TKenrick

Bought an Aguilar AG500 head from chris a couple of days ago, really great guy to deal with, makes a good cup of tea as well! Highly recommended.

I spent 3 years at ACM and got a lot out of it, the facilities are good and the tutors in the bass department know their stuff. Like WalMan said, there are likely to be far less bass players than guitarists on most courses so plenty of gigs should come your way. As for BIMM and ICMP I can't really comment as I haven't experienced them.

I did a transcription of Runaway a while back, i'll dig it out and post it soon.

Great link Bilbo, saves me hours of transcribing in search of decent vocabulary and provides plenty of treble clef reading practice! And it's nice to see a thread here that isn't remotely related to tapping or double thumbing...

My two cents: - Rickenbackers of any description - Gripmasters - Fretboard LEDs - Elixirs - The Laney Nexus Head. Awful, just awful. How can an amp with so many knobs produce so few useable tones?? - Fender USA build quality

Try 'The Latin Bass Book' by Oscar Stagnaro, that should keep you entertained for a while.... I've recently started Horacio Hernadez - 'Conversations in Clave', not a bass book but it definitely helps to understand how the different rhythmic elements of Latin music relate to each other. As for improvising/soloing, try 'Concepts for Bass Soloing' (Marc Johnson and Chuck Sher) or Hal Crook's 'How to Improvise' or 'Ready, Aim, Improvise'. Actually, anything by Hal Crook is worth getting hold of - he's pretty much the daddy when it comes to instructional material.

I saw him last week in London playing with Metheny and Gary Burton, I was really impressed by his tone, he's clearly still one of the top guys out there but his playing isn't really to my taste.

They're great, best strap I've ever used by a mile and extremely comfortable. I seem to remember paying £20-25 from the bass gallery in camden.

Thanks for that, never realised he was home schooled... He's a great guy and a phenomenal player, I've been to a couple of his clinics and always have to scrape my jaw off the floor by the end of them. If you've not checked these out then I'd recommend them, some are a bit self-serving but there's some good stuff in there - [url="http://gwizmon.podbean.com/"]Janek Gwizdala Basscast[/url]

Lovely work as always Mike, big thumbs up for doing it at tempo as well! Is the backing track an Aebersold one?

[quote name='ARGH' post='246577' date='Jul 24 2008, 04:44 AM']Music education HAS become fast-track..you can have it now..FAME FAME FAME..Bullshit so called 'Music schools' (ACM being the most guilty in the UK) and magazines.[/quote] Having spent the last 3 years at ACM I'm in agreement with this, up to a point. A large proportion of ACM students appear to be there because they think it'll make them famous, or because they can go there, not really do any work and still come out with a qualification at the end of it. The main issue is that ACM is run first and foremost as a business - it's all about throwing open the doors to the masses, putting bums on seats and raking in the money. As they don't have a formal audition procedure the quality control is almost non-existent, and the classes are therefore geared towards the lowest common denominator, which keeps the overall standard low. If they advertised it as a serious music school then the intake would drop massively, as would the profits, because the majority of teenagers today are conditioned to believe that becoming a famous musician requires very little work and even less talent. I don't know if ACM is the most guilty of this approach, as I haven't attended any similar institutions. I think if you go in with a clear idea of what you want and realise that any improvements that you make as a player are down to having gone to classes, filtered out the crap, and put in the hours of practice then it's a great environment to be in. It's true that I could have arrived at the same level of musicianship without having done a degree, but it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer to get there. Apologies for the slightly OT rant, back to the point... In my opinion, Jeff's playing (in terms of the understanding and application of harmony) is outstanding. His music, on the other hand, is not to my tastes. I think that he's got some really valid opinions (except the metronome thing), but he expresses them in such a way that immediately alienates the majority of players.

Me bastardising Kate Nash: With a singer/songwriter + string quartet:

Nice find Jake, thanks for posting this, I love Holdsworth's approach to voicings. I think he's doing a gig at the jazz cafe in september. Does anyone have any recommendations for essential Holdsworth records to check out?

+1 for the Jamman, I've got one and it's definitely a great practice tool. However, I find that it sucks all my tone out and leaves my bass sounding rather thin, but as I only use it in the privacy of my own home its not really that much of an issue, I don't know if this is a thing with all loop pedals?

Funny you should say that, I was reading that thread the other day and was going to get in touch with you. Unfortunately my double is in need of a new fingerboard and other repair work, so playing is on hold for the moment until i get the necessary cash. But I'm definitely interested in getting some lessons and learning how to play the thing properly!

I seem to remember someone else asking for this not so long ago, but nothing came up... Maybe this will help: [attachment=10913:Music_fo...ameleons.pdf] I did everything up to where the vocals come in, bar 1 has a sliding harmonic in it, if this is new to you then hit me back an i'll try to explain. The slides in bars 8 and 12 are hard to do like the recording if like me you don't possess a fretless. Enjoy! P.S. This should help... [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RlhQ3iC54QM"]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RlhQ3iC54QM[/url]

Thanks for the feedback Jake, nobody else picked up the deliberate mistake The first note of bar 72 is dotted, which has been obscured by the sharp sign of the next note, i'll change it asap!