TKenrick

[quote]Just wondering, are there any full-time session players on the forum? If so I just have few Q's: -Is it well payed? -How hard is it to find work? -Roughly what do you earn a year? -What qualifications do you have? -Do you play upright too? -And what is your main bass? Just a few things i'd like to know as i'm 16 and considering a career in music, possibly session playing.[/quote] I'm not a full-time session player, but I do a fair bit of paid work and I'd say the bulk of my income comes from playing. 1. Relative to other jobs, it is quite well paid. I'm currently working with a singer and get paid for rehearsals and gigs, but the issue is that the work isn't regular enough to give up my day job. Trying to get the money from management companies can also be quite a long and painful process... 2. In London it's not hard to get gigs, but if you're working with original artists who are in the process of 'making it' then IME the chances of getting paid anything more than expenses is minimal. The paid stuff that I've got has either come through auditions or being recommended by other musicians. 3. Not enough to give up my teaching job.... 4. I have a BA in music, but that in itself has never got me a gig. Comes in handy when going for peripatetic teaching jobs though. 5. I play upright, but not well enough to go out and gig with it yet. 6. My main bass is a USA deluxe jazz, I also have a 5-string Bacchus as a backup or if I need the low notes. Above all, it's really about [b]who[/b] you know rather than [b]what[/b] you know. Go to local jam nights, meet other musicians, try and find out if there are any agencies near you that can help you find work (there are various websites such as starnow.com and ukmusicjobs that are useful as well). One more thing.... learn to read! Tom

Bought a Mark Bass 1x15 from James last week, great communication, smooth transaction, great cab!

Personally I find that reading allows me to take certain gigs that I wouldn't otherwise get, particularly short-notice dep stuff. I generally loathe rehearsing, particularly for covers gigs, so I like being able to turn up at a venue, meet the band play through some charts, take the money and go home. Job done. I understand that reading isn't for everyone and I know plenty of great players who don't 'do' dots, but for the kind of work that I want to do it's fairly essential. As for knowing theory, there is no excuse, apart from pure laziness.

+1 on everything jakesbass has already said, I found that writing out the scales (note names, not in notation) helped me to get them into my head a bit better. Try writing out the scale, e.g. C melodic minor: C D Eb F G A B C Then pick out the chord tones (C Eb G and B in this case) which gives you the chord type that you'd apply the mode over: Cm(maj7) The remaining notes of the scale give you the chord extensions up to the 13th, which help to pin down the characteristic sound of the mode. I found that this helped me when I was trying to work out the names of the other modes. If you take a C melodic minor scale and start on D you get D Eb F G A B C D, which gives you a scale that resembles the dorian mode, but with a b9 (Eb), so you could call the mode D dorian b9, and play it over a Dm7(b9) chord. Hopefully this is more helpful than it is confusing! Tom

I used [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/018656/details.html"]'Simplified Sight Reading for Bass'[/url] when I was starting out with reading and found it really helpful. It's also a good idea to work on the two aspects of reading (rhythm and pitch) separately, for rhythm I use the [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/034904/details.html"]Bellson book[/url] and I've recently started using Gary Willis' [url="http://garywillis.com/pages/lessons/read.html"]'Extreme Sight Reading'[/url] on his website for pitch stuff. On the theory side, the [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/011274/details.html"]AB Guide to Music Theory[/url] is a good reference book that starts from the basics, the only downside is that the presentation is all a bit stale and it doesn't involve relating theory to the bass. hope this helps, Tom

I suddenly have intense GAS for a 6-string jazz... thanks! I saw a clip of him using one a couple of months back but didn't know if Fender were going to put it out as a production model, I'd be interested to see what the list price is on these.

It's a [url="http://www.gakki.com/catalog30/bacchus_ext36.jpg"]Bacchus Strong5-EXT36[/url] (formerly owned by Ped and Waldo on here). How much are the overwater sets? It seems their site is being redone at the moment so I counldn't find any price info.

