AdamWoodBass

Love these! The last one sounds like the beat from a Mark Ronson tune.

As far as I know yeah but I dunno who the agent is. It's all being sorted out by a drummer who was offered the gig but couldn't do it cos of other gigs but he'd already agreed to put the band together. The only member he can't pin down is a guitarist which is a real shame cos if he doesn't the gig won't happen.

Not useful I know but have you seen the "scorch" system that comes with sib 4? You can actually scan a piece of sheet music and it'll convert it into a fully editable sib file! There were also roumors of a sib program in which you could upload an mp3 and it would convert it into a full arrangement but I don't know if they ever pulled it off. Mad technology!

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='425239' date='Mar 4 2009, 04:18 PM']For the record, I have not heard Trip Wamsley. I will look him up tonight (only limited internet access at work).[/quote] He was at Bass Day UK a few years ago and just blew me away. Just really different and eclectic (sp?? hmm whiskey is baaaaad!! Oh sh*t it's a thursday night too!) Anywho, this just reminded me of his fretless playing on a tune I can't remember the name of. Dead good!

I really like this! Nicely written, nicely recorded just generally nice! Nice like a big fat nice thing! Seriously though, good luck to you guys. I got really fed up of the "originals band" thing a while ago but to be fair none of the bands I was in sounded as good as this lol! Jazz and funk are my mistresses now though, I don't really miss playing rock but I still lurve listening to it! Ad

I need to find a guitarist who can play most styles of music, sing and also read music! This is to complete the line up for a mediteranian (sp?!?) cruise sailing on 27th March for one month. If you're in the North West it would be helpful but not essential. If you know of anyone or indeed if you yourself fit the bill please get in touch. You can PM me on here or you can email me at [email protected]. All accomodation and food is paid for, all you need to pay for is your beer (and did I mention its about 80p a pint?!?!) You'll earn about £325 a week and not to mention have the time of your life! Cheers Ad

Just had a pep talk from my future dad in law (the guitarist in my youtube post in the recordings forum). He basically sat me down and said I was mad to not take the gig, he said 'you CAN read, you're just telling yourself you can't because this is the first time you've been offered a gig like this'. To cut a long story short I've just phoned the fixer for the band and taken the gig! It's not confirmed yet as they still need a guitarist who can sing, read and of course play (HINT!!! Does anyone know someone who might be up to the gig in the North West area?!?!?!?) If it's all going ahead we sail for a month on the 27th of this month (it's now just a month instead of three months). Honestly guys if you know of any guitarists who can play most styles of music but more importantly can sing, read and would be available for a month as of the 27th March pleeeeeeeeease PM me with details! Cheers Ad

Just been down to the library and borrowed the Weather Report Forcats: Tomorrow boxed set. It's sooooooooo good!

Teen Town, got it to a decent standard yesterday, just trying to build up speed in the solo at the end. 2 years of working on it, getting bored and frustrated with it and picking it up again a few days later. Worked it all out by ear though which I'm pretty chuffed about, didn't want to use a tab and couldn't find the sheet music.

Wise words Bilbo. Like I said, I can read but just not quick enough yet. That is a really big yet as well cos I'm really knuckling down on it now. At the end of the day I can be positive or negative about this: I can either think "Balls, just lost a dream gig" or I can think "Right, lesson learned. I know I'm capable of playing the stuff I just need to learn how to read the stuff!" It's also been good to hear a pro say "yeah, you know what I do want to work with you". I've been wanting to call myself a "pro" for a few years now and it feels like I'm slowly creeping into the realms of one day being able to do this for a living. I've learned a lot of tough lessons the hard way (in my opinion the best way to learn) and I'm just gonna put this down as another one: You can't be a "pro" if you can't read fly sh*t on the spot. Thats what I need to aspire to.

Try one of the new 2009 Mexican Fender Jazz or P Basses, they are fantastic! They sound and feel as good as if not better than an American Fender for about half the money. Fender realised that people really like the 60's style neck so they redesigned the new basses, got rid of that crappy S1 switch and gave them all a really nice stock setup. The hardware seems to be a lot less "budget" aswell. I've played about 4 of them in various different music shops now and they are just stunning, I just can't justify buying one with my wedding just round the corner (he says while weighing up whether it's worth being castrated or not! )

Deffinately worth it mate. There's 3 of them I think, one in 4/4, one in 3/4 and one in odd time sigs. They're designed for drummers but everythings in bass clef so it's really easy to relate as a bass player as it's all just one note stuff just in progressively more complicated rhythms. I got mine from amazon used and new for about a fiver plus p&p and I wouldn't have felt ripped off if I'd paid over £30 for it!

