leftybassman392

In my other job as a guitarist I had an American friend take me through some Latin stuff. He's a jazz player who specialises in South American music. It was a revelation! Looks so simple and sounds great when you do get it right, but takes more work than you'd think (as I'm sure Bilbo would confirm).

+1 to the tutor. (But then again I suppose I would say that, because I are one... ) Horses for courses as always, and different people respond to different methods. Any half decent tutor should be able to give you good guidance to get you started (even if you then decide to carry on with books). Generally speaking books are good at providing information, but not much cop at providing motivation or answering questions (which is something tutors aim provide as part of the service). Look around - there'll be plenty in your area. Good tip when calling around - when you talk to a tutor, make a mental note of how much time they spend talking about you, and how much about themselves (remember that you're the paying customer... ).

Could help noticing they were a bit coy about lefties, despite being asked several times...

Might be an idea to ask the mods to move it over to the 'Repairs and Technical Issues' forum.

Anyone able to have a stab at correcting the colour cast? Assuming the OP doesn't mind, of course...

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='604951' date='Sep 21 2009, 08:45 PM']I love pedantry. Let's have some more.[/quote] See my later edit in my last post - I wasn't going to bother, but hey!

[quote name='Earbrass' post='604445' date='Sep 21 2009, 12:52 PM']<Pedant alert> That should be '[b]harmonia[/b]', rather than '[b]armonia[/b]' if you want an accurate transliteration, as the breathing on the alpha is rough, not smooth. </Pedant alert>[/quote] Quite right! I'll try to be more careful in future. Edit added later: Actually, if we're being [i][b]really [/b][/i]pedantic about it, the English 'h' sound is fairly definite, whereas the Greek sound is more of a gutteral hiss uttered as you enunciate the vowel. I could argue that I was after an accurate translation of the spelling rather than the sound - but I won't

I'd be keen to ask whoever said that what they think qualifies something as a standard. I have a collection that includes both 4's and 5's, all of which I enjoy playing and all of which have a purpose. Personally I believe talking about standards smacks of partisanship, which IME tends to be counterproductive in this type of debate - all too often you get a 'debate' that descends into a slanging match. If you must have a standard however, I guess I'd have to go for The Precision Bass (you decide how many strings you want on it )

Things are on hold for a few days as I have Swine Flu. Looks like my wife has it as well so things will be pretty quiet around the leftybassman household this week. Touch wood mine seems to be fairly mild so far and with luck I should have the next article ready for next weekend, possibly early the following week depending on how Mrs. bassman is.

Taking up SB26354's point with some practical examples that you can play on a guitar or keyboard: The most important chords in any sequence are the I IV and V (In C major that would be C, F, G in that order). If you want to know how modal forms sound you could try the following chord sequences: Ionian Mode (Major Scale) - C or Cmaj7; F or Fmaj7; G or G7 Dorian Mode - Dm or Dm7; G or G7; Am or Am7 Phrygian Mode - Em or Em7; Am or Am7; Bmb5 or Bm7b5 (play strings 2 - 5 on a guitar like a fretted Bm7 but with the 4th string note dropped to 3rd fret) Lydian Mode - F or Fmaj7; Bmb5 or Bm7b5; C or Cmaj7 Mixolydian Mode - G or G7; C or Cmaj7; Dm or Dm7 Aeolian Mode (Natural Minor) - Am or Am7; Dm or Dm7; Em or Em7 Locrian Mode - Bmb5 or Bm7b5; Em or Em7; F or Fmaj7 (not used much... when you play these chords you'll realise why! ) (You'll need to play with them a bit - once through doesn't fully capture their different personalities) The other scales you'll commonly meet are the Harmonic Minor and the Melodic Minor. These are both different from any of the above, especially when used by modern players. Each has its own set of Modes. In fact modes of the Melodic Minor are popular with purveyors of what might be termed 'modern' Jazz.

[quote name='simon1964' post='600462' date='Sep 16 2009, 04:59 PM']I understand the point here, but it must be the case that there are intruments (fretless bass, trombone etc) where you can slide between two semitones, even using the terminolgy of western music? ie I can slide from F# and G, and if I do I am playing at a pitch between those two tones. Its just that Western Music doesn't have a name for them?![/quote] There is a way of doing it but it's kind of cumbersome and not really a going concern in live performance, but.... Using Equal Temperament tuning, each note in the scale is specified using something called cents, with each note at the centre of a band of + or - 50 cents (if you have an electronic tuner, check out the markings). To get microtonal tunings (which is what they're more accurately called) just tune up or down the required number of cents from the centre position. If you needed to write them down, I don't think there is a universal method, but what you could do is write the nearest ET note identity then add the number of cents up or down. Example: in the key of Am (which is used a lot in Blues playing) there's a blue note between the flat third C and the major third (C#). I find I get the best sound by bending up from C to just short of the C#. You might write it as C#[sub]-20[/sub] I did say it wasn't user friendly...