Apologies if this has been covered many times before, but does anyone have any suggestions for non-coated strings for a 5-string, 36" scale bass? I currently have a set of D'Addario EXLs on, nothing particularly wrong with them but I can't help feeling like I could do better... Not a fan of elixirs, saw some suggestions of overwater strings in other threads, are there any others that I'm missing?

Being an Anthony Jackson fanboy, I'd recommend checking out all the albums he did with Chaka Khan (Chaka, What 'Cha Gonna Do For Me, Naughty). Naughty in particular has some incredible lines on most of the tracks, which is probably due to the fact that Jackson spent a number of months composing his bass lines after the other parts had already been tracked. Regarding the Ain't Nobody part, it took me many hours of trying to get those octaves consistent in terms of volume, attack and note length before the part sounded remotely correct in a band context. It's a deceptively easy sounding tune, but trying to recreate parts produced by machines takes a lot of work - especially for drummers!

[quote]Ultimately music is music and if people listened more with their ears and less with their eyes, the instrument would probably be more widely received.[/quote] For me this sums it all up perfectly. I don't think the quantity of strings is an issue - the vast majority of guitarists have 6 strings, and therefore all have the same opportunity to create art or self-indulgent w*nkery as they see fit. For me the issue is distinguishing the concept of 'solo bass' from that of the 'bass solo'. I tend to regard 'solo bass' as a format through which bass players can create their own music without the need for other band members, which shifts their role into that of [i]musician[/i] rather than 'just' bass player. I don't believe that solo bass playing has to necessarily be equated with a vast quantity of notes-per-second, although this is entirely dependent on the player. When I hear Michael Manring, I hear music, not chops: Conversely, when I hear Wooten or Adam Nitti, I hear technique, not music. My personal preference, regardless of the instrument, is to be intrigued by melody and harmony, not be intimidated by technique.

I'm using a comfort strapp, which is the best I've found so far. The Bacchus weighs 5kg (11lbs), am I just being pathetic or is this fairly weighty? Both of my basses hang in a similar way, I just seem to notice the weight of the Bacchus far more than my Fender, which weighs about 4kg and I can play for hours without noticing and discomfort.

A while ago I traded my stingray with a fellow BCer for a [url="http://www.gakki.com/catalog30/bacchus_ext36.jpg"]Bacchus Strong 5-ext36[/url], which is great except for the fact that it weighs a ton, especially compared to my jazz bass. I don't want to get rid of the bass but on long gigs it's killing my shoulder, so I was thinking about ways to make it lighter. The body of the bass is pretty thick, so I was wondering if it would be possible to remove some of the weight by sanding down the back of the bass to make the body a few mm thinner? Obviously this will affect the tone of the bass as there'll be less wood, but would it make a massive difference to the sound? This is potentially a really stupid idea, so I thought I'd try and get some opinions before I ring up luthiers and get laughed at.

Many thanks for posting this Bilbo, it'll be great for my ledger line reading!

I've got a radial bassbone, not cheap but does the job rather well, plus has a good DI. I bought mine from Thomann and it came with a euro plug, but it all seems to work fine with a travel adapter from boots!

I've had a bunch of problems from playing bass, I found the Dr. Kertz book (mentioned earlier) really useful. I also found doctors absolutely useless, but have you tried [url="http://www.bapam.org.uk"]BAPAM[/url]? I went to one of their physios to treat my shoulder tendonitis and for once I was treated by someone who actually understood the problem and how to treat it while still allowing me to keep playing. If you're still against seeking any kind of treatment then I'd give the same advice as everyone else here: switch to lighter gauge strings, lower your action, consider looking for a short scale bass, and try to keep as relaxed as possible when playing. Also don't play for too long in one go, I practice in 15 minute slots with a 5 minute break between which helps to keep any problems at bay. Good luck!

Got Fender 8250s on my jazz, for me they're the best all-round strings that I've played- good tension, not too bright and fairly long lasting.