leftybassman392

Thanks to those who responded to my offer of some insights into ancient music. I'm now very busy with the summer school followed by the holiday. I'll get back to you after the 15th. Cheers for now, Andy

Last time I even looked at one of those 'polls' it was for, I think, 'World's best Guitarist' or something. As I recall Noel Gallacher was about 9th, and Alan Holdsworth didn't make it onto the list. Told me everything I needed to know and I haven't gone near them since.

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='557655' date='Aug 1 2009, 11:02 AM']leftybassman - this is brilliant ! You put everything in easily understandable language - many thanks! Personally I would love to hear more of your knowledge on this subject (in small doses ideally, for my small brain) if you have the time and inclination. I would love to know more about: tetrachords / absolute pitch / scales in Ancient Greek music etc The Major[/quote] I love the Greeks! This kind of stuff bores most people to tears, but for me they represent the birth of Western civilisation - one of the most important cultures in the history of mankind. That applies to their music as much as anything else. This has the feel of quite a long discussion. If you'd like to PM me with your email address we can get things moving - won't have much time over the next couple of weeks though as I help to run a Blues Summer School at Northampton Uni next week, and then we're away on holiday. But we can get started at least. If anybody else is reading this and wants to get involved BTW then feel free to PM me as well. If enough people respond we may be able to set up something more formal. I'll have a bit of a think...

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='557395' date='Jul 31 2009, 08:03 PM']This is most interesting. Thank you for your contributions to this discussion. I was always under the impression that the Greek names for modes actually came directly from that Civilisation so to hear that they are medieval in origin is fascinating. It also makes sense when one listens to Plainsong and other church music (not that I do it regularly you understand!). My academic music study was rather enforced by Music College requirements as I was always more interested in playing, so there are gaps in my knowledge. You say that the Greeks didn't have our understanding of harmony. Surely that is an understatement ? I have always believed that music in Ancient Greek times was purely melodic. The playing of more than 1 note at a time (apart from the drone) surely came much later. What is your understanding on this ? The Major[/quote] Thanks for the compliment. I remember it as one the most enjoyable things I did in my whole degree. Just to spin the mode names out a bit more, the names we currently give to the modes actually correspond to early Greek tribes, which roughly speaking had scales intended to convey their tribal characteristics (opinions on exactly how this worked differ). The scales had no harmonic connection to each other in the way we like to think of modal structures today. I'm not really as well up on medieval music, but as far as I know the formalisation took place during the Middle ages - how they came to have the specific names assigned is most likely to do with diatonic approximations of the tribal scale structures the Medieval musicologists had available to them handed down from antiquity. So in a sense the modes are descended from Greek antiquity, but not in the way most people would imagine. As to harmony, it does seem to be the case that music from early Greek history was essentially melodic in character, although there is some evidence that the simultaneous playing of multiple notes was beginning to be observed by Plato, which basically dates it to the 4th century BC. What is worth noting is that although harmony in the modern sense was rare, the Greeks had a very sophisticated understanding of scales (which however looked very different from modern Diatonic scales) - actually scales in Ancient Greek music is quite a decent sized topic on it's own. The concept of a drone note is an interesting one, as it implies a tonal centre - the early equivalent of a modern musical key. Very common in (for example) Indian music, I'm not sure that it had much of a place in ancient Greece. Without getting into too much detail, all music was most likely restricted to a single octave (the Greeks had a good understanding of the notion of an Octave, a fifth and a fourth - their music was based on Tetrachords - but the mathematics used to construct the scales pretty much precluded any notion of multiple octaves). Because of this, and because Greek music put such a heavy emphasis on the concordant notes, the tonal centre would probably have been fairly obvious from the musical sequence. Also bear in mind that the Greeks had no notion of absolute pitch the way we do. As if all this isn't already hard enough, many of the words we use to describe music are modernisations of Greek originals - filtered through the Latin scholars from whom we get most of what we know. Trouble is, with few exceptions the original meanings of the words as understood at the time were different from the meanings we give them - in fact one of the hardest aspects of this whole area of study is being able to unload our modern musical training sufficiently to enable us to properly grasp what the ancient Greeks were actually on about! Hope this helps.

