TeresaFR

2 hours ago, Paolo85 said:

I think there's a misunderstanding there. He drops those names because they actually do courses and seminars on the SBL website. It is something to be proud of without doubt. Sean Hurley is a session man playing for famous pop stars, not a specialist in microtonal funk jazz. For what I understand he does a seminar with tips to go through a session.

Patitucci, on top of being a top notch player, is a renewed educator. On the website he does advanced stuff but also a course named introduction to cuban music and another one for which I find the description confusing but I think has something to do with getting into the style of The Meters, which also are not microtonal jazz-funk.

Other people like Gary Willis do only or mostly jazz courses but the website is known to contain a number of beginner courses or genre specific courses taught by less famous bassists (and Scott himself) - for which one cannot do much name-dropping in marketing emails.

It would be difficult to get those courses made by bass players that are more famous than Patitucci and "inspire" the majority of the bass players. They would cost too much, often times they have zero teaching experience, and often lack theoretical background and are unable to explain why they do what they do.

 

There's certainly truth in what you say, absolutely. I think your last point really is the part I should hold most closely to, I don't need a theoretical background to create art. It would just be nice to not feel excluded from learning pathways and to understand more of the terminology that gets thrown around, and jazz noodling does feel exclusionary. Again though, I'm autistic so maybe my interpretation is not what everyone else gets from SBL.

Back to the topic though: SSBL Scott's Space Bass Lessons - all the standard SBL material but now hosted from the SSBL space station, which just so happens to be in the shape of a vintage P bass with a 340 metre scale length. Governments around the world are deeply concerned that this monster bass space station is just sitting there in geosynchronous orbit above the Atlantic Ocean and no one knows where it came from. Scott, Ian and the team are all up there laughing their bottoms off, knowing the world trembles in fear of their mighty bass power and now, no one can avoid their podcasts, absolutely no one who isn't completely off-grid - not now the station has taken control of all Earth's electronic communication systems. 

Ghost Light (being a recently formed goth band) are looking for a keyboardist, and/ or guitarist to play original songs, with a fairly consistent rehearsal schedule and intention to get gigging and recording in due course.

We currently have eight songs in some stage of development or other. The vocalist and I are both early-mid 40s (but look slightly less mortal for it), if that sort of thing is important to you. Vampirism not essential.

9 hours ago, Paolo85 said:

I got a membership to SBL a few months ago. After reading this I skimmed through Scott's own Bass Fundation course. I just skimmed but I found no trace of jazz noodling. Even in the long sections when he shows how to build bass lines using chord tones, when one could naturally fall into jazz, his playing had a clear pop feeling.

Obviously, if one wants to learn metal that's not the right angle for a course. I would say chords would have to be touched upon briefly and scales, modes and complex rythm should take priority. At the same time, if one wants to become Steve DiGiorgio at some point chord tones are not a waste of time.

There was no trace of jazz noodling also in the courses on blues and preventing i jury I took. Nor in the fretless course - plenty of noodling though, but not jazz and not by Scott.

It turns out in SBL there are two hour long courses on metal bass by David Effelson and a 5-hour course on prog metal bass playing. Then there are three seminars on metal (arpeggios in metal, slap in metal, analysing metal basslines).

Youtube videos are marketing and I imagine the jazz noodling is a way of saying "I am good, I can teach you". Noodling Slayer bass lines would not be as effective as a marketing tool.

I do get a lot of the criticism to SBL - the clickbait, not getting to the point.. but I am under the impression that the crime here is that he likes jazz, or teaches it. I am pretty sure there are worse things one can do

 

I think it depends on who you're marketing to. The last email I received from SBL mentioned John Patitucci, Gary Willis, Sean Hurley, Rufus Philpot, Steve Jenkins, and Rich Brown; most of whom I've never heard of - a couple I only know the names of because Scott Devine repeatedly name drops them like a priest during sermon name dropping God and Jesus, and none of them remotely interest me (which also applies to God and Jesus, as it happens). With that in mind, it has to be assumed SBL isn't marketed toward my kind of bassist and I should simply block SBL emails. Still, I can't help but feel that perhaps there are methods that SBL could utilise if they wished to upskill those of us with less lofty technical ambitions, who maybe just want to be better at fundamentals within a far less complex genre than microtonal jazz-funk - and name dropping bassists those of us interested in those less complex genres actually enjoy and are inspired by. Perhaps though, that's not where the money is and my autistic donkey should just get on with making the sort of music I like to hear.

6 minutes ago, ped said:

Yes very possibly 😂

But is it not more fun to inflict my mental images upon everyone here? It's certainly cheaper.

I'm increasingly considering tuning my 4 string Schecter SLS Evil Twin to D standard tuning, with a professional set-up using heavy gauge (50-75-95-110) Roto flats (I typically use standard 45-65-85-105 gauge) flats and wonder whether there's any thing I maybe should be aware of? The Evil Twin has a really thin neck, 38mm nut, 20mm depth at 1st fret, 22mm at 12th fret, modern "C" shape through neck. Thanks.

They make a series where they learn to talk and act like each other and then, having planted cameras around each others houses, spend a week trying to pretend to be each other with the others' wife and family. It goes badly, as the respective wives pick up on it immediately, but pretend not to notice and spend the entire week trying to get their "husbands" into bed. At the end of the week, whilst Ian and Scott go on "business trips", the wives go on their own trip away, together. Once Scott and Ian find out, they decide to move in together themselves and fully realise their bromance, just the two of them and their collective $6,000,000 worth of basses (after paying alimony).

I realise I may be "shipping" (as people younger than me are wont to say) Scott and Ian far more than is healthy and I should probably seek therapy.

I wouldn't want to share a stage with even one other bassist, not while we're both playing bass anyway.

