BassTractor

@miles'tone, how about if you test a few works and report back here? Seeing the vastness of eight centuries of music, it might be an idea to narrow it down, and I'd guess we could manage to adapt our advice to what you happen to like. In the mean time, I'd like to draw your attention to, and possibly to hear your comments on, stuff like: - Stravinsky: Firebird Suite and/or The Rite of Spring. Part of the Firebird has been used by Yes as intro music to their gigs, so may be known, - the Bartok mentioned earlier. Bartok had an immense impact on Keith Emerson, - Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, - Satie: Gymnopédies or similar piano music, as played by Aldo Ciccolini or Reinbert de Leeuw (very, very different). If you do like Zappa's later work like Civilisation Phase 3 (yes, I've translated it for you ☺️ ), then please tell, and I'll try and find 20th century music that might fit.

Nice call. That pedal part should also interest bass players. Me, I stupidly played it with two feet. Very hard work. (This was before I saw the wisdom in opting for a 34'' scale thingie in a bass case rather than carrying around an organ with 32ft. pipes.)

@miles'tone, do you happen to know Dalbello's song "Black on Black"? It starts with a looped phrase from Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere mei, Deus", a wonderfully beautiful late Renaissance / early Baroque piece. (To me this is late Renaissance music, but I'm aware modern scholars have better opinions.) Here's a hastily found version I haven't compared to other versions, but it sounds alright at first impression:

I hold life too dearly to click on that link.

Wow! That sounds like an experience with a big impact. I'd love to have been there. I've not heard the piece live at all, but now feel compelled to tell you about the first time I heard about it - and about Sorabji at all. Around 1980 I was drinking coffee with the guys at the college of music when Geoffrey Douglas Madge (whom I vaguely knew) entered the room and yelled: "Guys! I just got permission to play OC!" I guess I was somewhat happy for him, but was mainly stumped. Many hours of explanation, reading and listening later, I started a quest to get hold of as much Sorabji as I could, but it was nearly impossible back then. In the mean time, Madge performed it live in Utrecht and that performance was sent live on the radio and was released on vinyl. That performance, to my mind, was much better than his later recording of it. I've never found the LPs and must just feel lucky I got hold of the Ogdon version after some time. Wow, I think we're on a roll here, providing @miles'tone with exactly the information he craves ... 😁

Whoah! This is only the second time someone has mentioned that work on BassChat (hence why I felt the need to comment). You know, with Zappa as his reference frame, I'd not even be surprised if @miles'tone could like that, even though normally it's not to be expected - my point being: you don't need to understand or analyse in order to enjoy. BTW, I must've played that piece hundreds of times by now - only in my own tempo and with the notes in my own order ... 😐

Yeah, and I hope that that indeed is the background for my mistake. Other, less agreeable, explanations may exist.

Yeah, sorry about that. I've corrected my post.

With Zappa as your reference frame, I'd say: keep to the biggies first, and take it from there. Bach has been mentioned already, and forgetting the play-along bit, some names I'd add could be, starting with older music so as to hear music developing: Palestrina and Monteverdi for yer renaissance and early baroque. Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli Monteverdi: Orfeo, Scherzi musicali (with that glorious song "Non cosi tosto" a.o.) Bach: what has been mentioned already plus say the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, Christmas Oratorio and the Brandenburg Concertos. Also give "Bist du bei mir" a listen. It was traditionally, wrongly, attributed to Bach (but he simply couldn't have written it) and is absolutely gorgeous despite its awkwardness. If you play Haydn (say Die Schöpfung (The Creation), piano sonatas and a symphony like no 104) and Händel (operas like 'Julius Caesar' and 'Oreste' and oratoria like The Messiah for example), then do absolutely not forget Henry Purcell - a great composer. My brain refuses to remember pieces right now, but he's up there with the very best. Mozart: late works like his Requiem (which turns away from the perceived lightness of many an early work, and reflects Mozart's understanding of and love for Bach). I'd do the "light" stuff later. That's all for now. Brain is closing down, so best hit the Submit button. Enjoy! Edit: rectified a few wrong entries.

That's good. I think it wasn't 5 minutes for nothing.

Hahaha, so recognisable! Prod to be on your site, and BTW, in Norway, to this day we have "brodder": spiky things mounted onto shoes and used when walking on ice.

Happily it's not psychology. It's maths! (bassamount + 0) / (guitaramount + 1) < (bassamount + 0) / (guitaramount + 0) You have found how to downsize through sheer ratio. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I fear it was the other way round. Recently, the mayor's name has finally been revealed .... as being Ian Fraser ... 😉

Yes, I can. There's an empathetic resonance in my brain. ☺️

If Paul McCartney was me, he'd definitely release it as his new album. ☺️ Great title as well.

Demn! Ordered one from the previous run, which never turned up, and now of course I'm skint. That sound! That sound! Which sound? THAT sound.

This is what I did twice in similar circumstances as @Mickeyboro describes, so it sounds like good advice to me.

Not all the time, but sometimes indeed. Happily though, they never need to listen to "my" music as I'll normally be happy to listen to theirs. From the early innerwebz I remember the Gentle Giant mailing list, and virtually each new list member wrote a first post along the lines of "I thought I was totally alone but then found the GG website and this mailing list ... I am soooo happy right now!".

You must have the Modulus Quantum then. I play the Westone Quantum, and all the notes are right and wrong at the same time when someone listens to them. The audience is wrong though; the notes are right ...

I think it could actually work if we all just take everyone else out of our ignore lists 😁 (and we could, as you and some others did, post our own number as well as the new total).

Yeah, but a mistake once in a while won't mean much at the end of the thread. Or so we hope. ☺️ BTW, @KiOgonhas since rectified the little mistake, and as I said: my own post sadly is correct in that I've got zero basses right now (down from 15) so @Franticsmurf's number remained being the case

48 Edit: this post sadly is correct.

Maybe tangentially, but King Crimson, during their Double Trio period, had one guy on Stick and one on Warr guitar. Those do go lo'.

First of all, you don't wanna buy the dud someone is trying to get rid of, whether they're a shop or a private person, so if you can, then get someone to accompany you. Maybe someone from BC would be willing to, but you'd have to tell about your whereabouts. If you can't get help, then I'd say that amongst many other basses for example a Yamaha TRB, RBX or TRBX should be a safe bet. Squier are a lovely brand, but in their cheapest ranges, one can find not-that-good ones. I'd prefer a cheap Ibanez over those, but a Yamaha over the Ibanez (in the cheapest ranges, that is). As practice combos go, I've had experience with a cheap Beta Aivin outperforming a more expensive Roland. IMHO, @Dad3353's advice is good too. I'm a lefty myself, and I can't even play a lefty bass. Yes, in that aspect, a lefty bass is just as awful as a righty bass. 😀 Good luck!

Yeah, I understand and respect that there's "an element of". My original response was to someone else's post, one I felt made a more b&w statement, and I did say I was slightly playing the devil's advocate. IME you're right about the non-linearity. In our firm we chose to cater for many of them, but of course it comes at a cost: reduced revenue. For some firms this is ruining, and they're well-advised to be very mindful. Again, lest we lose focus, BD do have "a problem". Maybe they're unaware, maybe they wish to change it, and maybe they live well with it.