iBudd

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1411944176' post='2564265'] A Warwick Star Bass is still available, double cutaway and 32" scale as a 4 string. Visit the Warwick Lounge for more photos or look to the left of this post....(actually mine's a 5) [/quote] Not quite what I had in mind, but nice. Interesting that they should use the same name for two quite differnet basses.

I've been looking at picking up a short scale semi-hollow for more '60s sounding stuff recently. Just stumbled on the Framus Vintage Star Bass 5/150 2012 reissue but information seems pretty scant on them. I'm guessing they came and went and I missed them. Anybody pick one up? What are they like? Any left anywhere?? They're still on the Warwick website: [url="http://www.warwick.de/en/Framus---Products--Guitars-and-Amps--Instruments--Made-in-China--Vintage-Serie--5-slash-150-Star-Bass--4-string--Pictures.html"]http://www.warwick.d...--Pictures.html[/url]

I thought this deserved an update. I've had two sessions with said student since this exchange, and I think we've boiled down the problems with the Rockschool Rhythmic Recall rhythms into two ideas: Firstly they're just not musical. If I clap or play a more musical two bar rhythm, he has no trouble at all recalling it. Secondly, the examples are really slow. They're quarter and eighth notes played at 80bpm and if you speed them up - even double them - they feel more like an actual phrase and become easier to recall. The trouble is we're stuck with the material as it is, at the tempo it is! All the mnemonic, fruity stuff was bit hit and miss... I think the only solution is probably practice. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1408491608' post='2530792'] Could I then repeat the question..? How do you know it's a second bar..? What happens if you rub out the bar line between, and treat as one (longer...) bar..? I presume (I may be completely wrong here...) that we're talking bars of 4/4..? If so, how do you get on with 2 bars of 2/4..? Just as problematic, or not..? Genuinely curious, and trying to understand... [/quote] I can't speak for Bob of course, but with my student, he'd find a single bar at 60 bpm with a variety of semiquaver rhythms just as hard as two bars at 120 bpm with quaver rhythms. It's the length of the phrase that's the problem - by the time he's listening to the second half it's overwriting the first half in his memory. But I think I'm going to try Bilbo's fruit mnemonic and see how far that gets us, there must be a liguistic way of recalling a longer phrase. I'll post back my findings.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1408454469' post='2530302'] How does he know if it's one bar or two..? Try just one bar, but make it slightly longer each time (2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 etc...). If it's the whole phrase he's to 'get', turn it into a sentence (could be nonsense, could be a line from a poem or similar...), so that it can be 'spoken'. One can learn some quite long phrases with that. This is how children 'learn' nursery rhymes ('Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May...'). Hope this helps. [/quote] Thank you Douglas, I think the linguistic approach is a good one.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1408445563' post='2530146'] I am not a teacher but I hear some use language as a means of focussing the mind of the student. For example: 2 beats is Apple, 3 is Banana, 4 pomegranate and so on. COuld this be varied to meet his needs? [/quote] That's not a bad idea. Perhaps creating some sort of phrase around the rhythm could work. Thanks Bilbo.

Hi all, I hope someone can offer some advice. I'm currently teachng some private classes and I have a student who is working towards Rockschool grades. In almost all regards he's more than ready to tackle debut, 1, and even 2, but he's struggling with the Rhythmic Recall part of Ear Tests. What happens is, he listens well, can identify which 2 bar passage he's just heard, but when it comes to playing it back, before he's seen it written, he gets stuck. The first bar lodges in his memory, but the second one won't go in. He can do a one-bar phrase no problem at all. I wonder if anyone has any techniques for helping students extend their memory in away that would help him recall both bars? I've tried getting him to 'sketch' it as he hears it in sort of shorthand in the hope that that will develop the ability to mentally sketch it out, and my instincts are to keep working with 1 bar and try and ramp it up. But it seems like when we do the jump to 2 bars it falls apart. I'm a bit stumped. Thanks!

And his memorial thread is killing this one. Nobody know the... er, real answer?

Can anyone help me identify the bassist in this 1975 Soul Train clip? I know Leroy Hodges played on the recording, and I did read somewhere that Billy Cox was part of Al Green's touring band in the '70s - but it doesn't look like either of them. Does anybody know? You do only get a few glimpses of him, but I hope you'll be enjoying the clip anyway! [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYooJOWH_60[/media]

I love the look of the Flyte basses—the space age dragged into the glam era. Super seventies! EDIT—and based, accoring to Tony Bacon, on the look of Concorde. Which I can sort of see.

That one looks good too, thanks. My interest in Burns basses comes about because I interviewed Dave Richmond for Bass Guitar Mag last year and since then part of my brain seems to be on the lookout for Bisons!

