Bilbo

Doing your scales, chords, theory etc is about developing muscle memory and insights so that, when you seek to execute an idea, you are able to do so. Learning to read music has many purposes, one of which would be to allow you to execute the ideas of others. But that particular skill also allows you to record (as in write down) your OWN ideas and recreate them some time later without having to try to 'remember' them. It also allows you to provide instructions for other musicians who agree to work with you in creating your music. All of these skills are necessary to become a rounded player/composer/artist. The problem with suggesting that playing in a covers band is a a 'learning experience' is not that it isn't. it is, but that what you learn is of limited value and can be learned more effectively and quickly in other ways. If you just learn, by rote, Watt-Roy's line for 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick', you are only able to play that tune that way in that song. If you study that line, comprehend the scales used, the chords and the context in which they are used and the nature of the choices Watt-Roy made, then clarify which technical/motor skills he is utilising and the extent that they can be built upon to increase your OWN creative potential, then you can probably transfer that information to any one of a myriad of alternative situtations and retain the collected information as a lesson for life. But this assumes several things. Firstly, that the line involved is so critically original that it warrants that level of investment. Secondly, that the motor skills required to execute it are something that the developing player needs to acquire (like two handed tapping, it’s a creative choice but I subjectively think it mostly sounds like a bag of spanners being thrown down the stairs – others disagree and are right to do so). Thirdly, the time it takes to acquire that skill is worth the investment (I have no doubt that I could play like Michael Manring given infinte time and space but, having critically assessed his work (by listening to it), I do not believe that, in order to take my own concepts of musicality further, this amount of effort would be a productive use of my time). Otherwise, thank God that Manring exists and continues to do what he does. Fourthly, that there is something specific about that particular piece of music that makes it important for [i]me/you[/i] to wish to invest [i]personally[/i] in exploring its mysteries. To be blunt, at this point in my career, I have yet to find a 'function band' cover I can't play pretty much straight off, as well as if not better than most of my peers and certainly sufficiently well to satisfy any customer (this is not about playing Weather Report or Stanley Clarke covers which never appear at functions but the about playing the usual bubblegum called for by function/covers bands). Its been a LONG time since I actually 'learned' anything technical from playing covers other than how to play those specific tunes, most of which I can take or leave. The only way to improve is to study music; not licks, riffs, musicians or acres of other people’s basslines but music, the art of it. Learning to write is not about learning to regurgitate other people’s stuff’; thisnameistaken’s girlfriend need's to have something worth writing about before she even starts. If people copy other people’s stuff in literature it’s call plagurism and gets you seriously censured and wholly discredited. In music we call it a tribute band! I sometimes think people are not really aware of what is out there in the world of music and the full potential of music to improve people’s (including their own) lives. They continue to be dazzled by the applause and perceived status achieved and by the reflected glory that is believed to be a consequence of playing ‘the hits’ – I still hear it in jazz (‘he can play ‘Donna Lee’ – so f***ing what? That was nailed three decades ago by Jaco and three decades before THAT by Parker. It’s mostly a party trick and, like all party tricks, impresses the uninformed and nothing more). It’s a hall of mirrors. I am not saying don’t DO covers – this industry demands it of us and, if there are no other gigs out there, I will continue to do it, but let’s not pretend that there is any nobility in it. It can be fun, in spite of its nature, but it is a crass job that fills our wallets (no shame in that) and is no more creative than flipping burgers. I am sure there are plenty of people out there having fun doing just that.

Hi Crash. What's you poison? Rock, pop, funk, country, folk, prog, Heavy Metal, Speed Metal, Death Metal, Hip Hop, House, Garage, Classical, fusion, jazz or klezmer? We need to know!

[quote name='cheddatom' post='221230' date='Jun 18 2008, 11:03 AM']It was my mental image that got on my tits, not you bilbo! I'm sure you don't need an e-hug, but I can offer violent make-up sex at the weekend if you're up for it?[/quote] Sorry mate, I'm washing my goatee!

