TKenrick

What's that old phrase, beware of internet tutors bearing warmup exercises? How to tell if what you're practising is doing you any good, and how to turn a bad exercise into a good one:

Some concepts that I use and teach for learning/practising grooves, framed in the context of Bernard Edwards' wonderful part from 'Le Freak':

Full transcription of the aforementioned disco classic:

Chic - 'Le Freak' bass transcription pdf

There are some other boards offering graded exams for contemporary music that might be a better fit than the ABRSM stuff; both Rockschool and Trinity Rock & Pop offer non-classical music exams that offer the same level of accreditation as their classical counterparts. None of them are cheap, mind...

I did A level music (not music tech, sadly) without having done GCSE and it wasn't a problem, so if your son doesn't need a bit of paper to get on the course then it's possibly more a case of sitting exams to give him recognition of the level that he's at.

My faithful laptop has died after 11 years of service, so I'm exploring new options for notation software.

I've been using Sibelius 6 exclusively since 2006 on pretty much a daily basis, but I'm not keen on forking out for Avid's new subscription model.

Lots of my students use Musescore and seem to like it, Dorico SE seems to be a viable alternative, too.

Does anyone have any experience/opinions on any of the above? I don't need tons of bells and whistles, just the ability to write out bass parts and the occasional guitar ensemble arrangement.

Pete bought a ditto looper pedal from me and was a pleasure to deal with from start to finish, highly recommended!

Sold

@greentext apologies, this sold last week

7 hours ago, TimR said:

Guitarist seems to be having trouble

 

No surprises there, then 🤣

As @jrixn1 and @ChrisDev have already said, the 'odd' bars are 7/4. Yes, you could write/think them in 14/8, but I've never seen that time signature on my travels.

14/8 also means you'd be constantly referring to an 8th-note pulse, which at 145bpm seems a bit stressful...

What sort of bass are you using? If there's a bridge pickup, then play over it (harder to play nearer the bridge on P-style basses...). Higher string tension nearer the bridge should result in a punchier, more defined sound.

For me, rest strokes (playing into/through the string and coming to rest on the string below) are the cornerstone of a strong, defined sound - you can get greater volume/clarity with less effort than if you pluck 'away' from the strings.

I am not a fan of the low action/light touch/crank the amp approach favoured by Gary Willis and others. I find that playing with low action feels like all the notes are being choked out prematurely - this might be down to a slightly agricultural right hand technique on my part - and results in permanent fret clank, which is not to my taste.

My 2010 ears, it seems, had some very strange ideas about what was happening in this tune. The chart has now been overhauled, phantom odd-time bars removed and now contains chord symbols, along with much more detailed articulation instructions:

Abba - 'Money, Money, Money' bass transcription

I'm sorry for the Fb, it was unavoidable.

I had a relatively poor experience with Charlie Chandlers (pickups wired in back to front, bass came back filthy) but I'm a fan of Richmond Guitar Workshop if that's not too far to go. Andrew who works there does all the bass stuff.

Here are some of my favourite exercises that I suggest to students who want to maintain their technique while practising things that actually get used in the music they play:

TC Ditto Looper, light home use only, has mainly been sitting on a shelf since I bought it.

£50 £40 securely packed and tracked to UK addresses.

No trades, thanks.

Hardly used, has (unsurprisingly) never been taken to a gig!

EHX Frequency Analyzer Ring Mod, includes box, manual, and 40V EHX psu. One tiny ding in the paintwork (under the 'e' of analyzer) but otherwise mint

£85 securely packed and tracked within the UK

No trades, thanks.

On 08/04/2023 at 11:14, iconic said:

 

Yet the sheet music to this acoustic gem has it as E major....with more than a few naturals as there aren't any D sharps in the tune. 

 

E major, I know chords get borrowed but even so?..the D would be diminished and the B major in my perfect world.

 

I thought it was A major. 

 

If it is E major how would the chord progression be written...I-viiM-v? 

 

I know, it's me and my sketchy theory, and it very obvious I'm sure, but some words of wisdom would be grateful as to how E major is derived. 

 

Having given it a quick listen I'm not sure that the sheet music is totally correct, which doesn't help matters at all.

It feels to me like the B chord isn't really Bm, but rather it's more of a Bsus4 thing - there's frequently an E melody note over it in the instrumental sections. The bass also plays a fill that sounds distinctly major in character at one point.

So I'd think of it as being in E major, but nobody is really committing to playing the 3rd on the B chord, giving us I - bVII - V (or Vsus4, if you like).

