Eight

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='392405' date='Jan 27 2009, 09:04 AM']Jeff Berlin had a few interesting things things to say about teachers at the weekend...runs for cover! [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509651"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509651[/url][/quote] If it wasn't for all the controversy surrounding this guy on the Internet, I wouldn't even know who he was. He has some [i]interesting[/i] ideas, I guess. Not for me though.

Oh that is nice. I've not a fan of that kind of shape but even I'm sitting here impressed. One thing though - who buys a Nikki Sixx guitar and worries about corny? Its Nikki Sixx, of course it's corny. Leave the pickguard alone and embrace the rock and roll.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391945' date='Jan 26 2009, 05:28 PM'].........although, f*** it, I'll give it a go![/quote] That's pretty cool of you. I found this page a little while ago while looking for a flash game to quickly recap my knowledge of the bass clef. It looks pretty well written and could be good to get your started. I think you're safe on the jazz front [url="http://www.studybass.com/lessons/reading-music/"]http://www.studybass.com/lessons/reading-music/[/url] The first five lessons there should be good for you to run with. Then playing the Flash game a lot ( [url="http://www.studybass.com/tools/bass-clef-notes/"]http://www.studybass.com/tools/bass-clef-notes/[/url] ) should help you speed up recognising the pitches. With the notes down, learning to read the rhythms should be easier. Edit: that reminds me, I must put more time into learning where those notes are on the fretboard. Always seem to be bloody studying something.

From previous lesson experience (not bass), I find it critical to have a teacher you really like as a person. Someone you enjoy going to visit as well as learn stuff from - otherwise the hard parts about taking lessons become a real pain and it saps all your motivation. If they have a web site or some info available, read it and try and just see if there are clues there that make you feel a bit warmer to them than the others. Obviously you won't know for certain til you get there but it might help narrow down your list of potentials. Edit: I think the older you get, the more important this becomes.

Not really a gig - but its the closest I've ever come. This is going back about ten/twelve years or something when I played gu*tar. A few of my friends played instruments and we had a big party coming up (hired venue) and decided to play as a band with me doing some rhythm guitar. I'd relunctantly agreed to do it - because well, basically I was terrified about playing in front of everyone I knew. So shitting my pants I get up there and we launch into the first song... within about two chords the strap comes off, I drop the guitar and the fall wrecks the tuning pegs. No spare instruments. That's me done for the night. So over to the bar to enjoy the rest of the gig with a small feeling of shame and some feelings of relief.

Am I right in assuming the SPDIF method would only be a single stereo output so you'd be applying an effect to the whole song? I've never used any of my SPDIF connections before. Whereas the FX Teleport method would allow you to run different effects on different tracks of course. I only used it once but had no problems with latency over two machines joined with a crossover ethernet cable. However, there are a lot of other factors in doing it this way which could cause latency issues.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='391614' date='Jan 26 2009, 12:12 PM']Two wrongs don't make a right, etc. [/quote] Lol. Good point.

I must admit, I never thought of doing it that way. Clever. The alternative would be to run the VSTs over a local network (if you have one). E.g. a simple crossover cable, or through a router and something like FX Teleport (http://www.fx-max.com/fxt/product.html)

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='391575' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:50 AM']+1. I'm a bit tired of the 'You're either for us or against us!' vibe coming from some people. Of course there's value in it. Some people do things differently, s'all.[/quote] Yet for the third time since I joined this board in December, I've seen the suggestion that studying music theory makes you stale or w***y (which is my new favourite way of describing it). Which is a little insulting. I was going to say that its a shame we lost track of the original bit of the question which asked how important it is [b]*to you*[/b]. But I accept that I'm partly responsible for that.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391560' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:39 AM']I haven't written off music theory. I've studied music theory myself. I find it interesting![/quote] Ah ok - sorry if I made an assumption about you there. [quote]I maintain that learning to read isn't for everyone. Call me a quitter or whatever, but I have enough challenges in my life without having to go home and beat myself up over not being able to read dots![/quote] If you don't want to then to be honest, that's good enough for me. I do read and love working that way; but that's me. I'm not trying to sell you anything. [quote]I do think the more theory and technical ability you have, the more likely you are to slip into w***ery. You do it because you can. I don't think its a coincedence that classically untrained musicians appeal to my pub rock sensibilites. The more technically focussed genres (I count Jazz and Progressive Metal in this club) do nothing for me.[/quote] I just can't blame music theory for that and it isn't logical to me to blame the downfall of musicians on their study. It seems far more plausible that when they achieved the ability to do so, then they followed their heart and produced something we don't like. Which is fair enough.