If you're really interested in modes as a topic there's loads of stuff on Wikipedia. Just type 'musical modes' or 'Ecclesiastical Modes' into the search engine. A related topic is to do with the intervals - if you try to construct scales the way the church did in the middle ages, it doesn't actually work all that well. I won't bore you with the details, but the method involves stack ratios on top of one another to create the notes of the scale. Problem is, however you do it you don't quite get an exact octave note (and there is a s**tload of stuff on this in Wikipedia - or you might want to try out Grove's dictionary of Music & Musicians at your local library). That makes it much harder to generate multi-octave harmonies 'cos they sound increasingly 'out of tune'. There's a bunch of other problems as well - modulation between keys, for example. Many people have tried to square the circle in different ways. The equal temperament scale we mostly use today is only one of them - Bach, for instance used a method called Well Temperament (hence 'The Well Tempered Clavier'). Equal temperament sacrifices some of the sonic purity of the intervals as generated using ratios for much improved utility. To achieve this it uses a mathematical formula that pretty much guarantees consistency across the entire range of your instrument - which is important when you start discussing modes because modes generated using the Ecclesiastical method (also called the cycle of fifths) are not interchangeable. Equal temperament makes that kind of thing much more manageable. I'll be happy to talk about it some more tomorrow but can I go to bed now please? -_- -_- -_-

At the risk of butting into an already well developed discussion, (and I'm aware that this is probably a little OT by this time,) perhaps I could put a bit of historical perspective into Major-Minor's excellent initial post. In my final undergraduate year as a Maths/Philosophy student I researched the topic of music in ancient Greece, and wrote a dissertation of my findings. All this was a long time ago I hasten to add, and the details are fairly cloudy, but the Greeks didn't think about music in the same way we do. They would have had no understanding of the notion of a mode at all (the word 'mode' is derived from the Latin word 'modus' and has no equivalent that I ever found in ancient greek writings). Their music (such as it was) was intimately tied up with their world view generally and their religious beliefs in particular. Folk music in the sense of casual music for the purpose of secular (non-religious) entertainment probably did not exist (despite what Hollywood would like you to believe). As I understand it (and someone may care to correct me on this) the modes we use today are medieval in origin, set down (like everything else in that period) by the church - in fact musicologists tend to call them the Ecclesiastical Modes for that reason. The Greeks did not have anything like our understanding of musical harmony - their approach was essentially mathematical in its nature, and the notes heard were simply a consequence of the divisions created by ancient Greek Proportion Theory - roughly the same as the modern notion of Ratio. Most of the important work from that period was done by the Pythagorean religious cult, but also appeared in the work of others such as Plato ( check out The Timaeus). The Greek names given to the modes are almost certainly to do with the fact that the Medieval Church had a religious philosophy taken almost entirely from ancient Greek Philosophy (particularly the work of Aristotle). If anybody's still awake I'd be happy to discuss it further .....

[quote name='OldGit' post='556388' date='Jul 30 2009, 05:46 PM']I'd not worry about it. It's a bit off to not ask you but if it's get in a dep or cancel then I'd go with depping every time.[/quote] I agree. Depping is part of the business. Cancelling a gig for a reason the promoter won't understand will do none of you any good. Don't know if you have serious plans to be a pro, but if you do you need to get used to it. It's ok to have a life outside the business.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='555998' date='Jul 30 2009, 11:21 AM']A ha!, I knew it. Nice one Cyril. [/quote] Fank yoo Squire.

I use them too and have never had problems with strings snapping. Got a dead A string once but that's about it.

[quote name='wildus' post='555692' date='Jul 29 2009, 10:42 PM']Don't like headless basses but this looks the buisness[/quote] Thanks mate. It's my second headless - love the smallness and balance (I think it's just the old guitarist in me coming out).

[quote name='Mrs Tinman' post='555413' date='Jul 29 2009, 06:31 PM']I only clicked on this because I thought it said 'amazing fretless bass pants' [/quote] Sounds like you need a holiday. I hear Bali's very nice around late September...

Recently took delivery of this little number from Whynot. Sounds as good as it looks. [attachment=29926:DSCF0049_1.jpg] [attachment=29927:DSCF0050_1.jpg] [attachment=29928:DSCF0051_1.jpg]

That's just lovely! I have a question about the pickups. I'll be taking delivery of a new Jazz made by Regenerate Guitar Works in the US (it's the honeyburst lefty on their website). It's fitted with (I think) identical pickups to yours. Not familiar with them so a little unsure what exactly it's going to sound like. I have a Mexican Jazz upgraded with Fender's own vintage noiseless pups. Any info you can provide by way of comparison would be greatly appreciated. RGW has a Norstrand active as well FWIW. TIA Andy

The Rockshool exams are an offshoot of that series. If I remember correctly Alan Limbrick (of Guitar Institute fame) was also one of he co-founders. In fact Deirdre Cartwright continues to be very active with the Rockschool exam series, as does Henry himself.