I've always found it to be quite easy to get gigs as I'm a fairly competant bass player, generally you find that guitarists are ten a penny but decent drummers and bass players are the hardest to find. I've also noticed that decent guitarists who actually have a theory background and don't just wiggle their fingers over a few licks they spent the last 10 years learning are very difficult to find too. It's basically cos kids think that bass is for failed guitarists and parents won't let their kids have a drum kit because of the noise so they learn guitar cos it's "cool" and never bother to learn how to actually play the instrument compentantly. Years later they've gotten really good at a handful of riffs they learned in their bedroom or a garage band and have all but lost the ability to try anything new. I've been working for a company called the Rock Project recently which aims to get kids into playing instruments instead of kicking round the streets and causing trouble. It's hard to break the mindset that bass is boring and is a "lesser" instrument but the thing that usually sells it is when you tell them "if you want to be in a band and get offered loads of gigs, learn how to play bass!" I also massively agree with Warwickhunt about learning keys. I'm not a very good piano player by anyones standard but I know a few keys players and they are very very difficult to pin down as they are always gigging.

Thanks for the website dude I'll take a look at that later today. I've been using the Louis Belson "Reading in 4/4" book and it's really helped me understand the concept of chopping the bar up into smaller chunks rather than trying to tackle the whole bar in one go. It's an amazing book and for anyone who doesn't know it I can't recommend it enough!

Teen Town is great but if you're only just starting to learn Jaco's stuff it will NOT be easy. I've been working on that one tune for about 2 years now and I'm only just starting to nail it cleanly. With Jaco there really isn't much in the way of easy stuff, if I were to recommend something to get you started learn the big band version of "The Chicken" with the "Soul Intro". If you're any good at playing harmonics you might want to try "Portrait of Tracey" but be warned it's quite difficult, again probably took me the best part of a year to get that one nailed. A really nice one if you can do false harmonics is "Birdland" from the Heavy Weather album, not too challanging but a lovely bass line. If you happen to be an amazing bass player you could always have a go at "Havona" but even The Yellowjacket's Jimmy Haslip struggled with this one (there's a really funny vid here [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKXeMj27jDg)"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKXeMj27jDg)[/url]

I'm totally gutted to say the least. A pro drummer really wants to work with me after seeing a vid of me on youtube. I was offered an amazing gig yesterday, a 3 month cruise in the mediteranian. I've had to turn it down because low and behold I'm a good enough player but not a good enough reader!!! Don't get me wrong I can read music but I'm just not quick enough yet, the gig required someone who could have the dots for show tunes put infront of them and and just do it. If it had been bog standard pop stuff I probably wouldnt have struggled but because it was show tunes with alsorts of time sig and key sig change madness I knew I wasn't up to it. Obviously I'm kicking myself but I know what I need to do now, forget any sort of social life and practice sight reading til my nose bleeds! The only saving grace from this situation is that this drummer runs 3 different bands and still wants to give me work, just won't be nice and sunny lol! I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation? If so how did you overcome the reading? Was it just plain old skool grafting or do you have some other tips to get better at reading faster? Much appreciated guys. Ad

Thanks for all the kind words guys. Actually we decided against a drummer for this project, makes it easier to do restaurants and the like as people aren't constantly asking if the drummer can "turn down" which I always find very funny! Hopefully this summer we'll be setting up our new project, affectionately known as "The Funk Project". Basically the same members of the trio here plus sax, keys and drums. Gonna be more sort of funk/jazz/fusion kind of stuff, probably some of our own arrangements of 70's/80's funk tunes and some of our own stuff. We've been talking about it for a few months now and we're basically just waiting til Vernon can slow down the teaching and do some more playing! A friend of ours owns a studio so we'll be able to get some decent quality stuff recorded for once!

I'm liking this, hearing a bit of Trip Wamsley in there.

Lol yeah it's just finding the time to use my girlfriends camera at the mo! The solo vids were done on my phone!

Really nice, obviously well rehearsed!

OldGit: I'm not sure if "Seatbelts" are one of the bands or just a band doing covers, I was wondering the same thing. According to the drummer who got me into it the band are a bunch of unheard of New York players, whether or not thats accurate I don't know. Shockwave: I've only watched one episode so I've not made my mind up whether I like it yet, I'll give it a few more and see how she goes!

Thanks dude!

Just remembered a couple more on youtube that I haven't posted on here: Skies of the millenium night (outro) by Sikth [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhazJwgVnCs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhazJwgVnCs[/url] Jazz chord sequence [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGTAano4PnI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGTAano4PnI[/url]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUXwb72GzQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUXwb72GzQ[/url] Vid from last summer at an outdoor hotel gig. A couple of standards and a really dodgey bass solo! It was so hot (black shirt was a reeeally bad choice!) The guitarist is Vernon Fuller who is my future Dad in law, seriously good guitarist. Jamie the trumpet player is only 16 and also silly good! And then there's little old me lol! Enjoy peeps Ad