Deerhunter1331

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1475351487' post='3145344'] Don't be afraid. It'll be the best introduction to playing jazz and you'll get a lot of enjoyment/satisfaction from the experience. You're very welcome to PM me if any problems come up, or something you need better understanding of. [/quote] Thanks for the offer, I will surely keep it in mind. 😊

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1475342687' post='3145244'] Are you the only Bassist signing up? If not, sit in on a couple of sessions and watch, if you are feeling nervous. That way you can judge if you think you are up to scratch with the rest of them, and above all, handle the arrangements sight reading wise. [/quote] I saw someone sign up who can play bass and guitar, and quite a few people were signing up, so I doubt I'm the only bassist

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1475329963' post='3145106'] Fortune favours the bold, as a Canadian character in a video game told me once. Good luck ! [/quote] Thanks! Lets just hope that I can at least keep up with the rest of them.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1475330322' post='3145112'] There's a way of justifying just about any note played, by explaining patiently that it's a contrapuntal inversion using the Lydian mode derived from the Minor of the flattened 13th. Those that [i]don't [/i]know will be impressed; those that [i]do [/i]know will nod wisely, as they've been doing the same for years, and don't want the bubble to burst. Get stuck in, enjoy the pain and grow. Grow fast. We all know what the best fertiliser for growth is, don't we..? [/quote] Very wise words

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1475328084' post='3145080'] Just go along. I'm sure they'll all be thinking the same thing. How's your sight reading ? [/quote] To be honest, I'm not sure. I can read sheet music without a problem, but I have never tried to sight read

Hello, Yesterday I signed up to my university's jazz orchestra, simply because I would like to have a chance to play with others and improve my bass playing. But, I have never been a part of a jazz orchestra, and I haven't played with anyone else. They don't have any auditions for it, but I'm still nervous whether I'm going to be up to scratch to keep up with everyone else. Should I just not bother and wait until improve my bass playing, then join?

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1447024341' post='2904292'] The Ed Friedland jazz books are excellent if jazz is where you want to go. There are books out there that are raved about, like Mark Levine's Jazz theory book, but they are a lot more than you need right now (given that you've just learned the natural minor). [/quote] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0793542049/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_SkoqwbYCZG5AT Is this the book that you mean? It has good reviews, so it seems promising.

Welcome! Mam nadzieje ze bedzie ci sie tutaj podobalo!

I thank all of you who decided to help me out on this matter, and clear this bit of theory out. I'm also looking for a book which teaches me some harmony and allows me to implement it into ny playing. I was looking into Gary Willis' fretboard harmony, and it sounds like a really good, albeit challenging book. Does anyone else have any other recommendations?

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1446289486' post='2898342'] [/font][/color] Yep. Chords are constructed like snowmen on music paper... Take the key of G major... The notes you have available to you are G A B C D E F# G The "home" chord is G. It's made up of the first note, the third note and the fifth note (a triad): G B D If you play them together (preferably on a guitar or keyboard... sounds a bit muddy on a bass) you get a "nice happy sound". Take G minor, the notes you have available are G A Bb C D Eb F G The "home" chord is Gm. It's made up of the first note, the third note and the fifth note: G Bb D If you play them together you get a "sad sound". That's all due to the difference between the major and minor 3rd... that Bb makes all the difference. Now, if you construct triads from all of the notes in G major, you get: G (G, B, D) Am (A, C, E) Bm (B, D, F#) C (C, E, G) D (D, F#, A) Em (E, G, B ) F#dim (F#, A, C) G C and D are constructed from the same "home chords" as you'd get in those major keys. Am, Bm and Em are constructed from the same "home chords" as you'd get in those minor keys. F#dim is a special case as it has a diminished fifth... don't worry about it for the moment. Major keys always have the same pattern of major and minor chords... that's where the I ii iii IV V vi thing comes from... small letters for minors, capitals for majors. The same thing goes for minor keys: i ii (dim) III iv v VI VII... but as you know, we sometimes turn that v into a V. [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] It's about thirty years since I did all this... the best thing you could do at an early stage is to approach it from the classical tradition. The ABRSM publish music theory books for this purpose... just go for the pink one (volume 1). [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/011274/details.html"]http://www.musicroom...74/details.html[/url] And their music theory in practice books are good: [url="http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/0442319/details.html"]http://www.musicroom...19/details.html[/url] [/quote] Thanks for the explanation. The book doesn't go on to explain chords within a scale just yet, but its good to know.

