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[quote=”noodle69″]yeah !!
personally i prefer their earlier albums such as relics , far more inventive and much less commercial since they had not found their formula for pumping out one album after the next , which had different pictures on the front but , somehow , were too similar !!!
:wink:[/quote]
Some years ago I was asked to take over the bass chair in a Floyd tribute band. I was sent a tape of the material and then set to work learning the stuff. Some hours later if found that I was not retaining any of the pieces and wondered what was going on as I have an excellent musical memory and this I how I’ve earned my living for years.
I was worried that my usually infallible abilities were failing me so I sat and pondered. Then I got it… it all sounds the same! no wonder it’s not going in… it’s all the same!
So I phoned the departing bass player at 11.15pm and woke him with the news that I was not going to be doing the gig.
He found a drummer that loved Floyd who also played the bass and sang… and I’ve heard the recorded results and they are terrific.
The original bass player is now with Rick Wakeman. Not sure if this is a step up musically but, on the old “Wonga” stakes there ……
.
[quote=”Michael”]I had an email from a guitarist who is seeking some advice. She says that no matter how hard she tries and the more she learns, male guitarists just don’t take her seriously. She says it always a case of blokes noticing only her flaws and then patting each other on the back for far worse performances.
Musician issue or a every-day issue chicks face in a lot of areas – maybe a combination?
Any advice she will I’m sure she will appreciate, spesh from other female players.[/quote]
Inherent in this complaint is the need to seek approval. Tell your friend to generate her own sense of worth as a musician and as a person and to avoid the pitfalls of the “Men are Bastards and here’s the evidence” routine as although this may feel nice for a bit, it is ultimately destructive and is a victim’s stance.
This is an every day issue for the vast majority of people although it is often cleverly hidden with a false “identity”. Your friend is not alone!!
“Noticing flaws”.. it’s just feedback (no not that type of feedback!!). Shift the interpretation and it’s a gift!!
[quote=”1bassleft”]Trust me to bring it down. In my area back in the ’90s, we were chummy with a couple of bands. One briefly had the name “Plastic Cactus” but, when that didn’t seem obvious enough, changed to “Secret Banana”.
Another local went by the charming moniker, “Furburger”[/quote]
Back in the dim and distant past I was involved in a recording session with some chums. I ended up playing drums and ‘cello and we went by the name of “The Mandible Rumpus”. We got played by John Peel and received one fan letter as a result.
[quote=”1bassleft”]According to Geldof’s autob, The Jam supported the Rats and he also thought they were humourless ****s.[/quote]
Many years ago when I were ne’but lad, I was touring in a rock musical as the guitarist. The company manager one K.R. (who had the dubious honour of being the voice of the Rowntrees Fruit Gums ad. who said the immortal line….“Don’t forget the Fruit Gums, mum!”) toured with The Jam as stage manager. He told me that they were a boring bunch of er… chaps and that he’d take a theatre tour any day.
And while we’re about it… on my 18th birthday I sat in the front room of one Robert Fripp and he showed me loads of stuff, then we diddled the “Moto Perpetuo from Fracture” together. Two things stuck in my mind about this day.. one was that HE tripped up and made the mistakes in said epic… and the second was that he was wearing green nylon Marks & Spencer’s carpet slippers. Hardly rock-god attire, now is it?!
And while we’re about it.. Alison Mack is worth inviting to your local Whist Drive. She’d definately “enhance the visual amenity”!
[quote=”1bassleft”]I’d heard of Levin using Funky Fingers, didn’t realize it came about that way, Dave. It doesn’t surprise me the recorded version uses sticks; there’s something ultra-percusive about the sound….[/quote]
It’s all in his book “Beyond the Bass Cleff” http://www.papabear.com/store/store.html… so buy one today!
[quote=”to continue…1bassleft”] I’m hoping guitar-store tryouts are changing (buyers and sellers). I used to absolutely hate pushy sales types not pushing their product but their bent thumb “technique”. The first thing I’d do with a bass is listen to the sound and arsing about with pops, taps and slaps is no use at all (same with amps). I remember taking an interest in a used cab in a shop. Plugged in, just grabbed a righty bass and played some very simple, Swell-type of bass line. Something sounded not right but, next thing I know, this guy yanks the bass off me and does the “I’ll show you what it can do” routine.[/quote]
I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve worked with some really great music shop assistants and only one wanker of a prorietor. I used to have the policy of selling somebody something that they truly wanted and not something that they thought they wanted. I once sold a young chap the most expensive black-finished gold-plated bass in the shop which was £300 more than he had. I suggested he waited until he had the money. He came back and took away with him something that he truly wanted and then thanked me profusely. Occasionally he’d return to the shop and was all smiles.
