TKenrick

There are lots of things that I’d like to respond to, but this is the most pressing. Trying to explain this is a little like giving swimming lessons over the phone, but I’ll do my best: Sound comes first. Theory is a great way to explain why certain things work (or don’t work) and put labels on certain sounds, but it happens after the sound. If you want to be able to play spontaneously, then your ear has to be the primary source of inspiration - the fact is that the conscious, analytical part of our brains that deals with naming notes, scale degrees and interval relationships is too slow to be put in charge of improvising; our subconscious mind has to be allowed to take over and react to whatever is going on musically in the moment. To frame it a different way: when you have a conversation you probably don’t script everything in advance, nor do you consciously analyse the spelling and grammar of what you’re saying - you’ve done enough talking to know which words will fit together and be appropriate for the topic of conversation. The goal is to become similarly fluent with the way that music sounds. This is how players who are apparently ‘unschooled’ and have little or no knowledge of music theory can play fluently: they have a firm grasp of how things sound. In order for that to happen, you need to have a strong connection between your hands and your ears, so you can ‘pre-hear’ ideas before you play them. By becoming more familiar with the sound of different chord types and common chord progressions you’ll develop the ability to instinctively know the sort of thing that will work in a particular musical situation. A huge part of this is stealing things from your favourite players - learn fills that you like the sound of and then use theory to ‘reverse engineer’ what’s going on; what scale(s) are they using? What chords are those scales being played over? Doing this puts theory in context and allows you to use your knowledge of theory to understand why things sound good. Either your guitarist needs to write you a chord chart or you need to hear it (the first solution is much more immediate!). Getting the fundamentals of the major scale together all over the instrument in different keys to the point where it's completely intuitive is YEARS of work, don't beat yourself for not having got it all down in a month or 2. Don't worry about harmonic and melodic minor scales for now, unless the music that you're making absolutely demands it. As I've said before, I'd strongly advise working on arpeggios and chord tones rather than playing scales - much more applicable and easier to digest.

If you mainly play upright, then I'd recommend Bottesini's Method For Double Bass, which gives me a proper ar*e kicking every time I open it. Much more exciting than Simandl.

New transcription of a disco classic: Candi Staton - 'Young Hearts Run Free' bass transcription

Chris Kelly is based in SE and teaches double bass, not sure if he'll have a spare instrument but worth a try:

This is definitely something that's difficult to articulate on a message board (both for the OP and those who respond). These are some things that jumped out at me: Can you elaborate on how you're going about learning these things? That might help to shed some light on why things haven't fallen into place yet. As someone who has focused a lot of time and effort on learning music theory and thinking about musical concepts, I'd strongly suggest abandoning your quest to see things and instead focus on being able to hear them. Theory is a great tool, but it's a terrible master. It's a wonderful device for explaining musical ideas and communicating with other musicians, but it shouldn't be the primary resource that you use for playing and improvising. To put it another way, have you ever been to a theory concert? Learn intervals by ear, learn chord tones all over the fretboard, transcribe players that you love. Forget scales for a while, concentrate on intervals and then triads instead.

As a belated happy birthday to the great Anthony Jackson here are all of the notes that he played on Harvey Mason's 'Phantazia' (there are lots of them): Harvey Mason - 'Phantazia' bassline + solo transcription

I'm offering electric bass lessons in south west London, I teach from a studio in Earlsfield (SW18, about a 7-minute walk from Earlsfield station) For those who like to see qualifications, I have a BA from the Academy of Contemporary Music, Guildford and a PGCE from the Institute of Education, London. For those who want 'real world' experience, I've toured/performed across the UK and Europe with a number of artists including Hayley Westenra, Alexandra Burke and Suggs, as well as various washed-up boyband members and reality TV types. A more detailed bio is available here Since graduating a decade ago, I've taught hundreds of students both privately and in schools and have successfully prepared students for Rock School, RGT and Trinity exams as well as entrance auditions for music colleges including BIMM and ACM. Lessons focus on essential musical skills for surviving as a bass player, including: • Ear training • Fretboard knowledge • Developing a strong internal sense of time • Sight reading • Repertoire • Improvisation There are plenty of free lessons on my website/youtube channel, I’ve just finished a series of articles on how to practise effectively: https://freebasstranscriptions.com/tag/how-to-practise/ cheers, Tom

@lowdowner yeah, my hosting provider is having a mare and can't explain why the site has been down for 4 days... Hopefully normal service will resume soon, I'll keep you posted.

Cheers for the shout out, @lowdown I was about to embark on some nauseating self-promotion!

Not so much an in-depth review, but two videos giving an overview of the features of the bass micro synth and a run-through of EHX's suggested settings which give you an idea of the range of sounds that the pedal can produce:

I can't stand Anthony Kiedis, but Flea definitely knows a thing or two about playing the bass: Red Hot Chili Peppers - 'Californication' bass transcription pdf New article explaining a concept that I've found helpful in organising my practice time: Self-preservation vs. Self-perfection

That's pretty much all there is to it - I use this all the time to work on upright intonation, but there's no reason why it can't work on fretless. Generate a fixed pitch (I use a plain synth sound in garageband) and take that note as your key centre, then work on playing the major scale in that key all over the instrument. Some degrees of the scale will be easier to judge your intonation on than others... half notes/minims at 40bpm is a pretty good place to start.

This could actually be considered a huge advantage over most who pick it up seeking to emulate those guys... On a practical level, playing long notes at a really slow tempo with a fixed pitch drone is great for developing intonation.

All of these. I've largely given up taking an amp to gigs and have never been happier - a decent D.I. and some IEMs will resolve any battles over monitor mixes and you can make sure that you can always hear yourself without upsetting other band members. In-ears don't have to be expensive; provided you aren't running around too much, you could opt for a wired headphone pack and some non-moulded headphones (lots of people I work with use the shure 215s and love them). The funny thing about bass gear is that nobody else really cares apart from a handful of other bass players on the internet.

In that case, it sounds like you're ok as far as everything being in the same key is concerned. You're in the key of B major and implying these chords: E* | B/D# | B | F#/A# B | * If you've got E and F# as the only notes for this chord then you could call it a couple of different things, but it's functioning as an E major chord.

Whether or not this works depends on what quality each chord in the sequence is - are the notes that you posted just your bass notes or are all of the chords major? If it's the former, then everything could be fine. If it's the latter, then we might have to amputate...