Recent content by johnReeve

I agree with Ed, but I will say that as far as finding blues and americana acts to play with, double bass has found me a lot more gigs than simply playing BG. Those gigs have led to me having more jazz gigs and generally more time performing with folks, which seems good regardless of genera...

If there are jams that you'd like to play at, then that's a good place to find tunes you might like to learn.... just go and take notes about what they are playing, and watch the bass player(s) to figure out what they do. It's easier to learn theory if you can read, but you can go a long way...

I more or less just played badly and had fun for many years before actually studying anything. If you're not having fun, why would you want to learn more about something?

Go to the music store and pick ten and try them all out. That's pretty much the only way. You should see my collection of thumb picks and finger picks I built up when I started out playing pedal steel guitar :D It's quite a pile.

Man, it's not absolute, but staying away from open strings isn't horrible advice. If you can tell me how to adjust intonation to match the chord or play vibrato on my double bass using an open string, I'd be pretty damn happy to hear it :D As far as I can tell, tone wise it mostly doesn't...

I started playing blues on upright with an old guy who played a whole step tuned down. That got me out of the habit of looking at the guitar player's hands real quick. IMO, it is a bad habit, anyhow, because I should be listening instead of looking most of the time.

Ab, Db, and Gd are all really common keys, especially if you are playing with a horn band. Ideally, you should be playing just as well in any key. I believe that detuning the double bass is a bad idea in general and I don't like to play a lot of open notes anyhow. I don't know if there are...

On the BG, not so much. On the upright... geeze. Yeah. Every time I pick up the instrument it is long scales with the bow, then easy tunes before practicing what I need to work on. OT: it is difficult for me not to read your posts in Keith's (from Trout Fishing in America) voice.

I dunno... while I like the fact that I can read, and I'm still learning quite a bit... and looking at theory has been super helpful to me in the last couple of years... the reason I didn't know more theory sooner has more to do with the fact that my gigs just didn't require that much theory...

Man, I'm just rolling though from the double bass forums, but what a weird question. :D My pinky is way easier to use than my ring finger, especially if I have to use both. Close to the nut on the DB, you don't use the ring finger, generally (I do, but my technique is iffy at best :D ). That...

First, congrats on your baby. Second, I agree with the other folks here that once I started practicing on DB, unless there was some technique issue or I am learning/charting tunes that have specific bass lines, I don't get much out of practicing BG.

I'm 6'4" and can palm a basketball... but yes, often in half position I don't use my third finger, as I was instructed by my various teachers.

I had been playing bass electric guitar for about a decade before picking up the upright (my wife decided that she needed one in her orchestra, and one just "showed up" at the house one day, and I play a couple of other instruments so picking up upright to play with her high school level...

I was perhaps unclear: I think that adopting the normal ways of thinking about this stuff is the right thing to do... I've been working out a couple of minor key songs as a way to get more into thinking this way. My point was that I don't expect that a song would stay in a specific mode for...

Thanks... lots of good things here. I'm mostly just trying to figure out a way of naming things that I like, so I'm not hung up on making songs fit theory or theory fit songs. The advice in general is appreciated.