[quote name='cheddatom' post='221214' date='Jun 18 2008, 10:42 AM']Bilbo at home, stroking his goatee sipping coffee listening to Gyles Brandreth and Stephen Fry?!?!? ARRRGHGHG so jazzy!![/quote] Sorry, mate. More likely to be listening to Connolly and Kohli. I only know any of these guys because they occasionally appear on tv. I was trying to make a point. If my reading intelligent writers and then thinking about what they say gets on your t***, then I am sorry. I promise to seek counselling.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='221150' date='Jun 18 2008, 09:48 AM']I think that any drive towards excellence is more a trait of a craftsman/the craftsman within the artist. IMHO an artist wants to create better and better art, but this could be worse and worse in other people's opinions, and they don't necessarily need to improve technical skill to improve art (in whoever's opinion).[/quote] A good point, oh cheesy one. I have always been intrigued by the fact that great raconteurs like, say, Gyles Brandreth or Stephen Fry, fail to communicate as effectively and universally as less 'erudite' individuals like Billy Connolly or Hardeep Singh Kohli. Art is not necessarily best served by technical skill.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='221198' date='Jun 18 2008, 10:28 AM']Maybe there are just many people out there who educated themselves enough to choose the swill that they know and love.[/quote] They are welcome to it

[quote name='chris_b' post='221169' date='Jun 18 2008, 10:10 AM']And to take the analogy even further....... many original bands that I have heard would equate to Charlie's Kebab van, so excuse me if I don't rate these bass lines as highly as covering something like Chic etc! Burger King? Sheer luxury!![/quote] But there are a range of takeaway vans that provide tuck that is far superior to your average high street takeaway - I have eaten Carribean, Thai, Szechuan, Phillipino and a host of others cuisines from vans/tents and was massively impressed by the qulaity. I quickly learned that, like music, there are many people out there who will continue serving you swill if you are unwilling to educate youself enough to recognise the fact.

[quote name='lowdown' post='221174' date='Jun 18 2008, 10:12 AM']I write and record library music, Does that count as well? Garry[/quote] Yup....

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='221148' date='Jun 18 2008, 09:46 AM']But it is !!![/quote] I agree but it don't make it Michelin Star level.

[quote name='jakesbass' post='220751' date='Jun 17 2008, 04:59 PM']Like many of these threads the question relies on individual definition and being what we are; varied, we will have a similar variety of definitions for this. Here's mine: (and I believe it was my post in another thread in which this point was first raised) Very few if any of us are artists by my definition. I would equate the terminology with excellence moving towards world class or at least unique/highly individual in order to achieve the status.[/quote] I know what you are saying, Jake, but I disagree on one fundamental point. To be a poet, you need to write poetry. To be a bass player, you need to play a bass. To be a composer, you need to compose. To be an artist, you need to 'do' art. You can, however, be a [i]bad[/i] poet, a [i]bad [/i] bass player, a [i]bad[/i] composer or a [i]bad[/i] artist. And this is not vernacular slang; when I say [i]bad[/i] I MEAN [i]bad[/i] . I think it is an aspiration towards excellence that drives me and it is that same aspiration that leaves me frustrated at the lack of opportunities to be genuinely (by my value system) creative. Nevertheless, I reserve the right to continue to sit in front of Sibelius, Cubase 3 or Band In A Box writing crappy little compositions, each of which represents another cobble on the Yellow Brick Road to compositional Xanadu! I AM a pretty capable bass player. I AM a ok jazz musician. I AM a lousy composer. But when I compose, it is because I want nothing more than to create something of lasting value, something that justifies the 1,000s of hours I have spend musiking (a term coined by musicologist Christopher Small). My writing is by far the least productive of my musical activities and yet it is the one I value most. I will keep trying. 'I Feel Love', triplets or not, just doesn't compete.

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='220967' date='Jun 17 2008, 10:01 PM']duplicitous[/quote] Moi?

[quote name='The Funk' date='Jun 18 2008, 03:53 AM' post='221071'] Miroslav Vitous is a great bassist, when he's at home (in the Czech Republic I believe) or anywhere else. Wasn't he in Weather Report before Alphonso Johnson and Jaco? /quote] Vitous was the first bass player in WR - he is known primarily as a double bass player but he did tinker with the electric for a while. And, yes, your role does count.

It doesn't have to be CTS. Could be 100 other things (RSI for one). My CTS resulted in a burning sensation in my forearm near the elbow not a pain in the hand itself. You'll need to manage it to allow the 'injury' to heal. I did this by evaluating my technique and recognisisng whta was sloppy about it. A few adjustments and bingo, reduced discmfort to teh point where I have few problems anymore - too years tho'! One of the things I did that helped a lot was to get an ergonomic keyboard for my work computer, a vertical (?) mouse and a mouse mat with a wrist support. That way my wrists weren't compromised all day at work. In a nutshell, it doesn't mean the end of your playing. It may mean that you can't ever play Country and Western but, hell, that's probably a good thing.