Thanks for the tip, I hadn't heard of the book.

Good eyes everyone! So that's interesting, it seems like it IS an American instrument after all. I guess there's a story there then since it was definitely filmed at Pinewood. There was a good angle on the scroll headstock in the movie. it didn't look fundamentally different from a standard 60s Burns one, but it was out of the corner of my eye... I should try and find or make some other caps... What went wrong with the polyester finish? Did it somehow go manky in transit?

There I was channel-hopping yesterday when I stumbled across super-dated Bond movie [i]Live and Let Die[/i]. Having only watched it several hundred times already I thought "why not?", when suddenly I spotted something I hadn't seen before. At the 'Filet of Soul' restaurant in New Orleans, a band are playing before BJ Arnau comes on and does her thing, and the bassist is playing the coolest white Burns Bison. These were quite popular in sixties Britain but they're a bit out of place in the US... then I realised it's only a movie and I'm sure all the interiors were filmed at Pinewood with locally-sourced props etc. Here's the only cap I could find online (from screenmusings.org). Cool huh?

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1392123206' post='2364935'] As far as I recall that Traffic line up was the Muscle Shoals guys. He'd been playing with them for most of the previous 10 years. [/quote] Just David Hood and drummer Roger Hawkins from Muscle Shoals. But they're obviously tight!

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1392121105' post='2364878'] It's this sort of playing that puts that "plodding bass lines" thread to bed imho. [/quote] Agreed! Although Traffic were always pushing the envolope genre-wise. Lots of jazz and soul in there. Lovely stuff to get your teeth into as a bassist.

Just spent a highly enjoyable hour watching Traffic Live at Santa Monica 72. The whole thing is on YouTube [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocjSc7v83pk[/media] David Hood's playing here is just great—he slots so seamlessley into the Traffic lineup (they never really had a permanent bassist), never calls attention to himself, just holds it down. Brilliant. But what on earth is that Jazz he's playing? Shot including headstock at 00:15:00 Right hand closeup at about 00:38:07 - really can't tell if those are concentric pots... neck pickup cover in bridge pickup cover spot! (good idea actually 'cause then you can change strings) but he's not using it as a thumbrest so why keep it? it wouldn't have muting foam underneath... weird single-ply black pickguard (with removied upper thumberst holes) and odd finish. That all sounds a bit geeky but I'm really interested. Anyone got any ideas? Hood apprently had a '61 jazz that got stolen during the Traffic era. If this is it it had some serious cosmetic mods! Anyway he's brilliant, and Traffic are brilliant.

Just got mine, thanks walbassist! They're like a perfect mix of plastic and felt picks. I bet they'll become a top choice for recording!

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1355045209' post='1893198'] Holy crap! Good luck with that. [/quote] Thanks dude, it's not quite as bad as it sounds - landlord suddenly needs to sell house and so we gotta go. There just might have to be a short stay with the [s]outlaws[/s] inlaws while we get ourselves sorted. It could be a lot worse but it's still a pain.

Hell's teeth I nearly missed this - haven't been checking this thread because I've been dealing with the surprise that I'm about to be evicted which is as lovely as it sounds. Please put me down for the last 2. I may be almost homeless, but I'm going to play bass! And well done walbassist for struggling more manfully with the site than I did!

I think I might have to give it a go KingB.

It was trying to charge me the Euro amount in Pounds and wouldn't take no for an answer. Then my order was kid of stuck half way between done and not done and I couldn't get into it to change it either way so I gave up - it didn't seem worth it just to buy some picks. Sorry to anyone who was looking forward to getting them. Also it looks like you can pay in Pounds, but you can't, just Euros, which will add to the cost. Folks might balk at a fiver for two picks... But I think we might be doing it wrong ordering these in bulk... they only seem to be €1.50 here and here http://www.hieber-lindberg.de/Pickboy-SPIELBLAeTTCHEN-FILZ-253859.html http://www.emma-music.com/boutique/fiche_produit.cfm?ref=GEW-525420&type=75&code_lg=lg_fr&num=111 but neither my French nor my German is good enough to order from there. We really need a Euro connection to sort us out.

Hi all - afraid Im giving up on the picks order - I finally got emailed back from them but I still couldn't put the order through and I'm not sure they totally understood what was going wrong with the order anyway so I've given up and cancelled it. Sorry! If I find another source for these I'll let you all know. But that's some great advice about making our own, I might well get experimenting.

Aargh I'm having a world of problems with the German storefont for the shop! Will keep you all posted, but this might end up being more trouble than it's worth...

Yeah that makes six so let's go for it! I'll order up a box and PM everybody when they're here. Delivery about a week I think... Cost will be at cost plus the price of a stamp! Laters!