[quote name='fusionbassist1' post='554233' date='Jul 28 2009, 06:03 PM']I guess i now know what must be done I meant 'anal' in terms of how meticulous i need to be in terms of collecting and keeping receipts and for those kinds of savings it is clearly worth doing! How does it work in terms of paying 'your' accountant as in is it an annual thing or a pay-them-when-you-use-them kind of basis?[/quote] Freelance accountants are self employed like you, so you pay them for the work they do

[quote name='OldGit' post='554136' date='Jul 28 2009, 04:29 PM']You'll need to decide on a start date - ask your accountant when But if you have a drawer full of receipts then you probably want to hang on to this year's and especially any for the hardware you are using - bass gear, computer, outlandish stage wardrobe, models of Stonehenge, special knobs that go up to 11, car, etc as these can be taken into consideration and written off over the years, even if you owned them before.[/quote] Excellent point. You don't need to shell out for new gear when you start the business cos your existing gear can be included when you do start up. Oh, and one more thing - keeping receipts isn't anal - it's business. Chant it to yourself before you go to bed every night. Example; my business related fuel receipts for a year add up to nearly £1500. By claiming it I reduce my net profits by £1500 and my tax bill by around £300. Think about it.

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='553999' date='Jul 28 2009, 02:39 PM']A good accountant will pay for themselves. You'll almost certainly know someone who has an accountant so you can get a personal recommendation. As long as you do all the sorting and adding up donkey work yourself your tax affairs should be simple, so it won't even cost much.[/quote] +1 to that. Best to make sure you get someone who understands the music business (check out OldGit's post above). One other thing - accountants are not all equal. I had a dozy mare once who managed to lose my entire accounts for a year. Eventually found them behind the sofa or something!! As has already been said, word of mouth is usually a good option.

[quote name='fusionbassist1' post='553958' date='Jul 28 2009, 02:07 PM']Sorry to be an absolute arse but I'd appreciate some clarification of this rather scary yet real threat to the lining of my pockets...... I'm 18 (no idea if this makes a difference) and this month have ran into money that's (and i can't state this propperly [b]without[/b] sounding like an arse) a lot higher than the average monthly wage in Wales purely through playing bass on various sessions, some of which for TV. I don't have any other source of income what so ever and although this has been an amazing month I am constantly earning some kind of money from music by doing gigs but have been told by some people that it has to be regular or over some kind of bracket etc. If i've got what i've read correct I should always be keeping receipts of anything music-related and records of my fees etc in fear of mr taxman claiming I owe him a hillarious amount due to unannounced earnings? If so (and forgive my absolute lack of knowledge on the topic) wouldn't it be easier to just declare all my earnings and set my self up as a self-employed musician and take the whole tax on the chin? And if i [b]did[/b] do that i would then be able to claim musical instruments etc as a working expense with an allowance of up to £50,000 a year with me getting a tax return from these purchases periodically over a period of years. OldGit has kindly posted a list of things that could be claimed as expense (cheers!) I generally like to think i know the whole PRS side of things and stuff like that but this is something i've never had to propperly think about and people seem to just go "oh it'll be fine no one will know" in a fairly flippant manner when I try to get the jist of just what's going on in regards to tax :/ Any clarification would be really, really appreciated.[/quote] Any of a whole bunch of people that frequent this place can answer this for you, but since I seem to have got here first I'll make a start:- If you are earning money (ANY significant money) by playing your instrument then you need to get yourself set up as a self-employed musician - I believe I'm still correct in saying that you should normally declare yourself as a sole trader. There are documents on the HMRC website that tell you how to do this. It's important that you do it fairly soon if you plan a career as a musician. Others will be able to give you more details about why it's important. As a self employed person you will get paid for the work you do. This is income. You will incur costs in carrying out your business. This is expenditure. Your expenditure can be offset against your income - there are two principal types: 1. revenue expenditure (broadly speaking, day-to-day costs such as fuel, strings, etc.); and 2. capital expenditure (broadly speaking, purchase costs of major items you need to conduct your business such as basses, amps & other large cost items.) How you do this can look incredibly complex if you read too many HMRC documents, but the basic idea is simple - if it's expensive and/or essential to your business then it's a capital item (you can't really be a bassist without a bass...), and if it's less expensive and incurred progressively over a period of time (fuel for your car for example) then it's a revenue item. There is a bit of a grey area on certain kinds of things, but in time you'll figure it out. When you subtract all your expenses from your income what you have left is your profit. This is taxable. Whether you actually pay tax depends what your profit is. The calculation is done annually. Others will no doubt fill in the gaps and correct the errors of detail that I've no doubt made.

Bought two instruments from Alan recently. Would do so again without hesitation. Great bloke and a doddle to deal with. Highly recommended.

Inserted by mistake in the wrong place - admin's please delete.

[quote name='Clarky' post='550180' date='Jul 24 2009, 01:40 PM']I've started my 11 year-old son Alfie on bass. Problem is he is left handed. Managed to track down a short-scale, lefty Precision-alike by SX from the US. Cost just over £100. Reasonably good quality too and the action is OK. Was teaching him 'Killing In the Name of' last night![/quote] You wanna buy my Lefty Jaydee for him - A snip at £800?