Bilbo

Not sure I could cope with such bass excellence......

[quote name='Galilee' post='217470' date='Jun 12 2008, 10:40 AM']I imagine that Bilbo230763 will be [b]well[/b] up for this as well. [/quote] I'd rather boil my head.

Surely its all of it? If you think of a bass as a cooking recipe. If you add more salt or less, it changes the taste. But if the meat is lamb not beef, or chicken not pork or fish not game then that is fundamentally different. Add a tomato sauce or a cream based one and its different again. Throw in some herbs and its French, some spices and its Indian or Thai. Whilst I can see that different machine heads will make some sort of difference, surely all of it does - thats why a Wal isn't an Alembic isn't a Sadowsky isn't a Fodera. Its the overall mix not the details. Bit like if your tone is too bassy you can add more top or take some bass off. It taste and experience interacting. PS I wouldn't even DREAM of trying to build a bass so what do I know!

[quote name='sshorepunk' post='217509' date='Jun 12 2008, 11:49 AM']I need to hear the rest of the story Anyone know of any uprught bass tutors in the Manchester area? Tony[/quote] Is Steve Berry still up that way?

No - like all Hoodies, I have a raging crack habit...

Bilbo’s Book of Very, Very Common Standards Girl From Ipaneama Stella By Starlight Have You Met Miss Jones? Summertime Softly As In The Morning Sunrise Night And Day There Will Never Be Another You Body & Soul Yesterdays Bilbo’s Small Book Of Easy Wins (tunes that are easy to learn and played far too often) A 12-bar Jazz Blues (in F and Bb) Mercy Mercy Mercy Blue Monk C Jam Blues (Ellington) Doxy Blues For Alice Impressions So What Lush Life Bilbo’s Increasing List Of ‘learn half of these and you’re gigging for life’ Standards Rhythm changes (in Bb at the very least) - usually played like s*** off a stick All The Things You Are All Of Me Canteloupe Island (I refuse to play it but it is usually called at least once at every jam session - really. I hate its half-assed non-funkiness) Watermelon Man (and this one) Desafinado How High The Moon In A MellowTone Just Squeeze Me Manha Da Carnaval Wave Anthropology Ornitology Oleo Moose The Mooche Blue Monk Donna Lee Impressions Alone Together Angel Eyes Beautiful Love Body & Soul Days Of Wine And Roses Fly Me To The Moon A Foggy Day Groovin’ High (Whispering) It’s Only A Paper Moon Just Friends Love For Sale My Funny Valentine My Romance Satin Doll You Don’t Know What Love Is Mercy Mercy Mercy (Zawinul) Giant Steps There are zillions of these things but, broadly speaking, if you can deal with these, most other standards shouldn't pose too many problems

I started playing before I was born (I was premature). My parents were jazz musicians who played Gil Evans arrangements to me in the womb (via headphones) so, after I was born, they immediately taught me how to read music so I could write down my ideas. I performed in front of Wynton Marsalis before my first birthday and he wanted to book me for his Septet but I wasn't old enough to work nightclubs and, anyway, the soiled nappy thing was a problem for him. So, instead, I starting teaching at the ACM in Guildford. I got the sack after three months as I started talking about major sevenths and they thought I was a bit too advanced for them. So, still only 14 months old, I wrote my first Concerto which Peter Jackson has since earmarked for The Hobbit (that Shore guy thinks he's got the gig but, Jackson is going to sack him again - don't say anything, it is a secret). Personally, I think the work is a little naive, like late Stravinsky only noisier. Anyway, at age of two & a half, Vinny at Fodera offered to build me a 13" scale signature six-string fretless which I accpeted graciously, my Guild Ashbory having tuning problems. I tried talcum powder but, for some reason, I preferred to put it on my a*** than my fingers so that didn't work. I released my first CD at three years old (it sold dozens) and then left the music business to become a Hoodie. I am now in HMP Belmarsh waiting for Parole at which point, I will be recording my 'Free Neslon Mandela' suite and, with Bono from U2, petitioning for the release of this great man. See you then if not before.

[quote name='P-T-P' post='216819' date='Jun 11 2008, 01:12 PM']I can totally see how the opposite would be true for someone else, and that's fine so long as they don't insist their way is the only way.[/quote] But I DO insist! Mongolian nose flautists UNITE!

