dodge_bass

Lovely! We played at Novara Jazz Festival a few years back - great festival and what a beautiful place to live! 

On 24/05/2020 at 23:02, greghagger said:

The short answer is learn as much as you can, play as much as you can, and don’t worry about other players and their musician journeys. 

THIS THIS THIS THIS

On 22/05/2020 at 10:41, DiMarco said:

Is it just me or... Do a lot of teachers (not all of them!) forget to make music when they're playing? I do not mean to offend anyone.

Me I am fairly limited and just trying to enjoy playing as much as I can. Sometimes on rare occasions a jam will really take off and the music starts playing you rather then the other way round. The feeling this gives you can not be described. I wonder if this still happens to those of us who have been studying and teaching music over great lengths of time.

Where I live, there's a bunch of really skilled people teaching playing, singing techniques and theory to others, who are often just starting out or trying to improve their playing.
These teachers also show up on the local jam sessions sometimes and it is fun for me to watch and listen to humans with such a huge musical vocabulary. They come up with very interesting stuff.

But I am afraid this stuff is only interesting to other players. The teachers at times seem to have forgotten why way back in time they started to want to play music, and they now are completely caught up in the technical side of playing correctly rather then enjoying the one thing music does: Be an emotional tour of wonders while making it. I say this because I seldomly (if ever) see them losing themselves inside music and playing in any emotionally inspired way.

Is getting caught up in techniques and theory a possible pitfall the more skilled you get?
Or are these people simply on a different plane and needing musically much more interesting input before their spark gets lit. I do not know.

So I wonder what is it like to have much more horsepower then most musicians at a session? Does it make you 'play safe'?
Are you still able te get loose and lose yourself in music?

Can any of those here who consider themselves a teacher elaborate on this? We always seem to discuss the technical side of music but this question has been in my mind for quite some time now.

 

Interesting post though I think entirely subjective I’m afraid...

How do you know they’re not losing themselves in the music? Is there a single way that one should do this? Perhaps you don’t really like the music that they’re playing and therefore aren’t able to engage with it? Different styles / genres come with different approaches to performance and musical approach - obvious signs of ‘losing it’ might be head-banging, jumping around etc but that isn’t always appropriate / relevant. Perhaps by focusing, being in the moment playing complex stuff is another approach to ‘losing yourself’, just not one that works for you and is less obviously sign posted to the audience? 

Let me turn it around - I’ve done loads of gigs where I’ve looked out to see arms folded, grumpy faces and not much vibe from audience members. Yet often these individuals are the ones who come up after the gig, buy loads of merch and rave about it. They certainly didn’t ‘lose themselves’ in the music they way I wanted to but it worked for them....

So it’s all personal and subjective. Find out what works for you and go listen / watch that and don’t worry to much about what other folks are doing!
 

oof. Any trades at all?

5 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Thanks guys, it's really the repeats I was concerned about as I haven't jumped back like that then jumped forward again to a coda.

Although I appreciate the advice re chords and choice of key. C# was my third attempt! I remembered what I was taught about modes etc and that helped me to decide which were the provable chords. Bass notes I can do, chords I'm very much still learning 

Yeah the structuring of it is fine - very readable - 4 bars per line (bar the 5 bar one which is fine) and the DS / al coda works fine too. I'm a big fan of labelling the verse / chorus / bridge etc as well as that helps as well with navigating especially if you've not seen the chart before.

I don't know the track so can't say more but layout is good - WELL DONE!

5 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Great, thanks @dodge_bassI am beginning to get a feel for this. Transcription takes less time now, and being more familiar with the nuts and bolts allows me to see the bigger picture, if that makes sense! 

Absolutely - the more you do the quicker it gets in every aspect. It will make a HUGE difference to your overall musicianship as well the more you do it. Prior to having children I did tonnes of it (check my website for all of them(!) - www.dodgebass.co.uk) and it really made such a difference to my playing and overall understanding of musicianship. Enjoy! 

On 13/05/2020 at 18:39, Crawford13 said:

So this song is in the key of D major. You can tell this because the  D(I), G(IV)& A(V)chords are major.

If you are comfortable with the blues scale  and want to use this to solo in, use the B minor  blues scale as B minor is the relative scale to D major.

It's a bit cheeky because of the Am that's in there - means it's not entirely diatonic to the key of D..

Anyway....another approach is to think minor pentatonics - in this case you''ll find Em pent fits very well over the Am and the G (so you don't need to change scale there) and F#minor pent fits well over the D and the A - so actually you can just move between two scales...rather than trying to change scale per chord (that's hard work) you can reduce the number of scales you need....

There's loads of different approaches to improvising - you'll need to try and find a 'foot in the door' that you can start off with and then you can take it from there. 

Good luck.

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

Thank you both. 

