matty589

Your record collection. Spend £2000 on a year at music college or £2000 on 400+ classic jazz CD's and learn them inside out? Whilst you're studying those records, go play with any jazz musicians you can find. LISTEN!!! Learn from your mistakes. (I did!) Learn to play the piano, even just to be able to play the changes to a tune. If you need a book, try the Jazz Theory Book. If you need to know how to walk, try Ed Friedland's Building Walking Bass Lines and Expanding Walking Bass Lines. Play at least a little upright bass. It's harder to play so every note counts. Transcribe the melody, bass part, chords and solos of as many tunes as you can. If you work very hard and have a reasonable amount of talent you will get very good. I can't think of many jazz musicians, past or present, that became the players that they are because of music college. Education can produce geniuses but it generally produces a lot of people of average competence. There is no "set" way to play jazz so music college will more likely stunt your growth rather than inspire it. Music colleges are a substitute for lack of available gigs. You end up being a photocopy of a photocopy. Music comes from within so maybe look there first...

I had a good play on one in the Gallery and was distinctly underwhelmed. Cold sounding, like a cheaper copy. Neck looked very ordinary, fingerboard dark rosewood with almost no grain - reminded me of cheap copies that used random hardwoods and stained them darker to look like rosewood! No better than a Highway One IMHO - which were being knocked out at £300 less. Bearing in mind a Sadowsky Metro is about £300 more than the standard (and you can get a tasty Lakland Skyline Joe Osborn with passive Lindy Fralins for the same price), the Fender is not good value for money. If I had to buy another Fender sub-£1000 I'd get the Japanese Geddy Lee or Marcus Miller - played them at the same time and they had much more feel and life. They both looked sharp too! Of course the standard could just have been a duff one but the fit and finish wasn't even that good either.

Let me know if you don't find it - I can knock this up in a day or two (I got halfway through it at one point and got distracted). Would be notation only as I don't do tab. Cheers Mat

If you look closely you'll see a large proportion of those transcriptions are by other people, and a lot of them have mistakes, some minor, some glaring. Most of the ones he's done himself are very good though!

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='174939' date='Apr 12 2008, 12:41 AM']ADDENDUM: Just come back rom band practise and played all of you really got me going with my thumb clear of the neck - a little bit of extra strain in the forearm by the end, but apart from that I didn't notice much difference. also, in answer to someone's question I play with the bottom of the body about an inch above the belt, and a such an angle so taht the bass head is about level with my own. Clive.[/quote] That strain is because you are used to pressing too hard - when you can do it with no strain then you're using the right amount of pressure. I use it just as a brief exercise from time to time to make sure I don't fall back into bad habits. Your bass seems to be worn a little high, why not drop the bass a little and angle the neck up a bit more? It should feel more natural to your left wrist. If you look in a mirror, the neck should be angled about 45 degrees (a good starting point at least) and both arms should be reasonably close to your body and relaxed. Also check your wrists - if there is significant bend you're asking for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or something else nasty in a few years - keep them relaxed, slightly bent but not too much. I'll shut up now

Yeah I loved the asym neck too, plus the bod shape is one of my favourites. When I was talking about MTD I meant the USA ones (that retail $4-5K!). Bass Central in Florida and Austin Bass Traders have usually have some lovely pics but they give me chronic GAS One day!

[quote name='AndyMartin' post='174305' date='Apr 11 2008, 06:45 AM']It's all that and more. Jamerson is one of my all time favourites as well. I tried working it out recently. It's a fairly simple structure but a lot of JJ's playing seems to be improvised. Playing the notes is easy but getting that laid back, funky feeling is close to impossible (for me anyway) [/quote] Right on the money. JJ was originally a jazz upright player so lot of his 16th note lines are slightly swung - if you listen to a few famous bebop songs you hear the same feel (again, hard to replicate). It is also his touch and use of dynamics. And although the bass sound is as dead as, who cares about hi-fi? It such a warm, fat sound it totally anchors What's Going On...