The D major chord is a very common substitution, it's a borrowed chord from the parallel key of E minor and is labelled as 'flat 7 major'. This chord crops up all over the place, often with another borrowed chord (flat 6 major) before it.

Think about the turnaround of 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love', we're in D major, but we get Bb - C - D (bVI - bVII - I)

On 10/04/2023 at 20:50, Horizontalste said:

 

If you ain't rocking "I'm too sexy" this weekend with the band without any rehearsal then it's irrelevant what the key centre is. If you are then just make sure the guitarist knows what you're gonna play (don't let that pre madonna dictate).

 

Delving too deeply into that side of theory was nothing more than a headache to me.

I found my time better spent developing my ear & "learning the language" (ommmmmmm)!

Totally agree on the first point, being able to actually play the thing takes top priority.

But... it's hard to 'learn the language' if you don't know what the words mean. A trained ear is a wonderful thing to have, but we need labels to put on the sounds we hear so we can categorise them - that, for me, is the value of theory.

On hold

1 hour ago, reggieboomboom said:

Hi bud, looks lovely. is it a 4 string pickup?

 

@reggieboomboom yes, it's the 4-string Big Blade - I checked with Stew at Nordstrand about options and the magnetic field still covers the B and G strings fine.

@ezbass it certainly is, although it passed through some other hands on its way from you to me. Damn fine job you did with the finish, I must say!

The reason it's still in such good shape is it's mainly been hanging on a wall for 6 years...

This bass has been through a few BCers, I've owned it since 2017 and have only played it a handful of times, hence the need for it to go to a new home where someone gives it plenty of attention.

It's had quite a bit done to it, most notably the Spinal Tap finish has been stripped by a previous owner; the natural wood finish has picked up a few small dings along the way and there's one fairly large knot on the upper horn (pictured). The fingerboard has some light wear that attempted to photograph.

Since it's been with me I've had Andrew at Richmond Guitar Workshop do the following:

• new nut

• nordstrand Big Blade pickup

• aguilar OBP-2 preamp (stacked bass/treble boost/cut)

I'm looking for £450 plus whatever delivery/collection options are required, I have a few gig bags that the bass can be shipped with depending on buyer's preference.

Welcome, Steve! (I'm an ex-Worcestershire dweller, born in Evesham, seems we're all coming out of the woodwork now...)

Another vote for the classical posture here 👍

I've had similarly disappointing experiences at the Bass Gallery, and at Charlie Chandler's too (pickups wired in the wrong way round and the bass came back covered in sweaty finger marks after the teen behind the counter told me that it 'played really nicely'...).

I use Andrew at Richmond Guitar Workshop; he's done cavity shielding, pickup and preamp installs and setups on various basses and the work has always been top notch (he used to work at Charlie Chandler's in Kew before it closed).

A couple of charts that were requested by students:

Big Mountain - 'Baby, I Love Your Way'

Roy Orbison - 'Oh, Pretty Woman'

22 hours ago, GremlinAndy said:

You might find the subject of ‘voice leading’ interesting.   It’s more appropriate for piano because of the physical layout of a keyboard, as opposed to a guitar/bass neck, but I found this video kind of eye opening.   (It’s not really 100% about vocals)

Voice leading is hugely important for bass players to understand, because it's one of the main things that separates good players from great players; if you can find the path of least resistance through a chord progression using inversions then all sorts of interesting things can happen in your basslines.

22 hours ago, GremlinAndy said:

My point is, even after a lifetime of playing by ear, and being a self taught bassist, I‘m getting so much more pleasure from music now I understand the basics of the language.   You might start a journey of discovery, like me, by just subscribing to one or more of the guys mentioned above.

This is great to hear. There's a certain mindset out there that makes people think that learning theory* will destroy all creativity, but I think the reverse is true; I'm endlessly fascinated by pulling apart the music that I love to find out how it works. There's a great monologue by the late scientist Richard Feynman from an interview called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out that says it much better than I ever could.

*FWIW, I dislike the word theory, it's a dead thing that belongs in dusty libraries. Harmony - the living, breathing, application of the rules of music - is much more preferable.

2 hours ago, Pestie said:

All suggestions gratefully accepted.

Devil's advocate suggestion... unless they're moving a song down from E to Eb and you really want the lowest possible octave* then just save your money and use your brain. Transposing a song down a semitone shouldn't be that much of a headache once you've tried it a couple of times.

*assuming you're playing a 4-string bass in standard tuning, that is.