Bilbo

Active every time. More control over tone.

It's all about head room, frequency responses and all sorts of technical s**t. If you have a 120 watt amp, it will no doubt sound loud enough but the sounds may be a bit narrow - like the low B won't really project etc. Not much use for an ERB, eh Dood? Whilst you can easily get away with a 50W guitar amp, a 50W bass amp won't really work. 250W is pretty useful in most situations not requiring a full rig but I have personally settled on 350W. Its not about volume but about quality and depth of tone. All notes have overtones as well as fundamental tones. a small amp won't deliver on the lower/higher range overtones and the sound will be (relatively) thin. Having tweeters in amps like SWR Redheads or Eden Meteros is motivated by the same desire to project certain frequencies.

Its the same reason you have eight double basses and only one piccolo in an orchestra - the hign frequences of the piccolo travel better/farther/faster than the bass frequences so you need to have more to be heard.

1 - Personality
2 - Networking/connections
3 - Whether you can actually play or not!

I would add a fourth - a definitive issue! Geography

Where you are has as much to do with your potential playing opportunities as anything else. A great player in London may not gig because there are greater players but, if he is in Reading, he may do better. I used to play a lot of original jazz in Cardiff but there has been no jazz composers anywhere else that I have lived. I also think that this is more of an issue if you are looking to play with people better than you. Like, how much choice have you got if you want a new trombone player? What if you decide you like Argentine music and want to play with a bandoneon - not much chance if you live in Hereford! I guess you can make your own luck by being ready for a chance to play but you can't always make the chances happen I know that sometimes you could move area but often it is not that simple.

There is a large small group version of this by the Mingus Dynasty on an LP called 'Chair In The Sky' - it might help with your arrangement if you can find it. I don't know which Mingus LP has the original on. Can anyone help?

Got my first bass (Hondo II Precision copy) in September 1980, gigging by December, in recording studio March '81, recording session for Radio One in April '82 (Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show).

It's been downhill ever since. The music is better but the profile has never improved on the Radio One thing.

I'm really into Stern at the moment as I am getting into my guitar playing and I am looking at a book of his transcriptions - He is an astonishingly sophisticated player despite his reputation as a closet rocker.

Nice to hear he is so approachable. Kudos to him.

Play some jazz, no-one would notice....

[quote name='cardinaljay' post='99540' date='Dec 5 2007, 01:18 PM']Excellent! I used to play Bass for these guys around 3 years ago or so - Is Michel on Vox and George still on the skins?

I would defo be down for the show, but am in Sheffield that night! Darn it![/quote]

Yep - Michel and George are still on board - you can find us on MySpace including 3 tracks of our cd.

You playing up there?

Great for reading practice too!

Its not fun teaching people who want to learn stuff that is of little or no pertinence in terms of their development as a player - 'teach me to shred' would not indicate an inch of genuine commitment to anything remotely musical and I would run a mile. I could work with 'I want ot play the guitar/bass', 'Teach me the scales Malmsteen uses' or 'Teach me the chords to 'Sweet Child Of Mine'. But 'teach me to shred'? Give me a break!

Absolutely. I think when people said Parker didn't repeat himself they were referring to his not using the same lick in the same place on consecutive choruses. I guess most of these people only heard him live due to the recording ban that was in place at the time and the legend stuck. He certainly used his stock phrases as much as the rest of us (an hour with a copy of the Parker Omnibook and a highlighter pen will prove that!!).

I'm having a bad day cos the BigBeefChief hates jazz!

Perfectly, Chris.

Jaco, like Coltrane, has had a problem in that everything he ever did is now being released in order to cash in on his name. So we get to hear all sorts of dubious recordings that probably should never have seen the light of day. He repeated himself an awful lot and anyone who has, at any point, listened to a lot of Jaco's stuff will confirm that. He had some real strengths as a player but, except for a five year period around 76- 81, he was not as 'inspired' as his press would suggest. He nailed a specific groove and stayed with it instead of growing, his health being the main reason for this.