[quote name='AM1' post='391556' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:37 AM']Similarly, yesterday I bought the Bass Tab White Pages. There are some songs in there that I don't know - but was able to play straight off the score. Same goes for the songs I do know, it was quicker to play straight off the dots.[/quote] Hahahah - I bought that same book last week. Had the same experience with it actually.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391540' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:20 AM']No doubt there are a small number of classically trained musicians I like out there. There's got to be. But they're few and far between.[/quote] Since bands don't publish their "training" on the album sleeve notes, its pretty hard to know who has done what and what influence its had. The ones I picked out are bands I like that I happen to have read about - or in the case of Nightwish was lucky enough to get to speak to briefly. All people are saying here is that there's not evidence to write-off music theory; just as now most people don't write-off musicians just because they haven't studied it. Edit: As someone alluded to earlier, its much "cooler" to have had no music training and people are happy to state this. My personal opinion is that outside of classical music and jazz, people are not so inclined to say that they've studied music theory or are classically trained.

You won't like them - but I know at least three members of Nightwish have formally studied music and music theory (either at conservatoires or college/uni). (Thanks to Vic for reminding me of that one)

Do you happen to like Apocalyptica? All classically trained obviously.

Lol. I *will* find someone you like even if it kills me. John Cale from The Velvet Underground? Pretty important in punk rock history and studied music at university.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391525' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:07 AM']Thank you for proving my point.[/quote] Because you don't like Radiohead then that proves your point? They're not exactly small time and his CV reads like a dream for most musicians. What are you looking for here exactly? Define 'great' and I'll have another think.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391495' date='Jan 26 2009, 10:47 AM']Please point me in the direction of a formally trained musician who is currently producing great music.[/quote] Great depends on your tastes but the first one I can think of - Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. Classically trained. Not 100% what you mean by 'formally'. Here's his intro from Wikipedia. Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood[1] (born 5 November 1971) is a BAFTA and Grammy-nominated musician and composer-in-residence for the BBC, best known as a member of English alternative rock group Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as a guitarist and keyboard player. He is the younger brother of fellow Radiohead member Colin Greenwood. In addition to guitar and keyboard instruments he plays viola, xylophone, glockenspiel, ondes Martenot, banjo, harmonica and drums. He also does work on the electronic side of Radiohead, working on computer-generated sounds and sampling. He was ranked number 59 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[2] Greenwood is the principal songwriter of a number of Radiohead's songs including "The Tourist," "Life in a Glasshouse" and "A Wolf at the Door."

What a nice guy - so easy to deal with. And he sent the pedal out very quickly and safely packaged. A star!

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391207' date='Jan 25 2009, 08:39 PM']As an aside, I do believe the more technically proffecient and steaped in theory you become, the more w***y your music becomes. That's why so many technically great musicians are only liked by other musicians. They lose sight of what makes a great tune.[/quote] Maybe their natural inkling was to make w***y music but it wasn't until they learned some theory that they understood how to do it? I've never seen any evidence (beyond speculation) that a knowledge of music theory makes you play like a tit. It often surprises me when I come across videos / video lessons etc. from established metal (particularly thrash and black metal guitarists) as to how much theory they do seem to know. A personal example (which obviously counts for nothing, but interests me nonetheless) - my old guitar teacher many years ago could waffle on for hours about the theory behind a simple riff but when I went to see him gig, he bashed out old-school punk style. As a side note, whilst I disagree with most of your points - I f'n hate jazz too.

Yup - Amplug. No idea how good they are though. My local only sells the gu*tar models. [url="http://www.dv247.com/invt/57462/"]http://www.dv247.com/invt/57462/[/url]

Just starting out so I really should be doing more than I am. Yeah I feel guilty. But I start lesssons soon so that'll up the ante and force me to play more - I always hated playing in front of a teacher when you can't do something properly.

I want one of his basses so bad. That punk rock battered bass is amazing. I can't play the intro to Sweet Child very well anyway so it'd be no great loss.

A friend of mine was just asking if I know of any unit that can play audio samples out and has footswitch triggers? Kinda like a row of switches that trigger a different sound sample - and some kind of bank switch thingy to move to another set of samples. I know how he could do it using a laptop, audio interface and midi controllers, but was wondering if anyone has ever seen something similar in a portable unit?

I suppose I'd class myself as an advocate of reading notation and studying music theory; not a zealot - happy to leave people to do what they want really. On the reading side, when paper is called for then I just plain prefer notation over tab. I love all the extra info (dynamics, rhythms etc.). Since I don't gig on any instrument, 90% of my song learning is done just for amusement - and after a day or two I'll probably never play that tune again. So I don't want to have to listen to the record ten thousand times to work out which bit of the song the tab "riff" refers to or what's being played and what the rhythms are. I don't need to commit that info to memory - being able to read the rhythm off the sheet is good enough. I've still got so much theory I need to make time for - but every bit I learn gives me new insight. It helps me when I try to write something and if I'm looking at a favourite musician/band then it isn't enough for me just to play what they've written - I want to know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, what the effects are on the audience, how it all combines with the other instruments. etc. I'm the kind of guy who also tracks my favourite musicians back through their influences to get that little bit more info. I want to take all that I like about them and make that some small part of me. *I* can't do that just by listening, I need to apply some analysis to it. *Phew* Bit of a release there.

I've always kinda liked punk (and psychobilly I lurve) but I'm really starting to get into noise punk lately. Have the pre-major label White Zombie stuff, Big Black, Helmet, early Sonic Youth etc. on my playlist at the minute.