The Funk

Oh, another thing. Dress the part.

Here's something noone tells you. Make sure you have at least 20 paying "fans" at the gig, otherwise you won't get booked to come back. The other thing is to make sure you make a mental note of everything that goes wrong at the gig so that you come up with ways of dealing with them at the next gig.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='249440' date='Jul 28 2008, 10:55 AM']I personally believe you [i]can[/i] work with someone to enhance their groove playing.[/quote] I'm in complete agreement with you on this one - and I think it's this one point that has me so worked up. I'd go one further and say that any teacher [i]must[/i] work with a student to enhance their groove playing and phrasing.

[quote name='Master blaster' post='249258' date='Jul 27 2008, 11:49 PM']ohh and dont wear sunglasses. it looks stupid... its not sunny and it dont look cool. thats a point why is it only bassists that wear sunglasses on stage. ive never worn mine on stage[/quote] When I wear mine I'll usually get one or two of my friends telling me it's sad but when I don't wear them I upset a few of the regulars. Wear them if you want to. They've suited people from John Lee Hooker to Layne Staley. Some people look like dorks with them on though.

[quote name='Sarah5string' post='249216' date='Jul 27 2008, 10:56 PM']Is piss taking and random shenanigans allowed?[/quote] Depends on the band! A healthy mix between being focused and being relaxed is what you really need. Whatever you need to do to get that balance right.

[quote name='Sarah5string' post='249213' date='Jul 27 2008, 10:55 PM']What do you mean can't hear anything. [/quote] When I started gigging I was amazed by just how appallingly bad the sound was onstage. Every gig - no matter where it is - I'm still just as amazed by how sh*t the sound always is onstage. You learn to adapt to it and listen out for the things you need to hear to stay in time/in tune/in the right part of the song.

[quote name='Sarah5string' post='249211' date='Jul 27 2008, 10:54 PM']any tips for the band practices leading up to the gig?[/quote] Keep it light and efficient. No need for any diva strops from anyone.

Don't freak out onstage when you realise you can't hear anything: yourself or the rest of the band. Just listen out for the snare drum/hi-hat and the lead vocalist. Don't be afraid to quickly, firmly and politely ask for more or less of whatever you need in the monitors after the first song on the night if the sound's all horrible. Chances are it'll be the cheap monitors and the sound engineer won't be able to do much to fix it - but it's worth piping up if there's a problem with levels.

Nice! Which one? Which one!?!

Thanks for your explanation. I must have misinterpreted what he was saying. But it still sounds like he's being facetious. I doubt Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey tell their students simply to groove. I know that John Schofield stresses the importance of phrasing and does everything he can to demonstrate different ways of phrasing the same line. This is a very useful exercise. The number of young musicians you see who can play all the right notes but just haven't developed their phrasing and can't groove and can't swing is frightening. If their teachers had spent some time tackling that aspect of their playing at the very beginning before racing ahead with their harmony and rhythm studies, then they shouldn't have that problem.

Are you telling me you [i]learnt[/i] to groove from reading and not from playing with/listening to other musicians and at times consciously working on it? The point I was making is that Jeff Berlin is a twat for suggesting that groove is not important and that you should learn to read instead. It's not an either/or thing. Learning to groove/swing is f***ing important as a member of the rhythm section. To suggest it isn't is not just wrong - it's bad advice for music students.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='247444' date='Jul 25 2008, 12:32 AM']About 22, I think.[/quote] I've heard more like 28. I am not a fan. Each to their own.

[quote name='Mcgiver69' post='248011' date='Jul 25 2008, 06:09 PM']Someone said that learning music doesn't teach you how to groove, well that is one of the most ludicrous statement I've seen, just think about 3 of your favourite players of all time and google a bit and you'll find that those guys learned music.[/quote] No, this is what I said. [quote name='The Funk' post='246576' date='Jul 24 2008, 04:44 AM']Noone is discouraging people from reading music by stressing the importance of groove. In the same way that learning how to groove will not teach you how to read music, reading music will never teach you how to groove.[/quote] And reading music will never teach you how to groove because groove is all about phrasing and that is not something which ever appears on a stave - and that is the reason why the best Classical musicians [i]are[/i] the best in their genre. If there are a thousand musicians who can all play the same notes from the same score, what makes the difference between them? Their phrasing. I am not saying that reading music is not a beneficial thing for many other aspects of your playing. What I am saying is that you will not learn how to groove from dots on a page.