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1446237996' post='2898097'] No, the key for the whole thing is G minor. There's a D7 chord in three of the bars, which is perfectly fine in G minor... minor keys are like that. You just have to sharpen the F to F#... but, in this tune you don't have to worry about it. There are no F#s to play. Okay... since you're thinking about this anyway, let's start with the key of G major... The chords in G major are: G Am Bm C D Em F#dim Don't worry about the F#dim for the moment. The others are all constructed from a root, a major or minor third and a perfect fifth. That's just the distance between the root note and the notes in the chord. In tunes in G major, the D is often extended to a D7... that's a major triad (chord made from a root, major third and a fifth) and a minor seventh added on top. This is the most common type of extended chord (chord made from more than three notes). The reason D7 is used is that it has a tense quality that makes the ear want it to move somewhere else... and that's to a G chord... it takes you home. We call this type of chord a dominant 7 chord. Let's now think about G minor... the chords are: Gm Adim Bb Cm Dm Eb F If you were playing in the relative major key (Bb major), you'd use F7 as the dominant chord, and it would pull you nicely back to Bb... great. In G minor there is no chord that makes you want to go home, ie. back to Gm. Dm to Gm is a weak movement. Extending the Dm to Dm7 doesn't provide the tension needed. The resolution from Dm7 to Gm is rubbish compared to D7 to G. [size=2](The reason is that the interaction of the major third and minor 7 in the dominant 7 chord is what causes the tension.)[/size] So instead of putting up with such a sad state of affairs we cheat. We steal the D7 from the key of G major and slot it into G minor. D7 to Gm sounds great! It has all the tension we need! We have to fiddle about with the notes we use a bit when playing a melody or bassline in Gm when we hit a D7 chord, but that's okay. We just change the F to an F# and give it a fancy pants name (harmonic minor). Sometimes we'll take the Eb up to an E natural (the jump from Eb to F# is a bit unmelodic) and call it the melodic minor. [/quote] Thanks for clearing it up for me, I think soon I will begin to study harmony, as I feel that it would help if I understood what I was playing, and how it was put together.

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1446237996' post='2898097'] No, the key for the whole thing is G minor. There's a D7 chord in three of the bars, which is perfectly fine in G minor... minor keys are like that. You just have to sharpen the F to F#... but, in this tune you don't have to worry about it. There are no F#s to play. Okay... since you're thinking about this anyway, let's start with the key of G major... The chords in G major are: G Am Bm C D Em F#dim Don't worry about the F#dim for the moment. The others are all constructed from a root, a major or minor third and a perfect fifth. That's just the distance between the root note and the notes in the chord. In tunes in G major, the D is often extended to a D7... that's a major triad (chord made from a root, major third and a fifth) and a minor seventh added on top. This is the most common type of extended chord (chord made from more than three notes). The reason D7 is used is that it has a tense quality that makes the ear want it to move somewhere else... and that's to a G chord... it takes you home. We call this type of chord a dominant 7 chord. Let's now think about G minor... the chords are: Gm Adim Bb Cm Dm Eb F If you were playing in the relative major key (Bb major), you'd use F7 as the dominant chord, and it would pull you nicely back to Bb... great. In G minor there is no chord that makes you want to go home, ie. back to Gm. Dm to Gm is a weak movement. Extending the Dm to Dm7 doesn't provide the tension needed. The resolution from Dm7 to Gm is rubbish compared to D7 to G. [size=2](The reason is that the interaction of the major third and minor 7 in the dominant 7 chord is what causes the tension.)[/size] So instead of putting up with such a sad state of affairs we cheat. We steal the D7 from the key of G major and slot it into G minor. D7 to Gm sounds great! It has all the tension we need! We have to fiddle about with the notes we use a bit when playing a melody or bassline in Gm when we hit a D7 chord, but that's okay. We just change the F to an F# and give it a fancy pants name (harmonic minor). Sometimes we'll take the Eb up to an E natural (the jump from Eb to F# is a bit unmelodic) and call it the melodic minor. [/quote] I see now that you really have to look at how the chords sound and interact with each other. Also, how do you know in a G minor scale, which chord is which? is it the [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I ii iii IV V vi vii chord thing that Hector mentioned above?[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Do you recommend a book that explains this and allows me to put this into practise? I was thinking about going for Gary Willis' fretboard harmony for bass, as I don't really want to focus at any style of music just yet.[/font][/color]

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1446235505' post='2898064'] Don't think too hard on this... Just play the whole thing using the G natural minor scale. [/quote] Yeah, I might be overcomplicating things right now, but I guess I will have to learn this sooner or later.

