Steve Dixon

just here to reiterate what the others have said.. if you're in a flat key, try to use flats, and in a sharp key, try sharps a couple of other things to throw out there... in a lot of cases, the score is there as a recipe for a musician to read, and bring forth some music meaning that your NUMBER ONE job as a score writer is to make it as easy as possible to read for the person tryng to play it... that's the thing that should inform all your scoring decisions, from beaming, tying to use of accidentals... So in G minor, your leading note will be F# not Gb, even though the key is flat, and you'd usually try to use flat accidentals which brings us to the other thing to consider... you might be tempted to use (for example) a B natural instead of a C flat in certain places, but if your underlying chord is Ab minor, then your 3rd has to be some kind of C how you decide between 'easy to read' and 'musically correct' is up to you.. most times it's obvious, occasionally it's not...

[quote name='BassoRidiculoso' post='1244639' date='May 25 2011, 07:14 PM']Slonimsky[/quote] that's what I thought... maybe someone should have told Nicolas Slonimsky he was wasting his time when all a proper composer needs is whatever they pull from their brain I thought it was a nifty little gadget that could help you practice arpeggios, or at the very least give you some melodic groupings to chew on... the POINT being that that particular configuration of notes didn't come from the composer's own brain so you guys never listen to any music that didn't come directly from your own heads? if you don't see the value in it, you can always say nothing, instead of treating it as an excuse to imply your 'serious composer' credentials

[quote name='Rich44' post='1239167' date='May 21 2011, 11:38 AM']I've pretty much always played exclusively fingerstyle, as I feel I can get more accuracy that way. However, there are some songs I want to play which i think would sound better with a pick, so its something I'd like to learn. I've tried a few times playing with a pick, I'm fine just playing down or upstrokes, but as soon as I try to alternate it all goes to pot. I struggle with catching the pick too much on the string with the upstrokes. Are there any tips on holding the pick, or just generally starting out with a pick that could help?[/quote] it's a big topic, but i'll just say this to start you off... anchor your picking hand on the bass.. don't just let it float freely.. that'll allow you to have more control over the movement of the pick try resting your ring finger and little finger of your picking hand on the bass body or lightly on the strings... try lightly resting the side of your hand near the bridge, and picking about 4-5 inches in from the saddles anchorage! no floating! guitarists can do it because they have tiny strings to tickle... we have to give every string an authoritative plunk, so anchor your hand and play every note like you mean it

[quote name='silddx' post='1238766' date='May 20 2011, 09:52 PM']You sir, are a scholar for mentioning my hero, Scott [/quote] hehe.. he's my hero too

[quote]Could it be that guitarists are more concerned with their playing skills and technique rather than constantly looking for some 'magic bullet' technology to do the job for them?[/quote] I think your generalisation was probably as wide of the mark as his in my experience, guitarists seem to be no less interested in finding a fantastic tone than bass players - I don't think there's much difference, in terms of intent here's what I think... broadly, there was a cutoff somewhere around the late 70's where guitar sounds kinda stopped evolving much... from 1960 to 1980 you have a massive broadening of the timbral pallette available to guitarists... you went from plinky plink strummy pleasant tones your grandma would like, to mega continent-flattening Marshall-stack skyscraper stand up next to a mountain and chop it down with the edge of my hand MASSIVE fire-breathing HUGE glorious absolutely blasphemic guitar sounds... and then that evolution pretty much stopped.. from 1980 to 2010 you don't see the huge changes in guitar sounds that the previous 20 years brought... so a current day guitarist will tend not to look for the most cutting edge technology, because well, the 'guitar sound' evolution has slowed to a bit of a trickle... a Les Paul through a JCM800 will do the job in a typical rock band today as well as it did 25 years ago if you look at electric bass, there wasn't that much of a huge timbral leap at any one time... there were no Jim Marshall types inventing amplifiers that sounded radically different to what had come before, and there were no Jimi Hendrixes of the bass who totally reinvented how people percieved the instrument (not even Jaco)... so the evolution of electric bass has been more a steady process of refinement than a bunch of revolutionary leaps.. that's why certain bass players like all the new tech.. there appears to still be room for evolution anyway, to relate it to the topic... a Fender through an SVT (for example) is an archetypal sound just like a Les Paul through a JCM800 or a Strat through a Fender Twin.. there's room at the cutting edge, but there's also something to be said for stuff that's been proven to work great

