JakeBrownBass

There's a fair old difference in proper practice & playing along to songs on youtube. I try and split my time equally between bass & keyboards at the moment. A lot of people can't get an hour of solid time for practice and i picked up a great technique from a drummer i saw at a masterclass. If you split a circle into segments, you give each section a specific thing to practice be it sight reading, scales & arpeggios, transcribing etc.... You then choose the amount of time the circle represents, say 1 or 2 hours. Meaning each section is worth a certain amount of time, so 4 equal sections would be 15 minutes each for an hour circle. You'd then set a 15 minute timer and get on with one of the segments and as soon as the 15 minutes is up, you stop, even if you haven't finished the exercise and move on to the next. [attachment=108753:Screen Shot 2012-05-26 at 00.29.36.png] Every time you complete an exercise you mark off a segment with a simple line. The beauty of this method means at the end of a week, you can physically see what you've practiced, what you haven't done enough of & how much time you've spent doing it. For example after a day, [attachment=108754:Screen Shot 2012-05-26 at 00.30.18.png] This regime allows proper practice even for busy people. It allows you fit in an hour or 2 in a day without realising it. If you can sit-down and do this concentrated work you will see your playing come on so far without noticing and is much more productive than sitting and noodling along to youtube. Of course if you have songs to learn you can use a similar method to structure the work across the time you have. The biggest rule in this is to stick to the timings and do concentrated practice and not get distracted. Obviously it's easier to draw with pen & paper and just pin it next to you desk, allowing you to set your own practice patterns. Its really great to see what you are doing and what your slumping on.

If your on a mac. iRealB allows to download them from their forums or make your own. Then play back on your Mac, iPhone, iPad etc.. Other than that, i'd use youtube and search for them.

Picture from the tour in Ireland last weekend.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1337815335' post='1666062'] Really? Are you being serious? [/quote] Think i have to agree with you, having just watched it.

Musical curiosity - 99% Social Creativity - 100% Emotional Connection - 100% Musical Perception - 100% Enthusiasm for music - 99% Not entirely sure what it means or how accurate it is.

Is this the same guy who said Stuart Hamm couldn't keep time?

I can't say much about the bag in question but i got a double Mono m80 2 weeks ago and have been using it everyday for the past two weeks. The case itself is extremely light so if your carrying it on your back, its the weight of the basses that makes the difference.

Forget the bass playing, that drummers left hand on the hi-hat is insanely tight at those speeds!

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1336675171' post='1649404'] Wow, I thought MJ was dead!! [/quote] So did i, imagine my surprise!!

[quote name='Stickman' timestamp='1336667965' post='1649256'] On a major chord the perfect 4th (or 11th) is regarded as an 'avoid' note as it clashes with the major 3rd. The #11 is considered quite a 'hip' note to play though so it is often substituted in its place. [/quote] +1 to this, if you play a perfect fourth in a chord, you essentially replace the 3rd.

Photo from last nights show.

A 4th is not part of a standard chord. As you start extending chords, they are simply different flavours to add. The 2 most important notes in a chord are the 3rd & 7th. These create the platform on which the extension to sit. So for example, a Cmaj9#11 in theory has C E G B D F# but in reality all those notes played together sound clumbsy so you'll find piano players with play just the C E B F# to get the sound, or some instances E B D F# and forget the root altogether and leave other players to take care of it.

Had a great gig last night. 2nd show with Tej'ai Sullivan on a Michael Jackson tribute tour. Played to a packed house and had great engineers throughout. Here's a picture looking onto the stage whilst setting up.

http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/50/IMSLP168191-SIBLEY1802.16873.5f5d-39087011157957contrabass.pdf Page 5

Listen to the engineers & producer. They're there for this very reason. To guide you in decisions to get the best sound for a recording.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' timestamp='1336389865' post='1644767'] Thanks, makes sense but I bet SWR are not best pleased about that! [/quote] If they're not happy about it surely it's their job to sort it out though, if they're not available it's not Marcus's fault.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' timestamp='1336388064' post='1644731'] Saw him at Cheltenham Jazz on Saturday and agree with everything you say! One thing puzzled me though given that he launched the SWR Marcus Miller pre-amp last year how come he still uses EBS as you can clearly see in your pic? [/quote] He mentioned something about this at bass day but can't remember the exact details he said. I think it's something to do with hire companies in the UK have the EBS gear and not the SWR, so as he's had years with EBS he's still more than happy to use it if it's available.

Really nice playing on the mate, i've been ticking away at this for a while when i get chance and it really is a monster play. You do have a B string that your not really using, so when your playing the Ab after the run, why not try going to your 9th fret on that instead of having to make the massive jump back down to the 4th on the E.

[attachment=107044:Screen Shot 2012-05-05 at 20.25.43.png] Quick snap for OP.

It's Jerry Meehan playing bass if that helps in any way....

There's a guy on this forum who's taken this job already, i read it recently.

My rig for a Michael Jackson Tribute tour. Not quite as impressive as Alex Al's on This Is It but its getting the job done.

[quote name='MrTaff' timestamp='1335966899' post='1638754'] If that was true nobody would use it, it has the advantage of being much easier to read for new players and much more easily available than sheet music. As I said above, I'm not saying don't learn to read dots but for a typical sunday band there's more important things to learn, like playing by ear. I wonder how many new guitar and bass players would have started playing without tabs, there certainly seems to be more new players now than 10+ years ago when the only way to learn was to keep rewinding your cassette until you learnt the part. [/quote] TAB is only easier to read because that's what you've learnt.

[quote name='MrTaff' timestamp='1335964582' post='1638696'] Only if the person tabbing it was lazy [url="http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/a/anthrax/caught_in_a_mosh_ver3_btab.htm"]http://tabs.ultimate...h_ver3_btab.htm[/url] Shows timing and note length. [/quote] Your barking up the wrong tree mate. That is still just showing numbers that could mean absolutely anything. Written music is a way to communicate things that have been said between other musicians. Just as writing is communication between 2 people. That is the entire idea of it. Saying "5 on the bottom line to 3 on the 2nd line then the chorus starts on 1 on the first line' means absolutely NOTHING to anyone but you. Music is a language, not maths. Tab has absolutely no advantage over notation.