[quote name='Jase' post='216809' date='Jun 11 2008, 01:03 PM']So what would be the difference in a band playing a set of standards and a band playing a set of classics? (not tribute)[/quote] No difference at all in my eyes. I can accept that a sophisticated rearrangement of a jazz standard is more defensible than a copy of someone elses but I still think that a LOT of jazz (including ALL of the jazz I play) simply follows what is, from a conceptual point of view, the path of least resistance. I am researching a biography on Paul Chambers and I recently interviewed a Detroit bass player who had the same teacher as Chambers. He still has a copy of the set list from his first gig in Detroit in 1954. There was NOT A SINGLE TUNE on that list that I hadn't played in the previous fortnight (in Suffolk in 2007, 53 years later). Is that the way you want your music to go? I sure as hell don't.

I did an early Heavy Metal gig and broke the A sring on my old Aria SB700. Now when that happens, something happens to the set up that renders teh D and G strings unusable so I had to do the last three songs in the set with only the E string. Tony Levin eat your heart out. Funny thing is, no-one noticed Never broken a string since!

But surely the effort required to create something of artistic merit is worth more than that required to simply recreate something someone else has already done. Can you imagine what would have happened at your jazz festivals if you had played, say 'Body & Soul' and in doing so had repeated Coleman Hawkin's tenor solo from his 1939 recording. Or if you played Giant Steps and simply repeated Coltrane's solo. You may just avoid being laughed off the stage by your peers but you would never be take seriously as a player. Now, if one of these tribute bands gets up and plays 'Comfortably Numb' note perfect, its a obviously a perfectly acceptable product for the market place, I acknowledge that, but how can that possibly be of equal merit to Pink Floyd doing the original? Or Porcupine Tree bringing their own slant on Prog Rock? Or IQ or Spock's Beard (I have never heard any of these by the way)? My point all along has been that the repeated rendering of the same old stuff undermines the vitality of the art forms we engage in. People have always danced to music and WILL always dance to music, I am just not convinced that they need that music to be the same everytime they go out for them to feel like dancing. If someone can waltz, they can waltz. It doesn't have to be The Anniversary Waltz for the steps to work. Familiarity breeds contempt!

A friend and I once walked into a top banana guitar shop in London with the guitar roadie of a name rock guitarist. The man in question would, at every available opportunity, drop into the conversation that he was '*****'s guitar roadie. After looking at the guitars on show with unmasked derision, the man in question asked the (very knowledgeable) guitar tech what he should use to polish *****'s guitars. The (very knowledgeable) guitar tech nonchalantly answered 'Pledge.' My friend and I nearly p***ed ourselves.

There are probably dots up the side of the neck but, either way, it doesn't take you long to find you way around a neck. Its about practice and familiarity. Most violins, cellos, double basses, violas and classical guitars don't have markers of any kind. 1,000,000 string players can't all be wrong!!

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='216008' date='Jun 10 2008, 11:15 AM']The title of this thread seems to imply that you can do covers or have integrity. IMO you can do both.[/quote] I absolutely agree that you can do covers and have integrity. Because of MY value base (which isn't any more or less valid than anyone elses), and because of my musical life experiences to date, I am not altogether sure that [i]I[/i] can. Not any more.

[quote name='P-T-P' post='215878' date='Jun 10 2008, 02:16 AM']6. In the purest sense, that means you're screwed as soon as you hit a note,[/quote] One thing that does intrigue me here, and I know this is a Bass forum, is the passion people have for 'playing bass'. I have invested 28 years in the instrument and, like many of us, have a love/hate relationship with the thing but, I have to say, it is the music that I love playing, not the bass. As I said earlier, a great bass line only works in a great piece of music. It has no intrinsic value on its own. as for playing Mustang Sally with John Scofield? Ok - but just the once. And only for money

[quote name='chris_b' post='215649' date='Jun 9 2008, 07:42 PM']This is why you don't have any integrity and why I believe your opinion on the integrity of others is irrelevant. You took a gig you knew you were going to hate. You were disparaging about the audience, the venue, the other musicians and the numbers you played. You probably smiled at everyone while you were despising them and I bet you didn't refuse to take the money! Yet you seem to think you have integrity!! With such a vitriolic attitude towards other players, it beats me why you want to play a musical instrument at all![/quote] I appear to have offended you. That was not my intention. I think you have misinterpreted my perspectives on that gig (and the dramatic licence added for effect) and I feel that I shoudl respond. I have acknowledged at least half a dozen times here that my decisions re: gigs indicate that, in my mind, I have little or no integrity - my reasons for arguing FOR some degree of integrity revolve around the fact that it is a trait I envy and feel that I should aspire to. I do not make my points from a position of authority or superiority. I fail to see how I could be accsued of being disparaging to the audience at the yacht club - that would appear to be an interpretation on your part for which I can't be held responsible. The nature of the venue was unknown to me until I arrived and its astonishingly boomy nature may have contributed significantly to the poor playing (it is difficult to play properly when you collectively sound awful and can't really hear the detail in your colleagues playing). I said the music was poor not the musicians; the people involved are nice people; that is a completely different point. My Dad was a lovely guy but I'd never have booked him as a drummer! And, yes, I did take the money - I did my job for the alloted time, incurred expenses for travel etc and the bandleader was perfectly happy wih my work - I wasn't. As for smiling - sorry, but I had a face like a slapped a*** all night. Oh, an if it makes you feel any better, the drummer was the same guy on both gigs and someone who I have played with twice a week for the last four years. He also knows the difference between a diamond and a dog.