Did it in 1992 and 2002... It's a lot of fun and not especially hard to read. I'm not a monster reader and I managed it ok

this may or may not be of interest, but Frank Zappa often soloed over a static Dorian harmonic vamp... if you listen to the solos from City of Tiny Lites, or The Torture Never Stops, they use G dorian and A dorian respectively... well, there's loads of them.. dorian and mixolydian were his fave modal aromas for soloing... certainly later on in the 1980's so if you're interested in how you'd approach a static modal vamp in a jazz-rock kinda vein, you could do worse than listen to Scott Thunes' work on the Frank Zappa 'Guitar' album.. it's full of Dorian noodlings

I can only say why I play Fenders... won't hazard a guess why they're popular with lots of others, but some of these things might apply it's a balance of: [list] [*]I like the Fender Jazz sound.. both pickups on full - it works for me [*]they're relatively cheap [*]they don't need a lot of maintenance or fiddling with... keep the same string gauges and you can go for decades without having to mess with the truss rod, intonation etc [*]they're strong - you have to work flippin hard to damage a Fender bass... it's not like a Gibson where you look at it funny and the headstock snaps off [*]they're simple - just good simple engineering... they're like the AK-47 or Zippo lighter of instruments - popular because you can rely on them not to go wrong - which is down to good engineering. compare the fender bridge to the Rickenbacker 4003's... if you had to travel the world with ONE instrument, in a gig bag, that you take with you everywhere, and have to rely on it to plug in and WORK every night, what would choose for reliability in place of a Fender? A Gibson? A Rick? A super duper fancy wood boutique active jobbie? nope, you'd probably have the Fender because they take a beating & keep on ticking [*]heroes - many of my bass influences played Fenders - if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. At the very least I can't blame my gear [/list] well, that's me. you can do what you like

I dunno... I've had good & bad experiences with basswood bodied basses... which may or may not have been down to the wood itself I had a MIJ Fender Jazz, which was basswood, and it sounded fantastic... lots of lows, lots of growl, pretty light... caught dings a bit too easily, but not too bad but I also had an Aerodyne, which was basswood, and it was a shocker... no really guts in the low end, the body was ultra soft, very susceptible to dings, very light body and a wimpy sound... it sounded great in the shop dunno how much basswood was a factor in the Aerodyne being so bad - I think the fact that the bass was so light didn't help

here's what I find myself thinking... JayDee - this bloke wants to be Mark King Rickenbacker, Gibson - this guy will probably look cooler wearing it than he sounds Fender P - oh cool, I love hearing nothing but root notes all evening Fender Jazz - cool! this person has good taste in basses Sadowsky - in a Burnley pub? this person has more money than sense

if a bass player in another band asks me nicely if he can use my rig, then I'll usually let them... I take them up on stage and show them the basics (it's a rack so it'd be easy for a numpty to mess up), check whether their bass is active or passive so we can put the 'pad' in etc, show them where the EQ knobs are etc I did a gig recently, and I was kind enough to do the above, and I told the guy DON'T turn the power amp channels up beyond 22 because it'll CLIP... if the red light starts flashing, just knock it back slightly... we're talking about 800 watts of bass at that volume, so it's not exactly quiet prior to the power amp clipping light coming on... I came in halfway through the set... both channels' clipping lights were blinking away merrily with every single note... that's the last time i'll help THAT guy out if I ever share a bill with him... grr oh, and my amp is NOT for the sound guy to lend out... if I thought that was gonna happen i'd lock the rack case until it was time for our band to go on

it's the 80's.... the bass should be one of these:

howdy... you don't want a list of gear or 'influences', so I'll spare you that I'm Steve, from Colne, Lancashire... Ian from 'The Kicks' recommended this place for a good ol chat, so here I am I play in a band called The Fix - [url="http://www.thefixmusic.co.uk/"]http://www.thefixmusic.co.uk/[/url] - and they let me have my bass nice n loud, so I'm a happy camper oh, ok a bit of gear and influences: Fender Jazzes, plectrums, lots of watts.... John Entwistle, Scott Thunes, Andy Rourke, Graham Maby, Bruce Foxton nice to meet yas all! oh, this is what i look like (and sound like) [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK4euZnqFaY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK4euZnqFaY[/url]