Basschat Top Trumps

[Steve Browning]

6 minutes ago, paul_5 said:

Just a thought, should we not have a category for ‘Heft’?

Or 'good at metal'.

[Leonard Smalls]

Year started playing: 1983

Number of basses: 5

Music theory: Did grade V theory 40+ years ago... 

Technique: 1. Or 10, depending on the criteria! Not many folks seem to play in the same way as me, though that may be with good reason!

Groove: Yes. Mostly.

[Baloney Balderdash]

3 hours ago, paul_5 said:

Just a thought, should we not have a category for ‘Heft’?

I think it would had been a good idea to add "writing/composing" skills to the list.

 

Year started playing: 1994 (I think, might had been 1993)

Number of basses: 6

Number of instruments played: Them all! (only really know how to play bass and guitar well though. And then I don't know if computer and midi counts as an instrument, but am highly skilled at that too)

Music theory: 3? (I know the basics, but I can't read nowhere near fluently, I would have to sit and point at the sheet with my finger, counting each note)

Technique: 6

Groove: 6

Heft: I play very lightly, but heavy.... If I have to I can go to 11

Writing/Composing: 8 (yes, again it would be very cumbersome for me to write in standard notation, but multi track recordings and midi grit has been invented)

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Baloney Balderdash

[StingRayBoy42]

4 hours ago, paul_5 said:

Just a thought, should we not have a category for ‘Heft’?

Are you saying I'm fat?!
I'll have you know it's all muscle.

[HeadlessBassist]

Year started playing: 1977

Number of basses: 9 (currently) - Just listed all basses over time. I'm reckoning 74. Maybe missed one or two!

Music Theory: 10 - Music degree & two teaching diplomas.

Technique: 10  

Groove: 9

Edited 1 hour ago by HeadlessBassist

[Marvin]

Year started playing: 1990 (sold my gear in 1997 and had a 12 year sabbatical started again in 2009)

 

Number of basses: 2 (most was 3)

 

Music theory: 2

 

Technique: 4

 

Groove:  7

 

 

I'm not very good to be fair.

[Piers_Williamson]

Is a higher number of basses a good or a bad score?  I know the E-Type Jag used to win everything with 12 Cylinders, but would an electric Lotus 7 (for instance) trump that today?

[Rich]

Year started playing: 1982

Number of basses: 10

Music theory: 3 **

Technique: 4

Groove: 8

 

(** I did give myself a 1 originally, but then I realised that I can follow a chart quite well even if I can't actually read the notes.)

Edited 2 hours ago by Rich

[Rich]

22 hours ago, Chiliwailer said:

 

Groove as ‘micro-timing’? 🤔

 

- ’Micro-timing is in the heart’

- ’One nation under a micro-timing’

- ‘Micro-time me’

- ‘Get into the micro-time’

 

Nah 😊

 

 

My favourite is Micro-timin' With Mr Bloe. 

[HeadlessBassist]

Listing all your past basses is an interesting exercise.

 

We really do run in trends - I've owned 19 Fender basses over the years.

[Dad3353]

It seems strange to me to see so many taking 'Music Theory' to be reading, or even sight-reading..! Although connected, one may be very proficient in theory without being able to read any notation whatever. I would suggest, even, that some knowledge of theory would be far more useful than reading (although both are Good, obviously...). 

[Steve Browning]

17 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

It seems strange to me to see so many taking 'Music Theory' to be reading, or even sight-reading..! Although connected, one may be very proficient in theory without being able to read any notation whatever. I would suggest, even, that some knowledge of theory would be far more useful than reading (although both are Good, obviously...). 

Indeed.  Many moons ago, I helped out a youth orchestra based in West Sussex. The man behind it was the head of music in the County. 

 

He was a cellist and could read anything put in front of him, faultlessly. 

 

One day I was noodling on an upright bass and asked what I was playing. I just said I was just improvising something and he was completely stunned that I could do that. A weird situation in which each of us was in awe of the other. 

 

 

[HeadlessBassist]

17 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

It seems strange to me to see so many taking 'Music Theory' to be reading, or even sight-reading..! Although connected, one may be very proficient in theory without being able to read any notation whatever. I would suggest, even, that some knowledge of theory would be far more useful than reading (although both are Good, obviously...). 

 

Au contraire. The Music Theory should work along with the Sight Reading. If you don't know how key signatures, time signatures, rhythms and chord progressions work, all you'd be able to read would be seven basic notes. Yes, the ABRSM Grade 5 theory is vastly more useful than an 'O'Level (or GCSE) in Music, but any teacher worth their salt will teach some theory as you go along with lessons, otherwise you'll be left with large gaps in your knowledge.