There is intelligence and there is wisdom. My brother has written two books and has all sorts of letters after his name yet he is one of the most closed minded, concrete thinking numpties I have ever met. I have met MANY people who have natural wisdom, people who have what is sometime referred to as 'an old soul'. I know who I would rather commune with.

[quote name='bassicinstinct' post='215379' date='Jun 9 2008, 12:49 PM'], thus far at least, everyone has behaved with dignity and - dare I say it - integrity. [/quote] Ironic, huh? I think there is something in what Huggy & The Bears says - if your external world and your internal one are at peace, you have integrity. Mine aren't. So I don't. Although I did ditch a residency on the weekend because it was undermining my sense of purpose. Maybe I do have integrity after all but its in the loft and I need to get it out an polish it!!

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='215064' date='Jun 8 2008, 07:40 PM']get a PowerBall to keep your wrists strong[/quote] Waste of time. Your wrists and fingers were strong enough to play the bass when you were about 4 years old. You need grace not power. I'm with jakesbass - sight reading rhythms is also a great skill to develop.

Absoflippinlutely! But it rarely masquerades as art!

dlloyd is right - or it could be a A maj 9 (no 3rd) - by leaving the third out, you can create an 'open' feel whose ambiguity creates a texture all of its own (its subtle but its there). Coltrane often played minor chords without thirds to create a similar effect.

[quote name='chris_b' post='215284' date='Jun 9 2008, 10:57 AM']No, your integrity went out the window when you started writing these negative, grumpy, elitist and tedious tirades.[/quote] What are you trying to say! Whilst I would not consider my perspectives to be elitist or negative (although I cannot claim they are not tedious or grumpy), I fear for a forum where expressing an honest, if unpopular, opinion can be viewed as indicative of a lack of integrity. I think thisnameistaken's point is valid: [b]"We may eventually reach the conclusion here that there are very few professional musicians who haven't sold their souls to be professional musicians" [/b] There are many examples of musicians staking their own claims to integrity over those of others (HM, I know, is full of these people) but, the minute one starts to change your art in order to increase its market value, you are compromised. There are many musicians who didn't and don't; Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Olivier Messiaen etc and there are others who have take the decision to terminate their relationship with lucrative acts in order to persue more artsitically satisfying avenues; Francis Dunnery, Peter Gabriel - this is not about one genre being more valid than others. A commited Country & Western singer is as noble as a commited Serial Composer. But the minute you seek to manipulate your product in order to render it marketable, you are risking a compromise. I guess thisnameistaken is right and that music is either art or commerce but rarely both.

I thought everything Stanley Clarke does sounds familiar?

Did two gigs this weekend - one was to a yacht club function. 250 people all eating drinking and being merry. They loved it; some singing along, some dancing, lots of applause. But, yes, you guessed it, the music was dross. Didn't swing, didn't groove, weak players, dreadful sound (massive warehouse type room - think Stafford Bingley Hall but smaller). Earned £100 - hated every minute except the breaks. 2nd gig - jazz trio (piano, bass, drums). Great sound, real piano (for a change) - appreciative, attentive audience including a retired American pianist and his party who were thrilled to hear jazz played so well in the UK and kept saying so - he kept asking for requests, most which our pianist (Chris Simmonds, Norfolk) knew and I could credibly busk. Great evening - spiritually, socially, musically. Earned £50. When I start turing down gig 2s to play gig 1s because it is more money, then I will know that the integrity has long gone.

I used to get problems if I did too few funk or Latin gigs but I eventually noticed that, ifyou use your amp correctly and don't dig in too hard, you can pretty much cope with anything without too much difficulty. I guess bassplayer spinn worked it out sooner than most of us.