with the next 35% of our threads going to the movement of gear of some description from one set of sweaty Basschatter mitts to another. Ogling each others gear forms the basis of 3.41% of the threads with only 1.4% of the discussions realting to theory or technique. The statistics also reveal that we are collectively more interested in knowing what everyone thinks of each other (2.88%) than we are about knowing how to play the bass. Things change little when we look at the posts per subject group: Forum No. of posts Off Topic 71,002 General Bass Discussion 55,532 For Sales: Basses 26,170 Bass Guitars 25,621 Amps & Cabs 17,870 For Sale: Amps, Cabs & Effecs 17,814 Gear Porn 11,586 Ebay Links 9,920 Effects 9,514 Items Wanted 8,546 Repairs and Technical Issues 6,974 Build Diaries 5,892 Miscellaneous Equipment And Accessories 5,855 For Sale: Other musically related stuff 5,696 Introductions 5,043 Recording 3,003 Theory & Technique 2,917 Feedback Section 1,884 Gigs 1,841 Basschat Affiliates 1,818 Double Bass 1,583 Site News 1,565 Basschatter’s Reviews 1,144 Recycling Unwanted Items 1,105 Bassists Wanted/Available 900 Ask an expert 645 Bass Tutors 213 Groove Library 87 Again, the greatest percentage of our posts, 23.53%. are Off-Topic. That means nearly a quarter of all posts submitted here are not bass related at all. To be fair, 18.4% are general bass discussion but then the statistics plummet sharply to less than 9% on discussions about bass guitars. The real saving grace, however, is that, in actual post terms, were are more interested in playing the bass (0.96% of posts) than we are in talking about each other (0.62%). The fact that we are more interested in building instruments (1.95% in Build Diaries) than we are in actually playing them (Theory & Technique 0.96%) renders this to be a shallow victory. Compare this to the fact that 4% of the posts relate to us drooling over basses in Gear Porn and we can only conclude that bass players can’t read but do like looking at the pictures. And, before anyone asks, no, I don’t have any friends.

[url="http://www.jazzinstruction.com/instruments/bass.html"]http://www.jazzinstruction.com/instruments/bass.html[/url] [url="http://user.tninet.se/~uci207u/page1.html"]http://user.tninet.se/~uci207u/page1.html[/url] Now I don't want to see any posts about VAT, lost Phillipino basses or Sarah5string until you've all learned these exercises and can read. Now run along and play.

Got a DVD out of Blockbusters last night and it only cost £3.87 instead of £3.95. That's 8p saved. At this rate, if I take out 31,250 DVDs, I will have saved enough for a 5-string Wal PS That's one a day for 85 years. I'll be 130 years old by then. Ah well, I could still get the Stones gig!

Nope. Me neither. Must be you, mate.

[quote name='YouMa' post='342050' date='Dec 1 2008, 04:36 PM']How far out from felixstowe do you gig bilbo,into essex aswell i presume?[/quote] This year I have been as far North as Kings Lynn and as far West as Oxfordshire. A few London gigs and, yes, some in Essex.

On course for my 120th gig by the end on December - that's 40 more than last year!!! Best year ever since I was born (which occured at a very early age)!!! Credit Crunch my a8&£!!!

That's a coicidence! I was 23 when I was your age.

Great piano trio gig at The Fox in Bury St Edmunds with Chris Ingham, probably Suffolk's best jazz pianist. Great sound and some great interaction, dynamics and grooves. Chris is also an author and has written books on Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Metallica. I also played with Chris in a Quartet that afternoon when we played to 2-300 people who had gathered to watch the Christmas lights in Stowmarket get switched on. We played all that Christmas dross but the irony is, because it was not a jazz gig, despite its low key status, it was the biggest audience any of us had seen all year! Personally, I do it for the glamour.....

:lol:

[quote name='Alun' post='340579' date='Nov 29 2008, 04:24 PM']Sax player Dick Hamer? He's still about - do the odd big band gig with him. The Four Bars was a fab venue and much missed :-) Cheers Alun[/quote] Yeah, that's my man. He gave me my first ever jazz gig. Say hi when you see him (Rob Palmer - he won't know bilbo )

[quote name='steve-soar' post='340637' date='Nov 29 2008, 05:27 PM']The drummers kit has fell over.[/quote] Ain't you ever seen a drum roll?