My solution in this instance:

The song has a 4 bar intro. 2 just drums then 2 with bass. Then an 8 bar section with other instruments added. These are the 10 bars of repeated bass line. 

So I wrote:

1st line - 2 bars of rest 2 bars of bass

2nd line - 4 bars of bass with repeat lines either end. 

That way two neat lines of 4 bars. 

Sound OK? 

Yes - this sounds excellent (in this context that's EXACTLY what I would have done). I'm a BIG fan of sensible numbers of bars per line (4 / 8 etc - depending upon song structure / section length etc) as well as that makes it really easy to navigate and follow. Kind of gives a 'physical visual structure' that relates to the musical layout as well.

And yes @jrixn1 that's exactly what I was getting at. Again I would go for numbering bars 4 and 8 just because so much modern music is structured around 4 / 8 bar / 12 / 16 bar sections so it kind of makes sense to me to keep it logical and help the reader as much as possible. 

3 hours ago, stewblack said:

Hi guys, still plugging away, making progress. I have a question about repeats. I am transcribing a piece where the bass repeats the same bar for 10 bars at the start of the song. I am unsure around this kind of question. It's come up before and I'm still not sure of the rules - if indeed there are any. Is there a convention as to how many times one writes out a repeated bar before using repeat signs? or do you just write it once and say play 10 times or something?

 

Whatever is simplest for the reader - having to count the same single bar 10 times might be ok or might be easier to get lost? Maybe write 5 bars and then put the repeat round it - that way it's one repeat so unlikely to lose the player. 

OR (not using repeats)

If it's the same figure and you do write ten bars of it you can put little numbers in brackets above the bar (say at bar 4 and bar eight)  to help the player know how far they've got - its often easy to get lost if you're reading repeated bars of the same figure...

Bottom line - no specific rule about repeats but like with lots of notation stuff it's good to think about how a player, who could be sight-reading it live on the gig for the first ever time, would be best supported. Again not repeats but I've been caught out before trying to navigate horrible chart structures (double DS's, strange repeats etc) when I've never sene the chart before and am depping....so annoying as you end of looking stupid when it's not your fault.

Hope that sort of helps?

On 15/05/2020 at 09:46, sshorepunk said:

3 leaf audio filters, whats the difference between the groove regulator and wonderlove

I know there was an earlier wonderlove and then the mk2, which I had and didn't really get on with? I know the mk2 added expression pedal control

Is it just evolution of this filter by 3 leaf?

And three versions of the Proton!

 

Just curious

Thanks

Tony

I'm a big fan of the Groove Regulator (first one - there was a GR2 also I think?). I think each subsequent model added more knobs and options but for my money it got harder to dial in a sound. Thats just my experience. I run mine mainly with an OC2 before it for squelchy synth sounds and they play great together. 

What a legend @bassace

After some chat online on one of his for sale threads he kindly (and for free including covering P&P!) sent me a custom clip he'd made for fitting his mic to his double bass. He didn't mind me slightly hijacking his for sale thread to ask about the clip and true to his word sent the next day. Fitted it and did some recording and it's brill. AMAZING! 

It just goes to show again what a GREAT place bass chat is and what lovely folks you all are. Thanks to all the mods for keeping this place running and to everyone for being down to earth decent chaps!

Bass love to you all!

What a legend BASSACE is! After some chat online on one of his for sale threads he kindly (and for free including covering P&P!) sent me a custom clip he'd made for fitting his mic to his double bass. He didn't mind me slightly hijacking his for sale thread to ask about the clip and true to his word sent the next day. TOP TOP CHAP! Thanks! 

I really like the Empress compressor - both for it's wet/dry mix but also the visual monitoring which most don't offer. If you're using light compression it's good to be able to see just what's going on as it's not always easy to hear exactly what is happening. I've got one on both of my boards and I"m really impressed by it. Good luck with choosing, they're are loads of great comps out there and different reasons for choosing each one!

Any chance of you making me a clip like that?  

On 07/04/2020 at 13:15, bassace said:

Hi Andy, it’ll certainly work well for recording but there are other larger more expensive mics that give better results. Depends on what quality you want.

Don't do it down - these mics are great! I love the clip for the bridge - did you make that yourself?

Any trades at all?

32 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

I'm assuming everything in my diary is cancelled until August at least - 20 gigs and counting.

I really feel for the full-timers out there. Poor buggers.

I don't even gig full time anymore and it's hit me hard. All the other pros I know are absolutely on their derrières.

Yeah I've had a number of gigs cancel along with a really well paid week of theatre work as well. Go a choir gig next Sat which might happen but to be honest can't see it going ahead. Worrying times....

