spencer.b

I've done few shows over the years and I'd agree with Doddy that the musicians were great and the challenge of reading and following the MD is great but I did get a bit bored after a few weeks . Being a dep is great for me but I don't know if I'd take a show full time. I know a few west end guys that have done it for years and are far more interested in moaning about money and getting to the pub than playing music, but then again it's one of the few well paid jobs for a musician

I'm sure he's not suggesting that the bass shouldn't play quarter notes, when he plays his left hand plays very few syncopations there's some interesting stuff in there that us bassplayers can take from as our internal feel of the 8th note must effect our quarter note placement For me ornamentation can swing too, how about Ray Brown on Night Train with fills my rule has always been don't play across the ostinato of the song in the case of most jazz this being 2 and 4 bilbo I know what you mean about Paul Chambers though and I've heard a lot of bass players who's time falters when they play fills but maybe thats because the quarter note placement is less acurate rather than the ornamentation itself not swingin maybe it's also about the dynamics of the syncopation in relation to the quarters i play with quite few drummers who i think comp way to loud compared to their ride and hats and I don't get enough 2 and 4 just loads of syncopation breaking up the groove

my EVR cost a bloody fortune but it's far and away the best one I've had, mine's done 2 years of hard labour and isn't showing any signs of wear, really soft inside too,the one I had before ended up tearing up the edges of my bass a bit

not sure that slap has lost it's way, I don't really do it myself but I hear some great slap on modern gospel, RnB funk etc. I think solo bass show off nonsense is giving it a bad name.

fair play mate thats dedication, I know what the buses are like round here too I'm in stokey

it's a nightmare isn't it, I'm looking for a new bass at the moment and I know what you mean about the good ones not being for sale. There's a guy in essex called Martyn Bailey who makes basses and he imports Jay Haide basses from china and I was very impressed with those, think thy're about £5500, Maybe checkout upton basses, I was really impressed with the one bassace was selling and the hybrid one on youtube sounds great some people i speak to are of the opinion that at the moment you can get more value with a modern instrument particulaly one made where labour is cheap ie. Hungary or china but I'm not sure where i stand on this as I'm currently very tempted by a relatively inexpensive old german flatback all the best with the search

I've found the best way of networking is getting out there gigging even if it's not with your dream band. I play for a living so TBH I end up doing some pretty dodgy gigs for the money but the longer I do it the more great gigs with musicians I really respect seem to come in.

I'd agree that there aren't many pub covers gigs london, I used to do the swan in stockwell and the redback in acton from time to time but most of my well paid wedding and corporate work is in london. I certainley couldn't do most of my gigs without a car, admitedley a lot my work is on upright though

I was gigging last night with a function band that mainly does rat pack type stuff with 5 horns and rhythm section, the last set however is pop/disco/motown stuff so I'll switch to eb. Last night during the last set someone requested mack the knife so I played it on eb and obviously the timbre doesn't sit so well but for me it didn't sit so well time wise. There seems to be something about the right hand that lends itself to walking bass. the ub players that I think really swing tend to be guys that really whack the strings It's very hard to define swing , when you hear Ray Brown playing crotchets on his own they are presumably metronomic in the sense the notes are placed in the same place in relation to each beat but not metronomic in that they are ahead of the perceived beat. Can a bass player playing on his own play ahead of the beat when there is no time stated by anyone else, I'm inclined to think they can but I'm becoming increasingly confused the more I think about this

I've had engineers be a bit sus about flatwounds for before gigs, I wonder if it's cos engineers wanna be able to add top or bottom and with flatwounds they might think they won't be able to add a bit of top to help you cut through,

I saw Julian Lage at the vortex in London a few months back, absolutely mind blowing, lovely bloke too nice to hear a guitar player not just doing the post bop rosenwinkel thing as much as I love that too

In play a 66 p bass for all my electric gigs and it's hard as nails , just make sure you've got a hard case and insurance and away you go. It breaks my heart that most of the really nice pre CBS fenders sit it a collection never getting played. As for worrying about it getting damaged try taking a 5 grand upright out 3 times a week

