The Bassist and Guitarist thread

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Cycleops

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
Bit of humour never goes amiss:

IMG_20221113_114257.jpg
 
winjim

winjim

Smash the cistern
DRM said:
Latest tune to have a go at is Metallica’s Mothing Else Matters, it’s a really hard song to get right , been at it for a week and a half and managed to slowly get the first few bars of the intro , what do people think is it good to push yourself into a difficult song? There’s lots of new techniques for me in this one, even the deceptively easy, yet hard to get my head round finger picking bit right at the beginning, still get the fingers in a muddle occasionally
Click to expand...

I honestly think it's a case of simply sitting down and practising slowly and methodically until you get it right, then it's muscle memory. I've got a bunch of songs that I can play through with simple strumming but they all have different embellishments or picking patterns, little melodic lines that can be thrown in. So every time I learn a bit I can go on to making it a little bit more complicated.

What I need to do is have enough discipline to learn them properly and improve them to that complicated stage without getting distracted by wanting to learn new stuff.
 
D

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
I’ve just broken it down into manageable sections and I’ve had to slow down the playback on YouTube to see exactly what’s going on in some bits, there’s also a lot of intricate bits between the tune and having to learn, properly finger picking, hammer on & flick off’s and a shocker of a stretch too, it’s definitely going to be a long time to get this down
 
Salad Dodger

Salad Dodger

Legendary Member
Location
Kent Coast
@winjim
I cut some small pieces of an old cycle inner tube and made a small hole in the middle with a bradawl.

I don't know if I would trust one of them to hold a heavy guitar, especially if I was leaping about, but they have worked pretty well on solid electric uke and an acoustic guitar.

I know you can buy rubber washers (Fender branded?), but I am a bit tight fisted!
 
Badger_Boom

Badger_Boom

Veteran
Location
York
winjim said:
I have found the most annoying YouTube video for learning a song and it's this one which is a nice guitar version of a synthpop classic but the fretboard is just in and out of shot...


View: https://youtu.be/-MNFh3vuUnA


Is that D/F#? I think it might be but I can't quite be sure...
Click to expand...


I've loved Propaganda for years but it never occurred to me to try and play it on guitar. I found him hard to follow too but I did manage to find some online tabs so I'll have a bash at those.
 
winjim

winjim

Smash the cistern
Badger_Boom said:
I've loved Propaganda for years but it never occurred to me to try and play it on guitar. I found him hard to follow too but I did manage to find some online tabs so I'll have a bash at those.
Click to expand...

I've seen two versions, one which just uses D - DAug for the first part of the verse and a more complex one with a capo on the first fret. He's doing a version of that one but without the capo.

So it goes C - EAug - Am/C - EAug but the EAug's a bit tricky barring the G and B strings while not hitting the top E and leaving your little finger available for the trill thing. And the Am/C I think you need to mute the D string, again because you basically run out of fingers if you want to add in the little embellishment.

And I think for the chorus he's using D/F# - G/B - C - G but you could use a plain D and G.
 
bluenotebob

bluenotebob

Veteran
Location
France
I loved the "Young Jazz Musician of the Year" (or whatever it was called) on BBC4 last night - two hours of excellent music.

I was delighted that the Scottish bassist - I think his name is Ewan Hastie - won it. There have been very few good UK jazz bassists in the 50-odd years that I've been listening to jazz .. Dave Holland is the obvious one, Barry Guy too, Danny Thompson in his earlier years - plus more recently a guy from Brum - Daniel Casimir. But that's really not many in half a century - so good luck to Ewan Hastie .. long may he play lots of good music.

But the sound quality from his bass was shockingly poor - I could see what he was playing and I should have been bouncing all over the room .. but it sounded just like a guy twanging a rubber band.

Anyone else see it? anyone else disappointed by the poor miking?

A separate question .. am I the only jazzer on CC? ... hopefully not..
 
delb0y

delb0y

Legendary Member
Location
Quedgeley, Glos
I missed the Young Jazz Musician show - was out-voted in the "what shall we watch" poll.

I've never been able to figure out how to play jazz, @bluenotebob, so any tips will be welcome. I listen to a lot of jazz (about a third of my listening is jazz, a third finger-picking guitar, and a third acoustic singer-songwriters). My preferred jazz is pre-bebop swing, gypsy jazz, and sixties blue-note. I've transcribed many a Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian (etc) solo and now and again manage to fumble my way through an All Of Me or an I Can't Give You Anything But Love, but my brain doesn't seem to be able to work quickly enough to get any fluency.

Currently working my way through the absolutely wonderful 7cd set of Paul Desmond and Ed Bickert - The Complete 1975 Toronto sessions. Two of my favourite players and the music is stunning!

I keep trying though, and one day I'm sure I'll suddenly get it.

Derek
 
bluenotebob

bluenotebob

Veteran
Location
France
A shame @delb0y .. you missed two hours of splendid jazz. It's heartening to know that there's a wealth of young talent in the UK at the moment. Perhaps BBC4 will show it again - or perhaps it's available on the i-Player (I can't access that as I'm outside the UK).

I'm not a musician - just a huge fan - so sorry, I can't give you any tips on playing jazz.

I lived in SW London in the early 1970s and I spent a lot of time in small, boozy and smoky folk clubs listening to the likes of Davy Graham, John Martyn, Michael Chapman, John James (does anyone remember him?), Stefan Grossman, Gordon Giltrap (before he went prog rock) and many others. I was also lucky enough to see John Fahey play live once - my God, what a guitarist he was. I'm currently downloading some of his late 1950s Fonotone recordings - reissued by Dust To Digital as a 5-CD box.

I also have a decent collection of music by William Ackerman, Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, Norman Blake and Robbie Basho - so we share some non-jazz musical enthusiasms.

If you like Gypsy jazz, have you listened to Martin Taylor's music?

As you'll have guessed from my username, I'm a Blue Note fan too - and I listen to everything they released up to around 1969 (and a few bits and pieces after that). As for jazz guitar on Blue Note, Grant Green's been a personal favourite for many years now.

I have some Paul Desmond recordings - mostly with Brubeck - but he's a bit too "cool" for my tastes (I prefer a bit of anger in my jazz). I've just had a look and found "Pure Desmond" (from 1974) with Ed Bickert on guitar .. I've forgotten all about it. Thanks for the nudge - I'll give it another listen later this morning.

I'm sure if you keep practicing then you'll find more fluency playing jazz guitar. Good luck !
 
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