funkysimon

I used to rehearse at the Warehouse - it's a shame it's gone, that place was fantastic! No facilities to speak of beyond a crappy little kitchen, but huge space with a really good live sound. The Lock Up is still going apparently, though I haven't been there for a couple of years. And I did wonder if my car would still be there at the end of the rehearsal... Currently I'm hearing recommendations for Mulletboy's new rehearsal space: [url="http://www.mulletboyproductions.com/"]http://www.mulletboyproductions.com/[/url] Not tried it myself, though.

I bought a bass from kneal6 (a very nice Warwick Fortress one, in case you're wondering). Transaction went smoothly, no hassles at all, and the bass arrived safely and incredibly well packaged. All good! I'd definitely say you can buy from him in safety. Cheers, Si

Also some basic practice can be had with Miles Davis' Kind of Blue album, e.g. So What: it's just two chords, so you can practice your timing, and a nice little intro riff that you can impress your non-jazz friends with

Thanks Peaty! We're now starting to think that actually we can't get away without monitors at gigs, the singer seems to have been... errr, a bit a [i]creative[/i] with her note choices

I'd also suggest listening to loads of latin and salsa music; whatever you listen to lots of seems to bleed into things you play (hence an unfortunate habit I have of adding inappropriate reggae basslines), so get yourself some Tito Puente or some ray barretto ... and I heartily recommend growing a 'tasche like the bassist in that video. It won't help your latin-styles, but DAMN! How can you you go wrong with facial hair like that?

If you like this kind of thing, Jon Gomm's stuff is also work checking out, e.g. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilwA2EwRmbc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilwA2EwRmbc[/url]

My band [url="http://www.acuphuncture.com"]Acuphuncture[/url] played a gig last night; here's a few mp3s (single SM57 into a minidisc player, so low quality) you can grab: [url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kyla.thompson/acu/"]http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kyla.thompson/acu/[/url] Check out the bass solo on the tune "Brazilian Wax" (yeah, I play guitar in this band... err, sorry )

My band Acuphuncture are playing in a bar called [url="http://www.laraza.co.uk/"]La Raza[/url] in Cambridge on 11th July. We're playing from 10pm until 1am. Come on down and get your funk on! More details here: [url="http://www.acuphuncture.com"]Acuphuncture[/url] main website, or our [url="http://www.myspace.com/acuphuncture"]myspace page[/url]. Any other basschatterers think they can make it?

[quote name='mhuk' post='20789' date='Jun 20 2007, 02:45 PM']At the moment I'd like to play a few tunes or riffs that feel musical. For example, Rapper's Delight and Deeper Underground are both enjoyable to play but are also probably beyond me (to give an indication of performance); sometimes they sound/ feel good to play, other times just a bunch of notes played sequentially.[/quote] I find that this can come from timing; if you get the timing right, you can play nearly anything and it will sound like it's grooving. Something that helped me a lot is tapping the rhythm out, particularly if I'm reading a piece that's written out in standard notation. Start simply by tapping a hand on each beat along with some music that you're listening to: [font="Courier New"]1 2 3 4 R R R R[/font] Then add the "ands" on the other hand [font="Courier New"] 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & R L R L R L R L [/font] That's a quaver rhythm you're tapping. Try and get that working on just one hand rather than two, because the final stage is to go to semi-quavers and tap this rhythm: [font="Courier New"] 1.&.2.&.3.&.4.&. RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL[/font] Now think about the bassline to the tune you're listening to while you're tapping along; you might be able to spot the notes that aren't on the beat but rather turn up off the beat, e.g. in rapper's delight/ good times the bass part's rhythm goes like [font="Courier New"] 1.&.2.&.3.&.4.&.1.&.2.&.3.&.4.&. E...E...E......xx.x.x.x.x.x.x.xA [/font] (xs represent other notes that I'm not writing out for clarity) i.e. it switches to the A chord just ahead of the beat. If you try accenting the rhythm as you tap it out, you'll find that it's the left hand holds all the funky syncopated stuff (or at least it does as I've written it, you might be tapping the other way if you're left handed). (Of course after a few months of working through tunes like this, I now can't do triplets!) I think that things sounding musical is somewhere between playing the right notes and playing at the right time. Practice slowly and accurately, then build up the speed. If it's rushed or hurried, slow it down and get your timings right. I hope that's useful! Or at least not boring

I'd try and get Acuphuncture to play it; ok, I'm the guitarist in that band, but the bassist is so much better than I am it's rude, so I'm sure you'd all get a kick out of it. And we need gigs.

+1 for Grolsch! [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1673&view=findpost&p=19730"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...ost&p=19730[/url] Though if you're a connosoo... connosew... beer snob, you could always buy a couple of nice bottles of belgian beer instead, some of them have the right stoppers. Or give the Grolsch to a lager-swilling friend.