In the Army Now - Status Quo.

13 hours ago, Clarky said:

Well I got the gig (had to learn 11 original songs) and the guitarist told me that the effect in the OP was some sort of Big Muff

Awesome! I hope it works out for you.

It occurs to me, Mr. Devine isn't on here by any chance? I haven't got to worry about him hunting me down, kidnapping me with his best buddy and stowing me away in his cellar have I? 

SBL Podcast #120 - Scott and Ian reveal who they recently kidnapped! 45 minutes after the podcast started. They make the mistake of taking my gag off and I start shouting over them about how they can raise Jaco from the grave so he can kiss my moonlit gothic donkey! Ian stabs me through the heart with a vintage P bass and they livestream them burying me under the Armley Gyratory. It becomes their most watched podcast ever!

3 hours ago, snorkie635 said:

SBL floats on the FTSE. Profits overtake those of the Oil companies. Protestors glue themselves to music shops across the country. Law passed to ban bass. Basschat crashes. Thread ends.

We all go to Leeds and hunt Scott Devine down, for causing the very situation where our beloved bass is now illegal. Scott starts wearing a wig to hide his baldness and never wears a hat again, and grows a beard. 

Scott Makes Bank Lessons - Scott and Ian livestream them duetting on their favourite basslines in a vault full of money. The first 30 minutes is spent with them talking about how they could light expensive cigars with £50 notes and it wouldn't even scratch the amount of money in the vault. Eventually, they pick up a 7 string F Bass... *covered in gold and diamonds!*

14 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

For the general elections living in a Con/Lab marginal I don't know how I feel about "paper candidates" - if it was the situation where the inbuilt majority vote didn't really matter I would possibly vote Green, but as it's a marginal, I won't... the paper candidates don't do awful, but split the progressive vote...  Mind you I think it makes sense why parties do it, but some kind of transferable vote system would be far far better I think, or list system like they use for the Scottish parliament. 

Anyway- ~VOTE BOBBLE HATS! VOTE SCOTT! 

To make one comment on the divergent topic - paper candidates can help give an inroad into a ward (council level) or constituency (national level) and give a party an idea whether it's worth throwing money at in future elections of that kind - obviously, that's a tactic best used by parties with more limited funds, who need to be selective about outgoings. 

I love me some Roto flats, and the extra tension but I know they're not for everyone.

16 hours ago, LowB_FTW said:

Sliding off the back of this (didja see what I did there?!?) Scott's Butter Lotion, for those necks that just don't play slippery enough.

 

Mark

What even is the point in picking up a bass if you don't have to struggle to keep your fretting hand on the neck? It's all about the slip and skid of the fingers.

5 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

This is the UK, where you big up the underdog and then trash them when they have any degree of success.

The intent isn't to trash, but in one of the most recent podcasts he mentioned something about announcing the future of the podcast and I thought it'd be fun to riff on the idea and had some fun with it. My dislike of his over fondness for jazz and for citing the same handful of bassists like no one else ever mattered, is entirely a different subject. Evidently, SBL is very popular, and presumably plenty of bassists get a lot out of it. Heck, I watch some of the podcasts, I just don't subscribe to SBL because it's never really been sold to me in a way that appeals - but not everything has to.

I used to have one, but I eventually got rid of it as I'd quickly learned acoustics weren't for me - just took me too long to offload it.

4 hours ago, Rayman said:

Without pissing on the fun chips…. I’m sick to death of SBL, and the Scott and Ian bromance. How many times can you use the word “dude” in one conversation.

Scott's Bromance Lessons - First episode featuring Mark King and entitled "Lessons in Love", there's lots of slapping but it's not bass lessons, if you know what I mean. First 12 hours, they've gone viral and made millions, but spent thousands on salve and lube.

11 hours ago, Chiliwailer said:

The Saudis expand from football and move into YouTube and music. Scott moves to the desert, earns £800k a week, and performs in traditional Saudi attire while bathed in luxury. 

Promptly buys 100 new and rare basses, all costing at least £7000 each. 

Nobody's Diary - Yazoo

31 minutes ago, nige1968 said:

Scott's Banjo Lessons?

That would certainly be a surprise re-direction.

54 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

Humble Private TheGreek agrees.

I've not even joined, only thought about it briefly but decided against it, so I'm gonna be a civilian hiding from being forced to own a P bass. 

Spurred on by an e-mail from Scott's Bass Lessons announcing "The Future of SBL" and that left me thinking how strange or funny that could be made. So here we are. I hope this thread is in the right place though. Anyway, here goes: "The future of SBL will be to forge the SBL membership into an armed militia ready to bring down any government we want! One's rank within said militia will be based entirely on how much you can slap and how groove you have. So say we all - Field Marshall Scott Devine and General Ian M. Allison." 

14 minutes ago, Waddo Soqable said:

I seem to recall a buzzcock being a colloquial name for some bird in the US, wouldn't think a Manchester punk band would've been named after one of those tho. 

Useless fact... I saw the Buzzcocks at the Vortex ( punk venue off Oxford st. London ) in 1977

This paragraph from their Wikipedia page covers the origin of the band name: 

"Devoto and Shelley chose the name "Buzzcocks" after reading the headline, "It's the Buzz, pink torpedo!", in a review of the TV series Rock Follies in Time Out magazine. The "buzz" is the excitement of playing on stage; "pink torpedo" is northern English slang meaning "friend". They thought it captured the excitement of the nascent punk scene, as well as having humorous sexual connotations following Pete Shelley's time working in a Bolton adult shop.[15]"

1 hour ago, nilorius said:

Buzzcocks - this is a name of the band, right? Is it two words paired together....insteresting name for the band !!!

Yes, the Buzzcocks name was written as a single word.