VERSION's BANDS??? What a crock! It might be that a 4-piece band trying to play a James Brown tune that orginally featured a 9-piece may have to rewrite odd sections for obvious reasons but to suggest that this merits a higher level of creativitiy is like saying Burger King is a classier repost than MacDonald's. You are deluding yourself.

Who?

[quote name='jakesbass' post='220708' date='Jun 17 2008, 04:14 PM']...my creative output is quite large in the projects I work in.[/quote] It's an interesting point. I recall someone else here saying that their interests and energies were primarily in the area of composing/arranging/producing etc rather than bass playing. It sounds as if, for some of us, the creative impulse is not satisfied by the bass playing alone but by activities peripheral to that playing. I MD a small group as well (at the request of the frontman) but, because it is all covers, that doesn't really work for me either I can, however, see the potential of the role in these sense Jake describes it. Still a bit too 'craft' orientated for my aesthetic sensibilities.

Ok - building on the discussions we are having on artist vs craftsmen, I thought I would start thinking about bass players who are composers, not just of bass lines or solo bass features (narcissism ) but of music to be played by larger ensembles - co-writers not allowed. The bass player must do the whole thing like QueenoftheDepths and write out the parts/teach the parts to the band/ensemble. As a jazzer, my thoughts turn to: Charles Mingus and his small and large groups Dave Holland's trio, quartet, quintet and big band Marc Johnson and his Bass Desires Miroslav Vitous Charlie Haden any more?

I am both but the industry I operate in seems to require a considerably higher number of craftsmen than artists (like most industries, I guess). My aspirations towards being an artist are, therefore, frustrated. I have to, therefore, resign myself to being a craftsman who not only can't create in the proper sense of the word but has to accept that, to use a culinary metaphor, the music business is based around a chain of fast food restaraunts and not delicatessans. I thus have to not only operate as a craftsman rather than as an artist but I as a burger flipper instead of a chef. Pisser, eh?

Different argument, Chris. This one is about losing it!!!

[quote name='WalMan' post='220579' date='Jun 17 2008, 01:52 PM'][*]Nik Kershaw - You've got to laugh[/quote] My mate Julian Bown plays drums on that.... great jazzer. We used to do a residency nr. Bracknell and he played his t*** off. We swang like a swingy thing from swingtown!

Motor skills and muscle memory are one thing but I think what dabootsy is talking about is a right/left brain thing. If you deny your creative impulse, you are eventually left with highly developed motor skills but nothing to do with them but repeat and repeat and repeat.

There is another post called 'Function Band vs Integrity Ramblings' that covers much of this but I agree with you. I justr read this in a book called 'Consdiering Genius' by Stanley Crouch, a leading Black American writer on aesthetics. [i]'Only the catatonic are incapable of feeling, but what separates the artist from others is more than the nature of his or her passion; it is the skill that allows an interior human feeling to move all the way out into the world as an objective artifact, replete with the synthesis of technical mastery and expression that makes for all living, as opposed to academic, art. Taste and opinion are always individual – or should be – and every writer will prefer certain styles, instrumentalists, singers and composers over others. What is essential, however, is integrity, an integrity based upon as clear a perception of the identity of the art as possible'[/i]. I think what you are describing is a very real risk in approaching the art form as a craft rather than as an art. There is, in my mind, an inherent risk in simply [i]rendering[/i] music instead of [i]making[/i] it. The mental process required to [i]create[/i] ideas as opposed to [i]mimic [/i] them is like a muscle you need to exercise. The skill Crouch speaks of is the muscle I am referring to. If you don't exercise it, it weakens. You gradually start to function more as an automaton and gradually lose the capacity to create in real time. Your choice to enter a covers band is entirely defensible but it carries a health warning. Keep your eyes on the prize. To paraphrase Ellis Marsalis, if you play for money or applause, that's all you will ever get. You are perfectly entitled to play in a covers bnad but I believe that you need to make sure you concurrently maintain a creative outlet that allows you to keep your ears and your [i]mind[/i] sharp.

Looks great. Don't you wish there was one place where you could go and try out all these beautiful instruments. I have only ever SEEN one Alembic never mind played one. Same with Fodera.

Me too. Never done it any differently. The Gary Willis technique OTPJ mentions is astonishing and it is hard to argue with its efficacy (his improvised lines are profoundly sophisticated and his technique impeccable) but I have to say that, despite loving some of the early Tribal Tech stuff (Spears particularly), I have grown to loath his fundamental [i]sound[/i] (very processed and 'digital' ). What I don't really know is the relationship between his technique (using a soft touch as I recall) and his tone.

Fretless rools, fretted drools. Welcome.....