 

If you had no reading ability whatsoever, music theory would be utterly meaningless.

[StingRayBoy42]

Just now, HeadlessBassist said:

If you had no reading ability whatsoever, music theory would be utterly meaningless.

Not necessarily - 'Music theory' means knowing which notes to play over under which chords - A -> C natural -> E will (generally) sound better under an A minor chord than A -> C# -> E for instance, even if you couldn't read them on a score.

You all know some scales and triads, even if you don't know that you know them!

[HeadlessBassist]

7 minutes ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

Not necessarily - 'Music theory' means knowing which notes to play over under which chords - A -> C natural -> E will (generally) sound better under an A minor chord than A -> C# -> E for instance, even if you couldn't read them on a score.

You all know some scales and triads, even if you don't know that you know them!

 

No, I am talking about the 'academic' Music Theory examinations held by the ABRSM. You're talking about what people just happen to know. Two completely different things.

 

Oh, and A - C# - E is an A Major Chord in Root Position.   

 

Edited 57 minutes ago by HeadlessBassist

[StingRayBoy42]

2 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

 

No, I am talking about the 'academic' Music Theory examinations held by the ABRSM. You're talking about what people just happen to know. Two completely different things.

 

I respectfully disagree - IMHO 'Music theory' is everything from knowing note names to knowing when, why and how to substitute a Subdominant for a Neapolitan Second chord and everything inbetween.

[StingRayBoy42]

6 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

Oh, and A - C# - E is an A Major Chord in Root Position.   

 

Yes, it is!

That's why A -> C natural -> E will sound better under an A minor chord

[Mrbigstuff]

16 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

 

If you had no reading ability whatsoever, music theory would be utterly meaningless.

Off topic, but it’s the other way round. 
Reading as no use other than communicating musical ideas. Music theory is the building blocks of composition. You could know a key signature on the fretboard without knowing it on a stave and get through a tune. If you can read the stave but have no idea where it relates to on the fretboard, you’re screwed.

[HeadlessBassist]

By a Neapolitan Second Chord, I assume you mean a Neopolitan 6th (flattened chord II.)

 

I think we're talking semantics here if we're honest. It sounds like I'm talking from the classical training world and you're talking from the popular/jazz training world. Basically, 'Music Theory' is an academic subject which we teachers teach instrumental students in order to fill in the gaps when they're learning to play. 

[HeadlessBassist]

5 minutes ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

Yes, it is!

That's why A -> C natural -> E will sound better under an A minor chord

 

Odd choice of words - A C E is an A Minor Chord.   

[Dad3353]

31 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

... If you had no reading ability whatsoever, music theory would be utterly meaningless.

 

I would suggest, from long experience, that this is patently untrue. Not to decry the benefits of reading, but the Knowledge can, and is, put to Good Use by thousands of musicians, all over the Planet, every day, with nothing written at all, nor understood even if it were. Ears, on the other hand, can be useful. Knowing, from experience, how chords are constructed, and why, rhythmic notions to recognise different styles, and play to adapt to them, improvising over a piece never before heard... All of this, and more, much more, can, and is, achieved with no idea of notation, of any sort. Reading is Good, but it is only a part of Music Theory, and maybe not the most important part. 

[StingRayBoy42]

18 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

Basically, 'Music Theory' is an academic subject which we teachers teach instrumental students in order to fill in the gaps when they're learning to play. 

I know that 'Music Theory' is an academic subject but in my humble opinion, knowing note names, knowing which notes to play when and why *IS* music theory.

Someone could have decent music theory knowledge without having studied it academically, surely?
If a guitarist told you what chords he was playing and you knew which notes to play (or even just where to put your fingers) to make it sound good, that's music theory, surely?

Maybe we should seperate it into Music Theory and music theory?

Potato/Potato, Tomato/Tomato, let's Carl the whole thing Orff

😃

[StingRayBoy42]

24 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

 

Odd choice of words - A C E is an A Minor Chord.   

Apologies, the -> were meant to deonte moving from one note to the next

[Piers_Williamson]

Wot about reading rythm?  That to me is the hard bit of sight reading

[HeadlessBassist]

9 minutes ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

I know that 'Music Theory' is an academic subject but in my humble opinion, knowing note names, knowing which notes to play when and why *IS* music theory.

Someone could have decent music theory knowledge without having studied it academically, surely?
If a guitarist told you what chords he was playing and you knew which notes to play (or even just where to put your fingers) to make it sound good, that's music theory, surely?

Maybe we should seperate it into Music Theory and music theory?

Potato/Potato, Tomato/Tomato, let's Carl the whole thing Orff

😃

 

Agreed! 😎👍