Hi mate check out some steve swallow his real book album is good and it's got the charts in the liner notes. Jeff Andrews plays some great rythmn changes lines on suspone on Brecker Brothers don't try this at home

I feel your pain mate , to be honest my advice would be get used to it. I've done tons of big outdoor stages on upright and if the rest of the band have a lot of volume in their wedges you're gonna struggle. I did a string of european festivals last summer playing both basses and on electric it was easy, just crank up the SVT and away you go, on upright however most gigs I ended up putting my ear plugs in accepting that I couldn't really hear it.You could try a really horrible nasal middley honky tone with no bottom in it so you can at least hear the pitch. There's no easy answer it's an acoustic instrument after all. The only time if had a good sound on a big outdoor stage was a jazz festival with my DPA 4099 and a tiny bit of realist mixed in for a bit of reinforcement but that only really worked cos the stage levels were pretty low and at festivals with just a quick line check if your lucky that ain't gonna happen. So I'd say don't get to hung up on it, festivals sound sh*t but try and get into the music anyway don't let it ruin your gig

Hiya yeah that sounds like a bit of a stitch up, have a look at hencilla which is the one you get free with MU membership there terms look pretty common sense and a mate of mine made a claim for a double bass that got smashed and they payed out

just watched again he's not miming

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1330016791' post='1551530'] This is what I'm talking about. Every note is important, every note should have a reason and contribute to the whole. Every note or phrase you play should be felt and articulated. Good technique and confidence is what really helps here, along with knowing WHY you are playing that note or phrase. Can you sit and play one note repeating at one tempo and get deep inside them? If you do that for a while, you'll notice that same note is different every time, you can control those differences, and if you know why you are playing a note and what you want it to do, you can express something much more fluid and communicative. [/quote] I couldn't agree more Alex James could learn a lot from this cos his time feel is awful

Robert Hurst from the early Wynton albums was with Diana Krall.

what's with all this good old days stuff, when I was getting into music as a teenager all that was really available to me was a really limited selection of overpriced albums at the local our price. Now I can get near enough any album for 5 to 10 quid, it's brilliant.

Amazing , Slam's got it all, huge resonant tone, great harmony swingin time. Have you heard that rhythm changes duet with Don Byas ,1945 and so hip

Dave Peacock Duck Dunn Macca Colin Hodgkinson Bobby Vega

Hi I did a 3 year degree at basstech which to be honest wasn't a great course mainly because the standard of the majority of players was pretty poor and the most of the tutors approach was more about technique rather than harmony theory reading etc.There was about 20 bass players in my year and the classes were fretboard skills, sight reading,live performance workshop and aural . Even though I didn't get much from the classes it gave me the opportunity to move to london and more importantly play practice gig and become totally immersed in music. After graduating I had got into jazz and playing upright so I did the masters course at Guildhall which was fantastic, really high standard ,great tutors. I was relatively new to jazz at that point so to be in at the deep end was exactly what I needed Since then I've made a living from playing bass doing all sorts of music including jazz , big band, touring with a rock band, weddings, functions,sessions for TV and ads etc. Virtually all my contacts in some way trace back to the courses I did so I would definately recommend it if your serious about it Based on my experience I'm a bit sceptical of the whole rockschool approach as I found my sound like most people from listening to and transcribing my favourite players and I felt the course was trying to take me down a stylisticaly specific route. I personally got more from the more formal music college approach hope thats of some help mate

yes mate great shout, I transribed the head of shake n blake from the big band record the other day, like most Mc Bride harder than it sounds and what's with Db ,sadist.

My advice would be go for it but be prepared for hard work, I got an upright 10 years ago after a few years on fretless . physically its really different but musically it's very similar. I'd say try and learn the classical left hand technique at least to start with ie. fingers 1 2 and 4 for semitones. The simandl method is a very good book that nearly all classical players start with. get stuck in mate