But when he was on, he was REALLY on. And 'Dry Cleaner' is, for me, one of those moments.

One of the bands I am with is playing this Friday, 7th December, at the Corn Exchange in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Albino Cubana are an nine piece Latin/World Music band with Vocals (x2), guitar/tres, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, trumpet and trombone - very dance orientated but funky as f*** and the horns are a delight. I DARE YOU TO SIT STILL!!! Find us on MySpace....3 tracks off our cd!

Support band (Brazillian singer/guitarist Gione Antony with a guitarist and percussionist) and a Latin/World Music DJ.

Door open 7 p.m., music starts 8.30 p.m. £7 on the door.

Be there or be somewhere else. See if I care.

'they feel the time already'

But what if these geniuses only THINK they 'FEEL' the time? What do they DO about it? All this spooky 'Feel it' 'Sense it' 'Natural time' hippies make me laugh. They don't KNOW but, what's funnier, they don't KNOW that they don't know.

'Never used one, never will' - oooooh! you're SOOOO in touch with your raw instincts!!

Your music must be SOOOOO pure! :wub:

Sibelius is fantastic if you (your family) can afford it.... last price I saw was £287 but I reckon you might get it for less if you shop around. It really is powerful....

I think it was a joke in poor taste rather than romanticising, jakesbass. I guess s/he touched a nerve? Heroin is a nasty drug that makes most people who use it less than human. It has no place in society and those that peddle it are a disgrace, whatever their motivation.

'Writing about music is like dancing about architecture' - Elvis Costello paraphrasing someone else

I agree with most of what you say, Mikey, but do bleieve that the colleges and universities are selling a lie in that they take money off people (including the State) to provide courses that produce a vastly greater number of practitioners than the market can sustain. Theses seats of learning are increasingly becoming businesses, no more and no less, and have a product to sell. I don't think they are any less capable of tapping into people's dreams and exploitating them than diet groups, plastic surgeons or TV 'talent' shows.

I heard somewhere that a couple of years ago, universities and colleges trained 2,000 occupational therapists but the NHS only employed 2. There are 1,000s of musicians, engineers and whatever in college now who will probably never some close to a career in music, anymore than the 100s or archaeologists or fine artists that qualify each year will end up as practitioners in their chosen field. And they will have £10K of student debts for their trouble. I wish it worked differently but I do think that a lot of people could go a long way studying independently.

I reckon moving to a big city and building relationships with existing players is probably as useful an activity as anything. Just practice, practice, practice and hone your skills so that you are ready for that break when it comes.

I'd still go to college if I could, tho'.

'Study music, not musicians' - Lincoln Goines

[quote name='David Nimrod' post='98015' date='Dec 3 2007, 11:32 AM']A tutor was chatting the other day and told me that he sees a steady stream of young teenage boys, who say 'teach me to shred' -[/quote]

Tell them to 'f*** off' and get a life.....

Never tried it but keyboard amps tend to work really well if you ever need to borrow an amp and can't find a bass player to lend you one!

I love the idea of going to college to study jazz on electric bass. I would have loved to do it twenty years ago and I would love to do it now. All that playing, practising and studying all day every day. Brilliant!

Only I can't help but notice that some of the people I have taught/played with who have gone on to do this (Royal College/Leeds etc) are now gigging on the same scenes as me, playing the same venues for the same money and doing no more gigs than I am.

Not sure what the point of it all was? Not sure what point I am making. Not sure whether this thing half way up my arm is my a**e or my elbow.

This problem is about YouTube's search engine. You put in 'bass', what do you know, you get 'bass'. If a video has bass in the title, it is going to be w**ky stuff like Wooten, Manring etc. Most great music is not defined anywhere by its bass part and this is more the case on YouTube and the net than anywhere!

Basschat is probably a better source for finding out about groove players than YouTube could ever be! Its just that you can't actually [i]hear[/i] them here.

Is that a Mk1 Pro? A Custom has two pick-ups and 4 pots?