[quote name='Soulfinger' post='246692' date='Jul 24 2008, 10:46 AM']Personally, I´d go for Transparent Walnut with a black pickguard and a maple fingerboard with pearl blocks. Yummy.[/quote] Yes! Or even a rosewood board with pearl blocks.

James Harries who is now... Lauren Harries [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Harries"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Harries[/url]

[quote name='Oscar South' post='247096' date='Jul 24 2008, 06:14 PM']could look at harmonic minor modes.[/quote] Melodic minor modes are more useful so look at those before harmonic minor modes... but before any of this, go look at dlloyd's thread.

Our own dlloyd started a thread in the theory section setting out the basics of music theory. He explains things very clearly. I'll go find the thread. EDIT: Here it is - [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=16422"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=16422[/url]

[quote name='Paul Cooke' post='247030' date='Jul 24 2008, 04:53 PM']you can't be skint... aren't you that snotty little Tory boy who outstaged Maggie Thatcher at one of the party conferences?[/quote] The boy who grew up to be a woman?

You could argue that composers who have a highly developed theoretical understanding, and geniuses who don't, both have the ability to express exactly what they're thinking/feeling through their composition. You could argue that that is playing from your soul. You could also argue that some other people compose by stumbling upon things - trial and error - or deploying old techniques or devices they're familiar with. This last category of composer could be someone with a highly developed theoretical understanding or someone with no theoretical understanding whatsoever. Either way, you'd think that this second group of composers would take longer to come up with great compositions or have more inconsistent output. In both groups of composers, you'd have people with theoretical knowledge and people without. So it's not theory or lack thereof which makes you a lazy or haphazard composer. Tom, it seems like you're worried that theory can in some way [i]block[/i] creativity. You haven't said so but it seems like that's what your main point is. Theory can't block creativity in the same way that lack of theory cannot. I think Jake may well have said that back on the first page. That's not agreeing to disagree. It's saying that everyone's musical path is different and everyone should have their own approach to it - what works for one person might not work for someone else. And to be fair, Tom, Alex and Jake (as well as many others) have all explicitly said that over the last few pages.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='246996' date='Jul 24 2008, 04:23 PM']I understand that, and I don't have a problem with it but.... I think this technique could lead to a "lazy" style of writing, where you rely on the tricks of former composers as learned from books/learned friends.[/quote] You're 100% right to be wary of that. A lot of people will want or try to work against clichéd resolutions like V-I but other people will use it in such a way that it just makes the song sound better. At the most basic level, we're all playing the same 12 notes. It's how you put them together that counts.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='246974' date='Jul 24 2008, 04:03 PM']Alex and Jake - I don't disagree with anything you've said in your last two posts, but I think that after so many pages of discussion someone should have at least explained to me how theory can help you write better songs, or how theory could help you "find the right chord" any quicker.[/quote] Music theory can help lay out to you the way different chords resolve to each other - or build up tension. You can "hear" it for yourself too. And just because someone lays it all out for you, it doesn't mean you can then always immediately "hear" it. But an example of how theory could help you find the right chord quicker is if you are playing a V chord and are wondering which chord to resolve to as the last chord in a sequence (or the first chord of the repeated sequence). Well, Classical theory, Jazz theory and the Blues tell you that you'd get a very strong resolution to the I chord. I don't know what they call it in Classical theory (perfect cadence?) but I do know how it works. That's the most basic example I can think of to answer your question. My understanding of harmony is not that well developed.

That sounds interesting. I'll do a little search and see what I can find.

[quote name='jakesbass' post='246932' date='Jul 24 2008, 03:03 PM']I feel you're allowing some words (not all) out of your bottom sir.[/quote] Ah, that's a good un!

[quote name='silddx' post='246890' date='Jul 24 2008, 02:17 PM']I thought suspended chords were neither major nor minor.[/quote] Because the 3rd is suspended. Therefore neither a minor 3rd nor major 3rd would sound all that great over it - unless that's what you're going for.

[quote name='Merton' post='246877' date='Jul 24 2008, 02:05 PM']To be honest the example I gave was 3 years ago and I'm buggered if I can remember the ins and outs of the rest of the harmony in the song. This particular riff occurred in the outro where (IMHO) a more simple root note pattern would've driven the song forward a lot better without any harmonic mess incurred by maj/min 3rds, suspensions or anything else. [/quote] I was trying to be a smart arse. My limited understanding of suspended chords is that they're chords over which you shouldn't play the 3rd. If you think (from memory) that both the minor and major 3rds sounded crap, then it sounds like you were right and maybe theory would have some kind of explanation to back you up.