Al Nico

Hello. It's a good setup. Welcome.

Hi. Les Dawson knew how to play the funny wrong note and there are also some beautiful wrong notes. They're called add9, but they are often add2 but still called add9. add2 is much easier to understand. Start with C major C, E, G. Now count up the C major scale and stop at the 2nd note, so 1=C, 2=D stop. D. add the 2nd note in the C major scale to the C major chord and we have C, D, E, G. Inspiring and smoothy vibes. Where does the 9th come from. If you count up the C major scale to the next D, it's in 9th place. That's all I'm prepared to say about that. It's a friendly vibe in major, and beautiful in minor. Try this. It feels odd at first but you might grow to like it. Playing the bass and singing, swap between these two harmonies. Sing = D, Bass = C Sing = C, Bass = G♯ The first harmony could be major or minor. Using what we know from bass having the power to change chords, if we stack all the notes in, we can find the relative minor of the add9 by lowering the bass 3 semitones for major, or 4 for minor. Mind blowing, but beautiful. - find the relative minor of the add9, and know what you're talking about. Power to the bass player.

I've been round the loop and back with plugins and FX. Installed tons of VST's and spent months experimenting, but now have very few. I work in reverse too. Used to tweak to find something interesting. Now I imagine the result and design how to achieve it, and often end up somewhere interesting in between.

Absolutely. It will be really useful. Perhaps it's that I've done so much tweaking over the decades, I'm all tweaked out for now.

This bloke Paul had the job of filling his boots. He must have very large ones?

I had a look. All very interesting but seems a lot of bother. I generally look for gear and FX reviews on youtube. Youtube makes it quick and easy to find demos, and make comparisons to similar products. Also some give very honest and reliable reviews that help to understand how inspiring and useable the sounds are? I suspect the Source Audio marketing team won't like me very much.

Hi. Music theory. Very boring until something clicks. Then you have a new tool. I am a big fan of Relative Minor. Mostly because I understand this one. Piano keyboards really help to visualise this. The method is simple. Play a major triad, wait, play a three note chord, e.g C major, made up of notes C, E & G. Then count three notes down from the root note C, you get an A. So now the chord has four notes A, C, E, G. It has a new root note A. Now it is A minor 7th. Wow. That is a complicated chord and sounds all deamy. It works for any major chord. With this you and your bass can adjust all the major chords, in all your bands songs, into dreamy minor sevenths, and the melody with still fit. You could move the vocal down three notes too and see what happens. I've used it for remixing. As soon as you play a known vocal and slam heavy bass in the relative minor, all goes dark and spooky. Now that I'm the bass guitarist, when I get in a band, I'll have a weapon to change all their songs into relative minor remixes which I'm sure they'll really appreciate. Has anyone tried this with their band? How did it go? Next week we'll learn how when playing a minor triad, adding a new note four semitones down from the root will create a major seventh from the new root note. But I don't want to say too much yet or it will give it away.

Perfect.

I enjoyed the clips. The whole thing sounds great. Everyone is really good and it flows naturally. Must be a great experience to play together.

Hi. I started playing bass guitar in November 2024. I already knew all the power chords on a guitar and can make full chords with two hands on a piano. Once my arms were long enough at age 14, I played the trombone and achieved a grade 4 merit from the Royal Institution of Music. I played pop music on keyboards in the 90's, power pop on guitar in the 00's as an amateur, and both instruments in a wedding band after that for real money. Now I am to play bass. It is my calling. In November 2024, I happened upon a small pawn shop. Inside hung a 4 string Harley Benton TB-70. The bridge studs were coming out. I bought it and fixed it up. I plug into my Pod GX USB sound module into PC, or I have a tiny guitar combo for scratching about, monitoring on headphones or speakers. I've been practicing about an hour a day and don't feel half as awkward now. About a third of the awkwardness is still there. I've not bought an amp yet. I'm waiting to find out which world tour I get invited onto once I put some demo's out. Here it is. Big and heavy. I chose songs for practice that use different techniques. I've recorded my progress using bassless backing tracks found on the tube. It's a lot of fun. HB-70 demo 1 mp3 HB-70 Demo 2 mp3 That's my benchmark to improve from and lots of work to do. That feels like enough about me. I look forward to chatting with you. Yours sincerely Al Nico.