[quote name='ironside1966' post='599593' date='Sep 15 2009, 08:54 PM']It's called a quarter tone, there are even music written in quarter tones.[/quote] Yup, that's it. Easy to do on a fretless or EUB but a bit trickier on a fretted bass. Don't know the song but the easiest way in general is to do a small string bend. Picking up sdgrsr400's point, the musical effect is somewhat similar to the 'blue note' that guitarists often use in playing, er, Blues. (Commonest is to play a flat third and bend up just shy of the major third, but there are several blue notes in an octave - the object is always to land somewhere between two fretted notes by playing the lower fret position and bending.) Like the leading note technique, it produces a very satisfying musical sound once you can do it properly.

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='597686' date='Sep 13 2009, 08:57 PM']Hi Andy Yes I'm finding, and mostly understanding ! (But it makes my brain hurt a little !) I've performed many contemporary (classical) pieces that require quarter tone interval playing and its always hard for us modern musicians not to just think of it as being out of tune. However, having also worked with Indian Carnatic musos, I know just how effective it can be in the right setting. One question: how do the words " chromatic and enharmonic " end up describing these genus ? Diatonic I can understand, but not these first 2. Maybe I just don't really understand their original meaning. Keep up the great work Andy ! The Major[/quote] Major: Got a bit of an update for you. The words have to be deciphered from their original greek meanings, and to say the least there are some conflicting views! Diatonic stems from an original Greek word [b]Diatonos[/b], for which the generally accepted translation is 'through the tones'. Although there are in fact several ways of interpreting this phrase, the one that seems to make the most sense (to me at least) is that it refers to the consecutive whole tones that form the first two intervals in the Tetrachord. There is a slight problem with this interpretation, which is that the Diatonic Tetrachord didn't require two exact tones in the modern sense - however it was a common form of the genus and so appeals to commonsense. Chromatic stems from the Greek [b]Kromatica[/b], which has a root of [b]Kroma[/b], which translates as 'complexion' or (more commonly) 'colour'. Pinning down an exact interpretation of this is a little more tricky, but again the explanation that makes most sense to me is to do with the notion that there were known to be several different versions of the Chromatic genus in common use during the Greek Classical period, which could give rise to the idea that it was a genus that had, or allowed, several different complexions - difficulty with this is the question of how a term normally used to describe a visual phenomenon came to be used to describe sounds. Enharmonic - the origins of this are pretty much lost in the mists of time I'm afraid. The word is generally agreed to come from two Greek originals, namely [b]en[/b], which translates as 'in'; and '[b]armonia[/b]', which has a surprisingly large range of translations depending on context, but using commonsense as a guide it would seem that a good one to use here is'harmony' (yes I know it looks obvious when you say it like that, but the original as used by the Ancient Greeks really did have numerous meanings). Hence we get 'in harmony'. The main problem with this (as you won't need telling but I'm going to say it anyway), is that the enharmonic genus is easily the least 'in harmony' of the lot! At this point my research kind of peters out although one source toys around a bit with some of the other contexts but doesn't really improve on this translation. I'm sure I'm going to regret saying this, but I hope that helps (for what it's worth)

For those of you following the thread, the third article in the series, on the elements of Greek rhythm, has been posted in the sticky. Apologies for the delay .... I'm afraid there might be some gaps between articles for the next couple of weeks while my work pattern settles down. In the meantime, enjoy! As always, questions & comments welcome.