A cheap 'n' cheerful no-brand black webbing strap with Grolsch straplocks. (As in, the rubber washers that seal bottles of Grolsch; take them off and use them to hold the strap on your bass. As a bonus you get TWO FREE BOTTLES OF BEER WITH EVERY PAIR! Best bit of guitar kit I ever purchased.)

I don't mind the swearing filter - if it means people can keep reading the site while at work i'm all for it (UK productivity levels be damned!) just to keep the place interesting. Some people might not give a flying... errr... two hoots about their job and prefer to muck about online instead. Plus I remember when b3ta.com brought in a swearing filter. They replaced swear words with fruit. It was cranberrying hilarious. And after some initial "You shouldn't censor me!" complaints everyone quickly got on with life, and even incorporated the replacements into the community "folk-lore".

[quote name='martthebass' post='15924' date='Jun 11 2007, 10:02 PM']Is this weirdness only happening to my machine or has prima been converted into 'licking a posterior opening' I'm afraid...........very afraid[/quote] errr... it's changing "[Sonny Jim]" for licking a posterior opening. I guess there's some sort of dumb-[Myleen Klass] censorship plugin getting a bit overzealous. S[flower of power]horpe! Heh, I thought that might happen. I was referring to the town in Lincolnshire that's the scourge of email filters: [url="http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.577117,-0.64476&spn=0.063294,0.170631&z=13&om=1"]http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...p;z=13&om=1[/url]

Damn, here's another: Interpol, and the bassist is Carlos Dengler: [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Dengler"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Dengler[/url] Who has a mighty fine tone and good style. There was me thinking that all the rock bass tones that I like are played on Rickenbackers, Carlos plays a Fender Jazz.

[quote name='RichardH' post='15486' date='Jun 11 2007, 11:03 AM']Yes, I've seen that self same thing happen - there's one jam night I've been to where it's become more of a chance for some bands to get up and do a couple of songs. I've since been to another one (very blues oriented) that is a lot more what one might hope a jam session is about. It's obvious there are a lot of regulars there, but they do mix it around. I went along without bass to see what it was like, and wished I'd taken the bass - there was a cricket match and a big fottball game on, so there weren't many people there - an ideal opportunity to step up for the first time.[/quote] Yeah, that happened at a jam I went to a couple of weeks ago. It was good in that the people who were up who weren't part of the band got an instant structure that they could plug into, but then it's not really seat-of-the-pants stuff... maybe I'm just bitching coz I'd just left the stage after playing something which meandered around without doing anything interesting.

I play in a couple of similar ish bands, both on a funky/jazzy kind of thing (though one's cheesy and one's serious), and I listen to a lot of that kind of thing. However I also listen to loads of indie rock, reggae, electronica, so there's plenty of my musical bases not being covered by my current bands. A friend joins bands playing styles that he rarely listens to in an attempt to broaden his musical horizons, so does everything from ceilidh bands to latin jazz. But then he's semi-professional, so does little else apart from play, I haven't got the time for that level of commitment.

I'm with those who've already said take the job but limit those hours if you can. Once you finish education you'll be stuck in a job for the rest of your life (well, with a bit of luck!), so there's no need to sign yourself down for more time at the grindstone than you really have to. On the flip side, having no money is sh*t, so a bit of work is always good. Spend time learning to play better with what you've already got so you feel confidence in your skills, or do the job then go out and buy a flash new bass that will encourage you to play loads and make you look forward to playing, but at the expense of losing practice time due to the job... I don't think there's an answer to that quandry.

I'm starting to this we under-charge! We go for 600-800 quid per gig, we've been going since '99, though with various line up changes (singer has been a constant since then though, as have a couple of other people). We're a nice piece band playing a similar kind of setlist (see Casa del Funk link in my sig below if you're interested). I always think that's a fair price though, because we don't take random requests from the audience. We play our setlist and we play it well, but if someone asks for something outside what we've rehearsed, we can't do it. That said, most requests are for wholly inappropriate songs; someone recently criticised us for being lame because we didn't play any Beatles.

Mark Ronson's album Version; think it's Zender doing bass on a lot of that. Arcade Fire, Funeral; no idea who the bassist is, but this is a brilliant album.

G'wan, what's to hate in a guitarist? Cheers, Si (who plays both sorts of guitar, bass and -err- not-bass.)

If you're in Cambridge and are interested in more lessons, you might want to look up [url="http://www.tcbass.com/"]Tiago Coimbra[/url]; he's: a. A good bloke b. A fantastic bassist While he certainly knows his stuff theory-wise, I'd be surprised if he was too heavy on teaching that side of things. (I play in a band with him, hence the recommendation.) Cheers, Si

I haven't heard much of their stuff, but an early album ([url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Roll"]Moroccan Roll[/url]) of theirs does have two of my favourite song names: 2. "Why Should I Lend You Mine (When You've Broken Yours off Already)" 3. "...Maybe I'll Lend You Mine After All"

Other: Yamaha.