jude_b

I once got some good advice from a session player, along the lines of "You spend 10 years learning how to play and then the rest of your life learning what not to play." As others have said, you've got to got listen to a lot of different stuff to find out what's possible and then work out what you can do and then what you actually want to do. It's absolutely natural to decide that some of the stuff you've listened to whilst learning isn't very interesting after all. Some of the rubbish I've listened to because the bassline is interesting is downright embarrassing. I really hate the jazz-funk-light that a lot of technically gifted bass players seem to gravitate towards. To me it's musical dishwater - particularly when it's been created primarily to throw the spotlight on a bass playing virtuoso to the detriment of the music. Why is the tone of the bass horribly tinny quite often as in Alain Do-dah's video? I don't count the Jaco's output in this category as I think the majority (but certainly not all) of his playing fits in with the overall musical context - and it also helped that he played with some seriously talented people. I'm afraid that I still think Donna Lee is genius after hearing it for the first time first 20 years ago. I also think there's a point where there's only so much time and effort you want to put into technique (particularly when life starts getting in the way). My favourite bassline at the moment is to JB's Soul Power (Bootsy), it couldn't be simpler yet it's so effective and also strangely gets the baby off to sleep. Sorry, I've just nodded off myself reading back my posting.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='638503' date='Oct 27 2009, 09:20 PM']That is one of the most ditgusting displays of bass playing, ever.[/quote] I had always wondered who made the test-card music.

In teenage arguments with my metal loving friend about whether Mark King was better than Steve Harris, his main objection to Mark King was the height at which his bass was slung. He also used to cite Steve Harris's ability to "pretend shoot" the audience whilst playing as a major plus point, so these clearly weren't Newsnight Review level debates. Mark King was probably the reason I picked up a bass - not really because of his slap solos, but because some of his lines introduced me to (a sort of) funk. As others have said, this led on to other music and players. Talented chap too.

"i realize some of these are hard but i thought i better push myself instead of sticking to the easy stuff plus i have a lined fretless so its easy really... Any more suggestions?" > Looks like you're doing pretty well with the stuff you're learning - particularly if you can play Havona! > A final suggestion is to play along to the Cannonball Adderley version of Autumn Leaves on Somethin' Else - I learned it on the fretless (not particularly note for note - just improvising around the chord changes) - although I liked the bassline so much flogged my fretless and switched to upright!

A few suggestions: Ideal World - The Christians: not that keen on the song but this has a really nice fretless solo towards the end, which isn't too difficult to work out by ear. A Remark You Made - Weather Report: I realise this is a Jaco bassline, but he uses chords in an interesting way and there is also a nice melody line in there. On the Turning Away - Pink Floyd: I'm really only familiar with the Guy Pratt/live version on Delicate Sound of Thunder - the bassline on the verse when the bass comes in is really lovely. I agree that anything by Pino is worth working on and that Graceland by Paul Simon has some of my favourite fretless playing on it. Particularly in the sense that the playing fits the music so well. The bassline from Ramble On by Led Zep also works well on a fretless. River People by Weather Report (sorry, Jaco again) is also a good exercise in octaves and the closing groove is brilliant. Hope this helps. Going by the age of some of this stuff, it seems that the fretless has really gone out of fashion - I can't think of much recent material where a fretless is used. Oh, and if you can endure it, I seem to remember that The Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh also has a good fretless line on it - on second thoughts, I think that may be taking suffering for your art a little far.

Just to add that I think they're only open from 10-2 on Saturdays. They have a good, relatively unusual range of instruments/gear (unusual to me at least anyway). I played on the Sandberg JM4 they have in there at the moment whilst trying out a Phil Jones amp, and wanted to take it home with me there and then - an absolutely lovely bass.