In some shops the experience is more akin to Sumo wrestling than actual service.
[quote=”Tim”]I hate testing gear in shops, feels like everyones expecting the performance of your life, feels more intimate than a tiny pub gig (which are always the scariest) in reality nobody gives a chuck what you do but it feels scary.
I’m the same with sound-checking I tend to play: E-E-E-E-A-A-A-A-D-D-D-D-yeah, thats fine. At half my gigging volume then get every thing adjusted during the set, not the best technique! Doesn’t make you very popular.[/quote]
Some of the shops in Denmark Street have now got booths wherein you can widdly-widdly-widdly and thwang-dakka-do-dow till your heart’s content. And again some shops havn’t.
Last time I bought a guitar I was put in a little booth and having played the guitar for a while, decided that the truss-rod needed tightening – much to the fear of the shop assistant- which I then did after convincing him that I was qualified to undertake such an action. I bought the guitar.
And talking of truss-rods… when at the Bass Centre (p’ta!) Cass Wassiz-name bought a pink Warwick which had a problem with the neck. If you tightened the truss-rod the neck became more bent rather than strighter. I held the guitar up to look along the neck to see the state of play and the truss-rod mechanism slid out and hit me on the forehead. I had no idea that they were not secured. However this solved the problem as I was able to re-insert it the right way up and straighten the neck.
[quote=”Tim”] I’d much rather play root notes and little runs and focus on filling or leaving space in the timing, I think that’s where a bass can really bring a song to life……………..
Tim. [/quote]
There is a wonderful passage in T-Lev’s book, done in a biblical warning style of language, where he has a dig at the “fast and furious”( my quotes) bass players who tend to play high up the neck, the point being to “keep it low”.
Mark King and Jaco have a lot to answer for… I worked at The Bass Centre in Wapping when these guys were popular and it was days filled with young kids wanting to play a Status bass through a Trace Elliot stack all going “thwakkada-thwakkada-thwakkada-thwackkada” all fu*king day.
Then, one day, a Canadian walked in and asked to play an old Gibson “EB something-or-other” semi… that was part of the John Entwistle collection we were selling (when he was still alive). This Canadian played so well and made the instrument sound so beautiful… then bought the guitar on the spot. We chatted for ages and he even gave me his contact details. He ended up playing on the k.d. laing album.
[quote=”1bassleft”]Dave! How very good to read you here again. Please have a look in the “fave riffs” thread of the bass section. I think you’ll know the “Starless” bit of Wetton’s and describe it better than I did.
Back on this thread, Upsidedown and I have swapped PMs and his acoutic is not major-expense so a purpose-lefty is being looked for. Good point, Dave, I’d forgotten the lack of side-dot markers on a flipped righty. That can be a real pain when playing strapped and stood up :cry:[/quote]
Thanks 1bass.. I’ve taken a shufty in the bass forum….
Some further points… The strutting inside an acoustic is designed for tonal reasons and not just structural ones and swapping the strings around will not really have that much effect on the front. I still use my old (right-handed but strung left-handed) Eko Ranger 6 and the bridge angle is all wrong. Not only does it not compensate for the string thicknesses but it doubles the compensation the wrong way! So you tune the instrument to work in the lower positions which is just about bareable and ok for a beginner, which I was when I bought it aged 13 and a budding John Renbourn(e).
The Shaftesbury Berney Kessel was ok as it had a floating bridge and could be angled accurately. Unfortunately, the neck was so narrow and the strings were so close together that it was very difficult to play having developed my technique on the Eko. Othe than that it was a nice guitar.
[quote=”1bassleft”]
Just a brief interlude, but Tony Levin’s thumbwhacker after the first chorus of Gabriel’s “Big Time” is all the better for never being repeated in the rest of the song. Give ’em what they want, then take it away while they’re still clamouring for more…[/quote]
If I’m not mistaken this riff was played with the assistance of the drummer hitting the strings of T-Lev’s bass with drum sticks. For touring purposes, T’Lev’s need to recreate the sound live necessitated the invention of “Funky Fingers”… mini drum sticks attached to the fingers with elastic loops. Musicman subsequently built a 3-string bass to assist futher the thwacking of the strings which were much wider apart then normal.