Third Installment Notation & Rhythm Preliminaries Most of the basic rhythmic concepts we take for granted in writing or reading music were well known to the Ancient Greeks. Note values, bars, time signatures, rhythmic phrasing, tempo and rests (but, importantly, not accents) all had their equivalents in the music of the period – albeit with different names. As always though, there are a number of key differences that we will need to discuss. Bars and beats On a bass players' forum it is reasonable to expect most people reading this topic to have a well developed sense of rhythm. However complex our rhythm playing gets though, it depends largely on one fundamental notion – the time signature. (Note: accenting and tempo are important considerations as well since since both have a significant bearing on the rhythmic feel of a piece, but for the time being I'm going to put them on the back burner so that we can focus on where the notes fall within the rhythm.) Once you have a time signature you have bars of a fixed length, and once you have bars you can then start subdividing them – and hence we get rhythm. By inserting a combination of notes and rests into the bar up to the total number of beats indicated by the time signature we give the bar it's rhythmic character. In this sense it has the status of an empty box into which the notes and rests are inserted. Contemporary music theory defines 7 note values (whole notes down to 64th notes), plus numerous variations (dotted notes, various odd beat subdivisions, etc.). The number of different ways these notes and rests can be organised into even a single bar of common time is staggeringly large. This in turn permits highly complex and intricate rhythms to be generated. In essence, the limits of what can be achieved in this regard have more to do with our ability to imagine the notes than with the capacity of the notation system to record them. (Note: Despite these facts, rhythms used in real music tend to be relatively straightforward and somewhat repetitive, which remains true almost independently of the style of music being written – the opening sequence of Beethoven's fifth symphony, for example, is a very simple and highly repetitive sequence of bars, as is the main riff to the Gary Moore tune 'Parisienne Walkways'. This is done at least partly to engage the listener – music would have little point if the people it was intended for were unable to fathom what was going on! In this respect typical modern rhythms have much in common with the rhythms used by the Greeks.) Syllables and Foots (or is that Feet?) Musicians in Ancient Greece had to work with different rules. For them, musical instruments had a subordinate role – the job of the musician was to reinforce and support poetic declamation, singing, dancing, or marching. (Note: there is evidence that there was a class of 'specialist' musicians even in Ancient Greece – virtuoso players known for their skill on their instruments; but such examples were relatively rare. Most musicians knew their place!) The notation system they developed is a reflection of this situation. The best way to understand Greek music notation is to relate it to the many spoken or sung music forms that it was the player's job to support. Instead of beats and bars, Greek musicians thought in Syllables and Foots. The Greek language in the Ancient period was spoken using a very simple syllabic rhythm – simply put there were long syllables and short syllables, organised in such a way that the long syllable was generally around twice the length of the short one (in practice there were variations in this, but the basic point remains valid). It is possible to find this in the structure of the Greek alphabet, which contains the letters Omicron (literally, short o, as in 'hot') and Omega (literally, long o, roughly equivalent to the double-o sound in modern English, as in 'hoot') – vowel sounds, then as now, have a key role in syllabic structure. A simple example will help I think. In what follows I am going to make the long syllable equivalent to a modern crochet, and a short syllable equivalent to a quaver. (Note: as happens from time to time, this scheme simplifies the situation somewhat in order to make the point.) Let's take the first line of the well known Christmas carol 'Jingle Bells':- As sung: Jin - gle bells, jin - gle bells, jin - gle all the way Note values: quaver quaver crochet quaver quaver crochet quaver quaver quaver quaver minim Greek notation: short short long short short long short short short short long pause Notice particularly what happens at the end of the line – in modern notation the last note of this line would normally be rendered as either a minim or a tied crochet pair. In Greek notation there was no such thing as a tie, and neither was there a direct syllabic equivalent to the minim. The notation would have either contained a pause (only ever used at the end of a line – leaving pauses in the middle of a line of Greek verse would have interrupted the natural flow); or simply missed the last long syllable off altogether, leaving what we would see as a bar of 3:4 at the end of the line. (Because Greek musicians were often following the natural flow of speech or song in long and short syllables, variations of this kind were more common than they are in modern music writing – the notion of a fixed time signature that the musical information is subsequently slotted into is a more recent development in music notation, and would have seemed a bit strange to a musician from this period. Although the end result can look – and sound – very similar, the thought process behind it would have been somewhat different.) The Greek equivalent of the bar was called a Foot, which referred quite literally to the rise and fall of the foot in counting time. A single sequence of raising and lowering the foot constituted the Greek equivalent of the modern bar or measure. However, the important difference between the two concepts is that counting time was for the Greeks a consequence of following speech or singing patterns, which in turn meant that it was the spoken or sung rhythm that the musician depended on to derive his or her playing sequence. The Foot was primarily a way of breaking up the pattern into convenient footfalls – in essence the music was there already; but since poets and singers did not normally feel the need to punctuate their work, the markings were developed as a form of punctuation for the benefit of the accompanists. (In effect it was the reverse of the way we do it today.) (Note: In reading this account, it might help to bear in mind that accents of the type used as part of modern speech (and which are of course an essential element in modern rhythmic playing) were not used to anything like the same degree in Ancient Greece, certainly not in their music making. In trying to get your head round Ancient Greek rhythmic playing it might help to think about the way liturgical texts are 'sung' in many types of formal religious observance - each line of the liturgy is chanted rather than sung in the normal sense, with little or no rhythmic modulation.) Rhythmic variations All of the above makes it appear that all Greek music was played in the same monotonous 2:4 rhythm. Although something akin to a modern 2-time rhythm was very common in this music, there were many variations on the basic idea. I'll leave the details to a later article, but for now suffice it to say that despite being an activity designed to support and underpin other activities such as singing, dancing and poetic declamation, there were nevertheless plenty of opportunities to express oneself in different ways according to the nature of the activity the musician was involved in – for example music to be played at a sacred ceremony would have had to be very different from the music played at a drunken orgy! As always, I hope this gives you food for thought, and if you have any questions please feel free to PM me or post into the other thread. The next article will start to look more closely at how the Greeks developed and used scales. See you next time.

