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Lesson in bass playing...


EBS_freak
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[quote name='ras52' post='1277274' date='Jun 21 2011, 04:31 PM']Hands up, it happened to me. I started playing - without checking my tuning - at 4.30 this morning, and the neighbours started banging on the wall. So it's not just bass players who notice these things.[/quote]
Ah, so that was you!
You were so loud I could barely hear myself drilling.

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I've just found out that [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=138141&st=0"]this topic [/url] explains what the band was doing.
The relevant info is from post 9 onwards.

Thanks to ras52 for pointing this out. :)

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  • 4 years later...

Two years after this thread faded away gracefully, I found myself playing DB with a singer-songwriter whose previous band had been good-quality session guys. He'd fallen enough on relative hard times that he preferred to use me on bass since I was free.

At the audition and the early rehearsals he loved what I was playing, but my intonation was all over the shop. No matter how carefully I played, I was routinely 'off' the note. It was pretty sickening.

Played our first gig (The Troubadour in Earl's Court) and went down fine with the crowd, but I was still unhappy with my intonation.

Next rehearsal, different day but same old sh*t. I stopped the rehearsal and said we weren't going to play another note until we got the problem sorted out.

After 10 minutes of going in circles, the drummer (a very fine pro musician) asked the guitarist what he had his tuner set to.

"[i][b]445 of course, it's supposed to be 445, right?[/b][/i]".

Edited by Happy Jack
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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1450105335' post='2929609']
Two years after this thread faded away gracefully ... playing DB with a singer-songwriter ... the early rehearsals... my intonation was all over the shop... I was routinely 'off' the note. It was pretty sickening ... same old sh*t ... I stopped the rehearsal... guitarist... tuner set to [i][b]445 [/b][/i].
[/quote]

Speaking from the perspective of a seasoned industry observer I am [i]frankly[/i] [i]astonished[/i] that you did not establish the cause of this crashing assonance from the word 'Go' assuming your singer starts songs the way I do, i.e, suddenly and without warning saying '[i]Go![/i]'.

That being the case, the preferred sequence of events would normally be:

[b]Singer[/b]: Go!

[b]Jack[/b]: ([i]with feigned weariness[/i]) OK - [i]who's[/i] playing in 445? It's not [i]me[/i] ... ([i]pregnant pause[/i]) so it must be ([i]points skeletal finger at Guitard[/i]) YOU!'


Those of us who grew up before the very existence of British guitar magazines will recall such American periodicals as 'Guitar Player' wherein one would find double-page advertisements placed by a certain Mr David Burge extolling his soi-disant 'David Burge Perfect Pitch Method'.

With a strange blue glow emanating from his eyes and a tuning fork balanced upon his index finger, the said Mr Burge would expiate upon the virtues of perfect pitch and its benefits to those possessed of The Knowledge ([size=3][i]only 52 weekly payments of $39.99 exc. state taxes in Texas, Arkansas, Idaho[/i][/size]).


[size=3]David Burge in happier days[/size]


[size=4]The benefits of the David Burge Perfect Pitch Method were as follows:[/size]

[i]* Develop upper body musculature and increase penis length (at rest)[/i]
[i]* Earn literally $'000's in your spare time[/i]
[i]* Get the neighbourhood gig that every guitarist craves[/i]
[i]* Raise your 'Upper Hearing Threshold[sup][size=2]TM ' [/size][/sup]and overhear private conversations between pipistrelle bats[/i]


It is a truth universally acknowledged that [i]the very first thing[/i] the aspiring bass player should add to his 'arsenal of chops and signature licks' is the modest ability to detect differences in pitch to a degree of +/- 1 cents. Yet this foundational skill seems to have been overlooked in the welter of materialism and sexual excess [i]de nos jours[/i].

The unnecessary fiasco described above is - in truth - nothing more or less than[i] a total travesty[/i]; to have inflicted such upon a paying audience is monstrously reprehensible. I confidently anticipate an announcement to the effect that the poster is withdrawing from public life.

It is only right and proper.

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