Billy-B and T-lev reprised this effect when playing with the remainder of Yes.
[quote=”1bassleft”]Hmmm, this isn’t the easiest one, as there’s no definite answer. I’m a natural lefty, play bass left-handed but (because all my mate’s guitars were righty) play guitar upside-down. If it gives you something to aim for, two very able guitarists (Robert Fripp and Mark Knopfler) are left-handers who play right-handed guitar just as an righty would. On the downside, lefties adapt to right-handedness baetter bacause we just have to. It’s a lot more unusual for the righty.
Seeing as you’re starting out, I can’t see any advantage to learning with the strings the wrong way round. As you say, all the chord diagrams will need reversing and a lot of those chords (except for some strange jazz things) are a lot easier the correct way.
Apart from flipping the strings, you’ll need to do a couple of things. The nut (plastic thing the strings sit in at the end of the neck) will need to be replaced or at least recut. The thick E will not sit in the slot designed for the top E. Secondly, you see how your bridge is slightly slanted? It will have to be slanted the opposite way for intonation (keeping each string in tune all the way up the neck). You might feel like it’s easier to sell off the righty and buy a purpose lefty acoustic or electric, but find out how much a local guitar person will charge to do the swapover if you don’t feel like you can get it right.[/quote]
A couple of points here…
….. if you go the leftie route you’ll find that reversing chord diagrams will become quite normal after a short time.
My recomendation is that you get a left hander and start from there. It’ll save a lot of heart ache, frustration and money down the line should you wish to change to the orthodox leftie way.
Flipping a right handed guitar over to play left handed is a real pain. Along with re-cutting the nut and re-angling the bridge (not so easy on an accoustic) you’ll find that the position dots on the side edge of the neck are missing, trem arms can be irritatingly in the wrong place, as is the case with volume tone controls, and access to the upper frets is reduced ( in the case of electrics).
There are a lot of very good entry level guitars around for left handers and you don’t have to pay a fortune.
Good luck
Dave
[quote=”lee_UK”]your hands must be hurting after all that ‘self backslapping’ glw.
Lefties, i met a fellow the other day played a righthanded guitar in a left handed way with all the strings upside down, any special Forum for him?
now he would be as lonely as the Beagle lander.
Hello?Hello?[/quote]
Funnily enough, I have a friend who also plays that way … strung right-handed but held lefth-handed. Guitar, bass and Stick. He’s rather an exceptional bass player and even did a stint touring with Rick Wakeman. (His dream come true!) He could really get around the bass and his slapping technique was a wonder to behold.
[quote=”Billy Bird”][quote=”glw”]
Also, the guitar on the far right – might it be a Hagstrom Swede perhaps?[/quote]
Having checked their site, I think you might be onto something there.[/quote]
I decided to noodle (enlarge,expand and enhance) the photo and….. If it’s a cheap copy then it’s a very expensive one!
Lee, you were correct re the tele-control panel. I’m reminded of the old Les Paul Recording Model (not that this is one of those). If you look closely at the enlarged pic you’ll see that the top end of the fingerboard is cut at an angle. Does this give us any clues?
My vote is now with Hagstrom. I was racking my brains for a quality guitar that had a bolt on neck and Billy Bird jolted my memory. I was lent a (Lefty) Hagstrom for a couple of months by one of the actors of the show I was doing in the West End after my Les Paul was stolen from the dressing room. What are the chances of that?!! The Hagstrom was a fab guitar and one I’d be happy to own.
1bass.. nice idea with the Lefty catagory but is there enough difference other than we point the other direction? ( and some knobs are wired in reverse).
I recently came across a lefty muso website. The posts were infrequent to say the least and consisted of people saying..” Hello? anybody here?” “and “Quiet in here, isn’t it.” It was a desolate and lonely experience (cue tumbleweed). The folks here may be mostly right-handed but they mean well! I vote we stay here.. at least it’s warm! Mince pies, anyone?Susan’s Gruntings to all.