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1446223167' post='2897927'] No problem. The overall key is G minor. So for each chord, you're playing G minor from a different root. E.g. C-7 is really G natural minor from C to C. Have a read about modes, which might help. For each chord you play a mode of G minor. That's probably what they're talking about in the book (I've not read it) Chords can be related back to a parent scale. So the chord of D7 is drawn from the parent scale of G harmonic minor. If you take the same scale starting from a different root note, you have a mode. For example, C major running from D to D is D dorian. Or from E to E it is E phrygian. In this case, you would play D7 as the fifth mode of G harmonic minor. Really, you can still use all your G harmonic minor shapes etc, you're just emphasising the notes D F# A C (a D7 chord) and this gives the "flavour" of the fifth mode of G harmonic minor. You want to minimise position shifting, and make those shifts you do make be governed by musical considerations. Shifting every bar isn't that useful, and it's a good exercise and efficient use of the fingerboard to shift only when you need to. [/quote] Thanks for explaining modes to me, its just a lot to take in. So, if I'm playing in the key of C minor, and decide to play the 5th mode of the C natural minor scale, then I can use any minor scale in the key of G? Or the relative major scale if I choose to? Does mean that in playing the C natural minor scale from G to G? Also, if I'm playing in the key of C minor, how do I know which minor scale to I use? Thanks

[quote name='Dread Bass' timestamp='1445946199' post='2895565'] I bought Ed friedlands complete bass method he covers reading from the beginning and I've found it great. I would recommend trying to read daily even if only for 10 mins. [/quote] Have it as well. Great book, which starts from scratch and forces you to read music, as tabs are only introduced in book 2.

[quote name='Hector' timestamp='1446214163' post='2897800'] It's G minor. There are multiple minor scales: Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic. You need to learn them all, and what chords are drawn from them (it's not so hard, I promise). G natural minor: G A Bb C D Eb F G - they key signature for a minor key will always tell you the notes of the natural minor scale. This is the relative minor of Bb major. The only note out of any of those chords that doesn't fit in withe the G natural minor scale is the F# in the D7. That's either drawn from the ascending melodic minor (the jazz melodic minor), or from the harmonic minor. Only the latter has an Eb in, so that's more likely to be the choice. G harmonic minor: G A Bb C D Eb F# G In a major key, you know what the I ii iii IV V vi vii chords are, because they're always drawn from the same pool of notes. In minor keys, you can make chords using the notes of any of those three minor scales. Often the V chord (D in the key of G minor) uses the harmonic minor as a basis, because it contains the F#, which generates a strong sense of resolution between the D7 and G. Otherwise, D-7 to G-7 isn't much of a sense of harmonic motion. Hope that explains! Let me know if you have any more questions. [/quote] Wow, you just made me realise that I have a lot to learn still, but thanks for clearing this up for me. I also have another question. I can play the entire piece using the G natural minor scale, all in the 3rd position, but what I was trying to do was shift every time the chord changed, so that the chord then became my root note and use the appropriate scale. Is there any point of doing this, since I can play this within a single scale? The book encouraged you to treat the chord changes as key changes. Not literally, but in terms of playing and understanding the bassline. Maybe I misunderstood the book or something.

I'm working my way through Hal Leonard's bass method, and it has been going great right up until now. I have just learnt the natural minor scale, so now I'm learning some basslines around it. Now, the key for 3 out of the 8 bars is D and the key signature for this is G minor. I try to play it using D major scale but the notes go below the D, and you play notes which aren't part of the scale, such as C and E flat. I know that the relative minor scale of the D major is B natural minor, but if I try to use the B minor scale, then I still can't use it since it doesn't have the notes I need. I was thinking that since the B and E are flat, due to the key signature, then maybe I have to use the B flat minor scale, since it contains the notes that I need? I'm really stuck here, BC. I'm hoping someone can enlighten here I will include a pic of the piece that I'm trying to play. Thanks [attachment=203970:WP_20151030_0021.jpg]

Does this affect the tone? Or am i wrong and its something completely different?

Thanks for the answer. What does the relief change apart from the string height?

Thank you for all of the answers. How much relief should i have? I read through Gary Willis' guide and he has about the thickness of a credit card. Also, should i adjust the relief or the action, as i have recently lowered the action. I know that i might be going off topic, but there are just so many things!

Do I need heavier gauge strings for drop tunings? Currently, I have 0.45-.100. What happens if I drop tune with this strings, does it mess up the neck in some way? Thanks. ( This is my first post, by the way)