Steve Woodcock

Tragic news, Sean has been a huge influence on my playing since I first heard him back in '93 and is the reason I play fretless and Chapman Stick. To lose both him and Sean Reinert this year is devastating. I had the privilege of being taught by Sean back in 2000 when he was in London recording with Bill Bruford. Not only was he a stellar musician but he was a great teacher who was very passionate about education. Years later I had the incredible honour of - albeit briefly - stepping in to his shoes to play Chapman Stick with Cynic on some shows in 2008.

I love the sound of the tabla, so it was an absolute pleasure to dep for this band a number of times throughout 2015-16: Francesco and Simran from the band did a drum and tabla clinic a few years ago which is well worth a watch, here is the part where Simran talks in detail about the tabla:

I was in to Sadus back in '91 so one of the sources is my memory 😉 Ive just done some googling and found an interview discussing the recording of A Vision Of Misery to back that up though: Also:

That's actually a fretted Rickenbacker - the first release with Steve playing fretless wasn't until Autopsy's Fiend For Blood EP in 1992, followed quickly by Sadus's A Vision Of Misery.

With most of us now stuck inside with extra time on our hands, for many this is an ideal opportunity to hit the practice shed. We're facing much uncertainty at the moment but there is at least one thing we can take control of: our bass playing. Whether you have been contemplating taking lessons for a while to perfect your technique, improve your fretboard knowledge, become a better improvisor, brush up on your reading skills, gain a deep understanding of music theory, or are simply looking for a distraction from the crazy situation we find ourselves in, I can help. I am a professional bass player and over the last 25 years I have performed with a number of name artists from a wide range of genres spanning from jazz and pop through to prog rock and death metal. Now in to my 11th year of teaching, with students ranging from beginners through to professional musicians, I am currently available for online lessons via Zoom. Get in touch to make the best use of this lockdown, and stay safe out there! www.SteveWoodcockBass.com

@Jakester, it sounds like you are trying to mute with just one finger - by doing this you are creating a node rather than stopping the string from vibrating, and this is what is creating the harmonic. To effectively mute you must use at least two points of contact (for LH muting I generally use the underside of all my fingers, depending on context) to stop the string dead .

Not a stupid question at all! Skype, Facetime, Zoom etc. are optimised for conveying speech and will actively try to suppress what they consider to be background noise (this can include bass playing!) which can result in the sound cutting in and out; there are settings in Zoom which can alleviate this but I'm not sure about the others.

Try using headphones, I've only experienced this problem when my mic has picked up the sound of my student from my speakers.

The Hal Crook books How to Improvise and Ready, Aim, Improvise! are both excellent.

Hi @bassmansam, given the current climate I'm giving all of my lessons on Skype now (well, Zoom actually as I find it more stable) so am seeing the results across a number of different connections and devices. I wouldn't normally entertain it for beginners, i.e. where you have to take a more 'hands on' approach to correct posture, technique, finger placement etc. but beyond that it works OK. A good internet connection is of course vital. Wifi connection can vary greatly from room to room in a house (I've seen this where I have two students from the same household) so find the best spot, or maybe use an ethernet cable to the router. Make sure you are in a well lit room, with the light source either in front of you or to the side - not behind as you will be in shadow. I plug my bass direct in to the computer and use a lavalier mic for speaking but this is not necessary, a built in mic will suffice but may take some experimentation - particularly when dealing with bass frequencies - to get a clear audio signal and not overload the input which results in the audio 'ducking' in and out. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Interesting that the general assumption is the student is male! She's actually an accomplished psychologist and author, with her next book coming out in May! Truly inspirational and I can only hope to be a switched on as her if I ever reach such an age.

For anyone thinking they've left it too late to take learning an instrument seriously, take encouragement from this: I have recently taken on a student who is 96.

Sean was a friend of mine, so his death came as a huge shock and has taken a while to sink in. Having first seen him play with Cynic way back in 1993 I later had the privilege of watching him play close-up countless times as I worked/toured with Aeon Spoke and the reformed Cynic as their guitar/backline tech, culminating with me playing Chapman Stick with them on a few shows in 2008 which remain some of the highlights of my career. Aside from being immensely fun to hang out with, Sean was absolutely one of my favourite musicians. I first heard him on Death's Human record and Cynic's '90 demo - his impact on the scene back then cannot be overstated, no one had heard anything like it in the genre before and he definitely raised the bar for all that followed. Unbelievable that he was only 19 at the time! A very sad loss.

Hi @bamboofrog If you haven't had any success finding someone local and are expanding your search, I am in west London (Chiswick W4) if that isn't too far?

Cool, I'll look out for the Rocket Lounge!

Not the Pyramid stage, unfortunately! Playing the Shangri-La Truth stage on Thursday night, Avalon stage on Friday afternoon and a back stage bar gig on Sunday night. Are you going?

I will be playing 3 sets there this year.

No problem Graham! That era of stuff is a favourite subject of mine ☺️ Yep, that would have been me with Linear at the Dingwalls show - they hadn't played any shows before I joined. Glad you like Manvantara, I agree it's a step up from the first record (and not because I wasn't on that one, haha!) I only recorded a couple of tracks with Xerath before they called it a day, one got uploaded to Youtube as a farewell (on which I played Stick) but the other has still to see the light of day (shame as that was a fretless track!). I am however now playing for The|HAARP|Machine...

Sean Malone is a fantastic player, he's had a huge influence on me and is the reason I took up both fretless and Chapman Stick. I was fortunate enough to have a lesson with many years ago actually, whilst he was here in London recording with Bill Bruford for the second Gordian Knot album (I have also had the honour of playing Chapman Stick for Cynic a number of times back in 2008). If you like Cynic, Death, Spiral Architect etc. you might like my old band Linear Sphere, I play fretless (and Stick) on the album throughout: If you are a fan of Steve DiGiorgio be sure to check out his own band Sadus, their '92 album A Vision Of Misery was Steve's first fretless* outing as Human was all recorded on his black fretted Rickenbacker. Whilst I am in geek mode, the bass on the Spiral Architect album is all fretted too, Lars played a Steinberger Q4 back then! *Edit: actually Autopsy's Fiend For Blood EP came out a couple of weeks prior to A Vision Of Misery so that was his first fretless release!

Context and taste will dictate when it's appropriate to add sevenths and extensions. First of all, be aware that sevenths are a chord tone and therefore determine the quality of the chord, extensions (also know as tensions or upper structures) are more like flavouring or spice - they add richness to the chord but do not affect its function. Below is a chart to help you determine the correct sevenths and extensions to use within diatonic major harmony, you will see the these notes are dictated by the scale each particular chord is derived from. Not all extensions are used for each chord type as some sound dissonant and are therefore considered 'avoid' notes - a general rule of thumb here is that an extension should be a whole tone above a chord tone (there are of course exceptions to this, such as on an altered dominant chord, but this a whole topic in itself). Be careful in your analysis of the line here @ambient, by naming everything as an extension you are missing the true function of these notes - the first G in bar 17 is a diatonic approach note from above to the F (which is the 5th of the chord), the next G and A are simply passing tones from the F to the root note of Bb on beat 1 of the following bar.

Sorry @mumra, no time to post. These have now all gone.