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='174649' date='Apr 11 2008, 04:12 PM']I really think the size of your hands has nothing to do with any of this. I have always played with what is usually called a 'one finger per fret' technique on my left hand (fretting). However, because I am on a fretless, the accuracy required for all four fingers to actually HIT the exact spot where the correct note lays is simply not there physiologically so you have to make small adjustments depending on where you are on the neck but also where you are in the phrasing of an idea. In addtion, depending on the line you are playing, you sometimes need to play the next note on the same string as the last one whilst, at other times, you need to play it on a different string. All of this changes the position of both of your hands and your fingers quite significantly. Having it all under your hands in one position is a technical ideal but not always possible or desirable in practice. It is your ability to move your hand between positions without losing the internal integrity of a phrase that counts not the size of your hand. I suspect this is not really any different on a 36" scale to a 33". Small hands, big hands. I think its a red herring.[/quote] I disagree. The ability of your fingers to work together or to stretch apart from one another, depending on the phrase you are playing, directly correlate between scale length and hand size. If you have small hands and play a long scale you will struggle to do 1 finger per fret because you won't physically be able to reach common spans in the lower positions - you'd have to flatten your hand and distort your wrist to reach. This only really comes into play in the first 4-5 positions as above that the frets are close enough at and reasonable scale length for it not to be a problem. Poor technique would result, and poor technique often equals poor phrasing (buzzing, missed notes, sloppy rhythm). If you can't reach the notes how are you going to phrase them or keep their integrity? Also, one finger per fret is just a general starting point in left hand technique, not the be-all and end-all.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='174611' date='Apr 11 2008, 03:19 PM']If you're a fusion player like Matt Garrison that plays very quick stuff and has a light touch then I can totally see shorter scales being beneficial. I guess I'm more neanderthal than that...[/quote] I don't want to hijack the thread but in my opinion Matt Garrison, whilst a very accomplished and celebrated player, has a thin, scratchy guitar-like tone that does nothing for me (33" scale). AJ (36" scale) rules!

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='174569' date='Apr 11 2008, 02:30 PM']Matty, Thumb to little finger , very tip to very tip is about the same as yours, ie 21.5 cm. The wrist joint isn't that specific, but I guess thats also about the same as yours. Stretch from the middle of the first finger tip to the middle of the little finger tip, which I guess gives you your nominal span for fretting, is about 14.5cm. Maybe it is a stretching issue. I can certainly reach things now that I couldn't when I started to play half seriously, about two years ago. However if I were to go to a 34 or 36" now I would be in the situation, in the short term at least, where I couldn't play stuff that I am currently playing out with the band. At least you seem to accept that a smaller hand (whether mine qualifies as one of these or not) can limit/influence one's choice of scale, which not every one does.[/quote] Hi Clive, It's all in the hands. Fretting with your left hand isn't just about stretching the fingers apart. It is also about how you use the fingers, where you place your thumb, how much you use your thumb to pivot, and how you execute the +1 technique (which is where you use one finger per fret but stretch with the index finger or little finger 1 extra fret lower or higher before snapping back into position). How much effort are you using to hold the strings down? A well setup bass should require little or no "squeeze". Try playing a line and fretting with your left hand but float the thumb off the back of the neck - you should still be able to hold the strings down, but now you're using much less pressure as you're not squeezing with the thumb. Also there is the buzz technique, where you hold a note down with the left hand then lift off just enough so the note starts to buzz. Just before it starts to buzzes is the max pressure you need to fret a note (Two tips that are thanks to Gary Willis). Also if you fret right behind the fret or slightly on top you need less pressure. Then use your thumb to slightly pivot between notes that are, say 3-4 frets apart (fingered index-pinkie) - this give you more reach without over-stretching. Finally you can extend your fretting range by rotating the wrist and slightly straightening the index finger. I learnt most of this in the first 10 years of playing (when I used to practice 5 hours a day 6 days a week) and have spent the last 12 years trying to master it (when I only practice specific musical and technical things) so keep at it, your technique will always improve! I agree, there is no one right solution for everyone. Your hands are plenty big enough for 33"-36" scale though. As you say, you're gigging now (btw were does your bass hang? high, mid or low?), so I wouldn't go jumping for something that is much longer or shorter in scale. it can sometimes be difficult to get strings for very short/long scale basses too.