[quote=”lee_UK”]Left to right,
Fender Telecaster standard, looks quite old, may be a copy but judging by the rest of the gear it looks like a fender.Gretsch Country or Nashville classic.
Gibson 355 semi type, looks too thin to be a 335, could also be a Epiphone Casino.
Fender thinline 72′ .
Gibson Les Paul Standard or Delux
Cant make the last one out, maybe a Gretsch again, looks like semi accoustic but with telecaster style controls. Block markers are screaming Gibson, but umm needs thinking about.[/quote]
Hi “guys n’ gals, “
To me the middle guitar is with out doubt a Gibson 335… it just oozes quality. The upper bouts/cutaways are unmistakeably Gibson whilst the guitar at the far end is a cheap copy. It has a bolt-on neck which is a dead give-away…the body bindings stop at the joint where there is no more wood (and at too acute an angle) and there is a square-ish block where the heel should be. This is par for the course on bolt-on neck joints.
The presence of telecaster style controls I think is an optical illusion of/from a reflection of the guitar in front.
As a south-paw and as a younger player I was always interested in Gibson type semi’s as they could be flipped over and played left-handed without too much trouble. This was in the days when a decent leftie would have been out of my range. I did, however, own a Shaftesbury copy of a Gibson Berney Kessel which wasn’t a bad guitar but nothing like the original, really. Check out some pics on …..http://rocklogic-music.blogspot.com….
Seasonal type wishes to one and all
[quote=”MrByngBell”]LOL! Figures an Australian would be p*ssed that a Canadian got the INXS gig! lol INXS is a joke band anyway, so it doesn’t matter WHO got it, it’s a lame gig anyway. Hutchense was a poser, who couldn’t sing worth a sh*te. Jimmy Barnes…now THERE’S A SINGER. He SHOULD HAVE gotten the INXS gig…but he likely realized that INXS was dead, and just hadn’t laid down yet, so he never even contacted INXS’s management. He’s too good for INXS. Dig….three guitarists, and not a single one of them can play his way out of a wet paper bag? lol !!!!!!!! God!! lol Ahhhhh…I love those guys! lol They make me laugh so much!!! lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!————-Here’s what it boils down to kids: any formerly famous band that would hold a contest to find a new lead singer….MUST be in serious trouble. Who gives a damn WHO the winner is? He’s a winner amongst losers, right? Right! next they’ll be playing for mall-openings! lol[/quote]
Someone does…….
Over the years I too have been bothered by some of the advice given to novice guitarists so, as a young player I went to the very top of the greatest technicians and found out what they did. None used those muscle toner sqeezy things. However, some use the “away-from-the-instrument” calithenics exercises.
Largely, the problems we encounter on the fingetboard are due to “wrong learning” in thre first place. I had to correct an appalling technique in order to play the sort of guitar that I wanted to play and that took some time.
The guitar seems naturally to be set up to use all four fingers on the fingrboard so that is what I recommend. The difficulty arrises in the transition from using three fingers, with the little finger used as an occasional afterthought, to a fully functional four-finger technique.
If your pinky is not behaving itself then this is due to “awareness” or rather, a lack of awareness. Slow down. Intentionally put your awareness into your fingers (and notice what happens). Devise exercises that force you to use the pinkie… I used the Moto Perpetuo form Fracture by Robert Fripp and The Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimskij-Korsakov. It is not really possible to play these pieces without the full (del)monty of bananas.
Again, picking is about awareness. Alternate picking is a must.. but then sweep picking is also immensely useful. However, when you need to jump strings at a vicious pace (e.g. 5th to 2nd to 6th to 3rd) and do it all in 7/8 then an expanded technique is required and alternate picking becomes a God-send. (The Tarrega Tremolo Study is a perfect way to get your picking going).
To be able to play in, say, 7/8 and NOT change the direction of picking means that you will hit the strong beats with an up-stroke every other bar. (e.g. Frame by Frame) I learned the afore mentioned moto perpetuo starting on a down-stroke then re-learned it starting on an up-stroke. At first this was painful to my entire being but it paid off in the end.
As the late, great string bass player Lennie Bush said to me ” Is it purposeful practice or meaningless meandering?” An hour of intentional awareness will produce the desired developement whereas 8 hours of finger-waggling will just reinforce what’s already there.
As a recommendation try the “Beyond Bedroom Guitar” method which utilises NLP and other Richard Bandler distinctions.