On 12/03/2020 at 21:31, Quatschmacher said:

Here's a bit of fun:

@dodge_bass, @lee650

Ouch! Great sound  

3 hours ago, FDC484950 said:

I agree - written music’s only reason to exist is to convey the music as clearly and efficiently as possible. I didn’t say I’d never seen it - but I’ve only seen it on charts that are badly notated. The “rules” are inconsistent too as eighth/quarter/eighth notes crosses over the beat but it widely accepted - maybe because the alternative way to write it would be 6 eighth notes and 2 ties, so 3 things is much easier to read than 8. I think a dotted quarter note rest is also quite common, so maybe it’s just another available shorthand. For me having an eighth note then a rest that isn’t an eighth note makes life harder 

Anyway, well done to the OP for working on the transcription!

Absolutely - I was looking quickly for some examples of rest but couldn’t find any. I did find a few examples of 8th notes crossing the beat. As you say the rules really are inconsistent which is frustrating! 

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

I see this complex subject is way more complex than ever I supposed. 

Welcome to a whole world of pain. The key thing though is clarity and ease of conveying to the reader what you want! On that we’re all agreed :)

5 hours ago, FDC484950 said:

In all the notated music I’ve seen and read, from jazz charts, to west end theatre pit scores to professionally written parts, I’ve never (intentionally) seen a quarter note rest across the beat - apart from when the chart was just badly written all over. I agree there is a balance of readability vs convention but if you go down that path you will end up in a mess - eg sixteenth note on the 1 and another on the -a, do you put an eighth note rest in the middle and beam them together? When a part gets complicated such things can make reading harder than it needs to be. It may be your experience but I don’t agree it’s how “most people” would write it.
As the OP is fairly new to transcription my advice would be to notate correctly first, then decide how much you want to “customise”.

hmm- that's really interesting...because I've spent my whole life also reading and regularly see this (jazz chats. big band charts / theatre scores/ classical pieces). As I noted it's only for 8th notes where you can cross the beat NOT for 16th notes as that's far too tricky. But ultimately you're totally right about the readability vs convention on that we agree, as for our actual expereinces we'll have to disagree

3 hours ago, stewblack said:

Hang on, I think a chink of light just appeared:

Is this what you're after? Bars 64 and 65 now:

And before:

 

(except the third 8th note should be a natural but I'm concentrating more on layout here)

That's much better. This is the correct way to write it HOWEVER given that it's only 8th notes and the centre of the bar is now visible most people would make the 2 x quaver rests into a single crotchet rest. Yes it cuts over the individual beats but in this case it's simple rhythms so it's not so important. If it was 16th notes then all 4 beats would need to be clearly defined but less so with 8th notes. Your call though on this. Music notation often contains lots of rules that aren't always followed...great fun when you're trying to learn!!

Bought Ralph's preamp pedal - great comms and sent it straight away. He couldn't find the power supply but kindly send me a link to a similar supply and all was fine...

...except it wasn't. I bought a supply and couldn't get it to work....so I spoke to Ralph again and he kindly spent 45mins searching for the power supply...which he then sent (without charging me extra as would only have been fair). All's well that ends well but it needs to be said that this man is a...

TRUE LEGEND OF THE HIGHEST ORDER!

And another reason why this forum is simply an excellent place to buy / sell /  trade things.

Thank you so much - highly recommended. Deal with confidence

2 hours ago, drTStingray said:

I agree with all of this - and the key to the lack of finger noise is largely achieved by muting (probably left hand) in this case as he's playing hard. Good EQ ing of the final mix also is helpful. 

Yes - I think you're right. I've worked long and hard on this but still get some noise, only noticeable when playing solo / without other supporting instruments. And yes I reckon you're spot on about the EQ-ing as well.

10 hours ago, FDC484950 said:

Just a quick note: it’s generally better to ensure you can see complete beats in the bar, whether you’ve written notes or rests. E.g. bars 63-70 - you should be able to draw vertical lines to separate a bar of 4/4 into 4 quarter note beats. ties between notes don’t count for this convention as the beats in the bar are preserved. The only common exception is eighth note-quarter-eighth note (which lasts a total of two beats) and less often, eighth-quarter-quarter-quarter-eighth note, lasting 1 bar. These are used a lot in central and South American music in cut time (which is written as 4 beats to the bar but counted in 2).
I’d also use a double vertical line between sections (verse and chorus, for example), unless it’s at a repeat sign.

Finally, I don’t think the key signature is right as every C and G is written with natural sign. I’d probably write it with one sharp in the key signature - then you can remove all those natural signs.

Hope this helps!

Agreed - that's some useful feedback right there Mr FDC.

I am also a very big proponent of including the harmony (chords) in any transcription that way you can at a glance see how the bass line fits against the whole song. It also makes it much more useful for teaching and study.

Overall though, great work, transcription is a great way to progress your learning - keep doing it.