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Bilbo

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Posts posted by Bilbo

    My Favorite Brazilian funk.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    If I could play 'authentic' Brazilian (or Cuban) music with a full percussion section, I would drop the Jazz like a red hot brick :)  Joao Bosco, Marissa Monte, Dori Caymmi, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Hermeto Pascoal, Airto Moriera, Plora Purim, Roberta Sa....love it.

     

     

     

    Ashamed to Admit

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    When I was a teenager, it became apparent to me that forming a band was impossible because there were never any singers available. I got into instrumental music and Jazz was only a short walk away. Since then, for much of the time, I find lyrics/singers a complete turn off. Even when I book them for my Jazz club, it is with a certain reluctance and simply to keep the punters happy. There are exceptions, many of them, Joni Mitchell being one obvious one but the reason I always loved Jon Anderson's lyrics was precisely because they sounded beautiful but didn't mean a thing (they were part of the music not words to understand). 99% of lyrics are inane bollocks, pseudo philosophy (as a Prog fan, I often wince at the 'meaning of life' content of some lyrics). Even Neil Peart can make me cringe ('as a hawk goes soaring by....') - some great lines but a lot of A level poetry.. I have to admit that the presence of a singer on a recording is often a deal breaker for me. I do have albums with singers of them but I generally prefer it when they don't. 

    Bilbo's Transcription Archive

    in Theory and Technique

    Posted · Edited by Bilbo

    Something that determines which pieces I attempt to transcribe is whether or not I can actually hear the bass part. It is astonishing really how often it is impossible to find a note or phrase simply because it is so low in the mix or masked by other details. I guess it shows how irrelevant a graphite nut is in terms of tone production. If you can't even hear a note, how can you hear the nuances of bass tone?

    • Like 3

    Bilbo's Transcription Archive

    in Theory and Technique

    Posted · Edited by Bilbo

    A request from Talkbass, this is the Alphonso Johnson's bass part from the tune 'Black Market' from the 1976 Weather Report album of the same name. I am not entirely satisfied with the transcription as there is a clash in the mix between Johnson's bass and Joe Zawinul's synth part. Johnson's bass is busier and more creative but it is sometimes rendered inaudible by what is going on around it. Not a complete transcription but a lot of it is there and you certainly get a sense that Johnson was the equal of his successor, something that I have thought since first hearing these albums at the time.

     

    https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/black-market-weather-report/

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 2

    Busy playing vs self confidence

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I think there is something about context here, as others have already acknowledged. Being a busy player only matters when the player is allowed to improvise some or all of the parts required. If you were playing a Bach Cello Suite, there is no room for extra notes. If you are playing in a totally free setting, you have infinite options. In reality, most music is somewhere between these extremes. 

     

    During most musical performances that require a degree of improvised playing (i.e. where a bass player is not playing a fully composed part), the musicians are engaged in some form of dialogue, with an element of call and response between the parties involved. The number of notes played is completely immaterial. It is the context that matters. Are the notes, be it 1 or 1000, congruent and logical. Do they fit? If they do, it won't sound 'busy'. If they don't, it will. Of course, objective taste does come into it but, broadly speaking, the question is why is it busy and does it work in the context of the performance. 

    • Like 2

    Bilbo's Transcription Archive

    in Theory and Technique

    Posted

    Another one from a wasted childhood, this is the complete bass part for the first side of the Rush 'Hemispheres' album; 'Cygnus X-I: Book Two - Hemispheres'. Thanks to 'Transcribe' software and a YouTube 'isolated bass' video, I have got the bulk of it. There are a couple of passages that I am not entirely satisfied with but this will certainly get  you where you want to be in terms of playing the damn thing. A real eye-opener, the transcription really gives you a sense of how strong a player Lee was at that time and how the tunes are put together by Canada's finest.

     

    https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/cygnus-xi-book-ii-hemispheres-rush/

    • Like 1
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