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='174511' date='Apr 11 2008, 01:25 PM']As I understand it, the signal from an active pickup is enhanced by the use of a power supply and this signal is led to either a pre amp in the bass or one somewhere else. Peter[/quote] An active pickup requires a battery to function, not to enhance it. You can record a passive bass directly through the Hi-Z input of a high quality soundcard into a computer and there is effectively no preamp involved, just the jacks, whatever resisitors are between the jack and the ADC to provide the correct repsonse and an A-D converter (assuming there is no fancy wiring through preamp circuitry in the soundcard). Bearing in mind that speakers, software, amp heads and even our ears are preamps then that is about as pure as one is likely to get

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='174511' date='Apr 11 2008, 01:25 PM']I'm not so sure that's an accurate reflection on things. One of my active basses has an active/passive switch, out of about 14. I sense some confusion between active pickups and active basses. Most of my basses are active and none of them have active pickups. As I understand it, the signal from an active pickup is enhanced by the use of a power supply and this signal is led to either a pre amp in the bass or one somewhere else. Peter[/quote] If the pickup is passive and you can bypass an active circuit the bass will still work without a battery. If the pickup is active a battery is needed. It is an accurate reflection for the bass I mentioned (I wasn't talking about all basses).

Great post Alex. Clive, how big are your hands? My left hand is 22cm span tip of thumb to tip of little finger (fully stretched L-R), and 20cm from tip of middle finger to wrist joint. I can do 1-finger per fret at the first fret on a 36" scale 6-string with no problems (as long as the neck is fairly slim). If you have very small hands of course then there is no choice but to get a shorter scale length, but if your hands are similar in size then it is a stretching/technique issue (unless you have had hand injuries in the past that limit your tendons' ability to stretch). As to very long scale lengths, they haven't caught on because above 36-37" players with even medium to large hands will struggle to fret comfortably at the 1st position. In addition it makes the neck very long and makes balance even worse. it also distorts the shape of the body (and if the body matches the scale length it would become huge). I have 2 Warwicks - Thumb NT 5 and Corvette Ash 6-string. Both have 34" scale and have tight, well-defined B-strings as well as warmth and clarity. The appeal of a longer scale length to me is the little bit of extra space between each fret above the 12th, as it is easy to get tangled when the frets get closer together.

The poster about Warwicks is spot-on, which is why I am glad most circuits have a pull-passive, I prefer both of mine bypassing the circuitry. Actually a high-quality full-range passive pickup in a balanced-sounding bass is best to my ears - If you have a good even hi-fi amp you can eq to suit and the eq from a good recording setup will be far more transparent than any onboard eq. In all the basses I have played and owned the active circuit seems to add headroom at the expense of purity and variety of sound. I think it is also worth mentioning that you can get a lot more of variety of tone with your hands! I recently read a Jonas Hellborg interview in Bass Player where he was talking about his signature bass and amp. He said that onboard eq never works because it runs on 9 or 18v batteries - nowhere near powerful enough to provide the headroom and frequency response of a good mains-powered eq. New strings, changed more often, also reduce the need to play with eq so much as well. One of my favourite players is Anthony Jackson, and his bass has one full-range passive pickup wired directly to the output jack. Nothing wrong with his tone! I just have to convince someone to build something similar for less than £10K

Yeah, it's a real shame as I love the Tobias shape. I heard some horror stories about the QC on the Gibson Tobiases, even the $7000 Signature models are apparently quite variable. Of course Michael builds his own MTD basses but they are expensive as hell and the lead time is a year and a half. Lovely, lovely basses though. I tried a fretless walnut 5 once, best fretless I've ever played.