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='597686' date='Sep 13 2009, 08:57 PM']Hi Andy Yes I'm finding, and mostly understanding ! (But it makes my brain hurt a little !) I've performed many contemporary (classical) pieces that require quarter tone interval playing and its always hard for us modern musicians not to just think of it as being out of tune. However, having also worked with Indian Carnatic musos, I know just how effective it can be in the right setting. One question: how do the words " chromatic and enharmonic " end up describing these genus ? Diatonic I can understand, but not these first 2. Maybe I just don't really understand their original meaning. Keep up the great work Andy ! The Major[/quote] I've seen a detailed explanation of that somewhere recently. I'll dig up the reference and post the details when I get a minute. Basically it's to do with literal references to colour - the chromatic tetrachord was seen as the 'colour' between the two extremes of diatonic and enharmonic. Can't accurately recall off the top of my head how the other two came to be so named, but I'll find out for you.

I like the idea of a general music discussion forum, but perhaps with a slightly more specific title - how about 'General Music Discussion'? I can see some of the less alert members using a 'General Discussion' forum for, er, general discussion - you know, like you would at the pub after a couple of beers...speaking of which...

Just a quick note to let you know that the next article, on basic rhythm and notation, is in the pipeline and will be appearing shortly. Unfortunately this has been a very busy week for me as I prepare for the start of my new teaching programme for the autumn session, which has meant that I haven't had the time to devote to this work as I would have liked. Apologies for the delay - once the new term gets under way things should settle down a bit. Apologies if you've been searching for it in vain.

It's now Thursday, and I haven't yet had anyone complain about anything. May I assume that everybody concerned is:- a. finding; b. understanding what I'm posting to the sticky? (If anyone's finding it overly easy at this stage, don't worry - it's gonna get harder soon enough There will be some Maths to do in a couple of weeks )

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='593195' date='Sep 8 2009, 07:29 PM']I hope I didn't give the impression I was against the low tone, that's why I'm a bass player [/quote] Actually I was hoping that a few others (who shall remain nameless but you know who you are ) might have piped up as well - sort of shared responsibility... should have known better!

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='593166' date='Sep 8 2009, 06:49 PM']I bet the tone knob on that bass doesn't go lower than the tone of this thread.[/quote] Guilty as charged.

[quote name='cocco' post='593112' date='Sep 8 2009, 05:51 PM']Id rather do Jade Goody[/quote] ... which is more than her husband can say...

Can't see this appearing at a gig anywhere near me anytime soon. Anyone with enough moolah to get this and not notice the hole in their bank account will:- a. not need to use it to earn their living; b. not want the great unwashed to have any chance of getting their sweaty mitts on it; c. deserve it. And you know what? They can keep it! Or better yet donate it to a worthy cause - ideas on this thread please...

[quote name='Boneless' post='539128' date='Jul 13 2009, 09:53 AM']But aren't drivers supposed to sound better if feeded an amount of power closer to their RMS rating? In other words, if you have a 4x10" with 150W RMS drivers (600W total), wouldn't they respond better with 200W instead of 50W? Or does it depend on the driver? I find that my Ashdown 4x10" needs to be kind of cranked to start sounding "alive". Same thing for the Ampeg 8x10", there was a gig where I had a Peavey head + Ampeg 8x10" as a backline, and I had to keep the volume really down for several reasons (but REALLY low, most probably under 50W), and my tone was extremely dull. And trying to compensate with EQ was useless, since the cab seemed not to budge from that lifeless tone.[/quote] Two things to consider:- 1. As the SPL drops, your hearing gets progessively less sensitive to very high and very low frequencies - the science is called audiometry. HiFi amps, especially older ones, often have a feature called a loudness control, which progressively boosts extreme treble & bass as you turn the wick down. 2. As signal level increases, loudspeakers progressively distort. Manufacturers deliberately exploit this when they design cabinets, especially guitar and bass cabinets. As you turn the wick up, the sound character changes. Something very similar is built into the design of audio enhancers & exciters (the main difference being that the distortion is designed into the electronics, rather than coming out through the speaker). Hope this helps. Andy

+1 for the point about EV845's. I've had a set for a few years and would definitely recommend them. Also they have a SC response pattern so should be a bit easier to place wrt stage monitors. As someone said earlier, everybody's got their own opinion, and it may come down to borrowing a couple of each and trying them out. I live in Northampton and am not gigging right now so you're welcome to borrow mine. Drop me a PM if you'd like to.