Jeff Berlin asks - What Is Taught Without Only Teaching the Facts!

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Yes, but doesn't that make it an excellent choice as backing track for practicing improvisation?
Because there is so much room left for excitement?
I mean that without negative connotation - I stand to the fact that I do like that song nonetheless

Ah sure ... I’m just a little upset with Herbie for not having developed enough the tune ... I like to play the sax part over it .. just one month ago I discovered that the tune, after the twangy synth part, has got a second section, more open and with more drive ...

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

You're missing my "joke" I believe. I gave Herbie Hancock as my originial example, not Culture Club.

Ahahah in effect it’s true ahahah

 

[leonard]

You are right! I thought that it might be good to start this with another title that might attract new people to the chat. I should add that I only discuss one topic because barely anyone asks me questions that might lead to other topics and thoughts. People here prefer to state their opinions. New subject matter doesn't show up here much at all.

Question: What should I practice now? Chord tones? Reading? Leading tones? Transcribing? I mean what are some generally good things to practice?

 

[SteveCS]

As long as the ensemble agrees on the same tuners (read: reference pitch), they all can use tuners, why not? Even if a tuner goes defect, take one of your colleagues.

A tuner to my understanding is as a valid tool as is an overdrive pedal or preamp is.
I may be wrong. In that case, feel free to correct me

As long as I don' have to then endure them playing fretless...

 

[FantasticFour]

A tuner to my understanding is as a valid tool as is an overdrive pedal or preamp is.

I don't quite follow you here?
While I can understand one would need a tuner to tune in a noisy environment, or on the contrary when one has to tune in silence, an overdrive or preamp pedal can hardly be replaced with a musician's skill.
Your analogy is flying over my head I'm afraid. Or was it a joke?

 

[Michael Schreiber]

As long as I don' have to then endure them playing fretless...

Valid point. Because with a fretless, similar to a violin, you are able to correct the intonation on-the-fly while playing - which infers that the player is also able to tune his instrument by ear. I agree. Fretless players have no excuse

 

[Michael Schreiber]

I don't quite follow you here?
While I can understand one would need a tuner to tune in a noisy environment, or on the contrary when one has to tune in silence, an overdrive or preamp pedal can hardly be replaced with a musician's skill.
Your analogy is flying over my head I'm afraid. Or was it a joke?

No, the analogy is: In both cases, one is relying on a tool than on his manual (and aural) skills.

While no one complains about bass players relying on pedals, or, of course, electricity; some seem to make fun of those who still depend on a tuner pedal. They still can play - and eventually would develop the skill to hear. But many, like me, can't do that from the start but have to develop and train to hear pitch. And to me it sometimes reads on TB as if people (not aimed at you) were making fun of those people - which I find counter-productive, if not arrogant.

It is one thing to encourage someone to actually train that skill - agreed.
It is a different thing to claim one should quit bass playing if he can't do that, yet.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

@FantasticFour - P.S.: I had the overdrive in mind, because one could also argue: "If you're not abe to play loud enough with your fingers to cause the preamp to overdrive, then quit bass playing!" Which would be similarly mean and non-sense, IMHO.

 

[Quinn Roberts]

@FantasticFour - P.S.: I had the overdrive in mind, because one could also argue: "If you're not abe to play loud enough with your fingers to cause the preamp to overdrive, then quit bass playing!" Which would be similarly mean and non-sense, IMHO.

I've heard similar things stated from many classical guitarists for instance, country and bluegrass as well. I might even have been guilty for saying stuff like, "If you can't just plug the thing into the PA and go then what good are you? " before. I was probably just grouchy though.

 

[J_Bass]

Chameleon was a masterpiece because of the simple intuition of Mr. Mason with his off-beat snare drum so well placed ... harmonically is quite a boring song, especially in its central part where Mr. Hancock grinds our auditive apparatus with his twangy synthesisers

I think it's a great song, full of energy and I love those synthesizers.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

I've heard similar things stated from many classical guitarists for instance, country and bluegrass as well. I might even have been guilty for saying stuff like, "If you can't just plug the thing into the PA and go then what good are you? " before. I was probably just grouchy though.

Yeah, we all are humans, after all, so as long as one recognises when he might have gone a bit too mean, I feel it is OK.
Sometimes it might even be productive, among friends, I mean

 

[Quinn Roberts]

I think it's a great song, full of energy and I love those synthesizers.

Very reminiscent of a lot of horn work in jazz really. I kinda always figured that's what he was going for with it.

 

[Quinn Roberts]

Sometimes it might even be productive, among friends, I mean

At least you understand where I'm coming from!

 

[FantasticFour]

IMHO, everyone who weeps about other not being able to tune by ear should at least be able to tune professionally themselves: That is getting a reference tone (say an A) of any frequency on which the ensemble agrees; then having tuned the A-string tuning the other strings on his/her own.

(To all
However, I lack the understanding when people appear to tell others they should not play guitar/bass when they cannot tune it by ear - what's the point?
As long as the ensemble agrees on the same tuners (read: reference pitch), they all can use tuners, why not? Even if a tuner goes defect, take one of your colleagues.

A tuner to my understanding is as a valid tool as is an overdrive pedal or preamp is.
I may be wrong. In that case, feel free to correct me

@FantasticFour - P.S.: I had the overdrive in mind, because one could also argue: "If you're not abe to play loud enough with your fingers to cause the preamp to overdrive, then quit bass playing!" Which would be similarly mean and non-sense, IMHO.

Aah, now I get it.
Now, I as one would never look down on someone who can't do something as I'm fully aware I've shamelessly used whatever talent I had to chicken my way out of tricky stuff Anyone who had less natural propensities but more honesty and dedication is a million light years ahead of me now. And that's how it should be.
That said, if you play for the right reasons (= love of music) you should never, ever stop. And least of all because some senseless jerk told you to.

 

[J_Bass]

Very reminiscent of a lot of horn work in jazz really. I kinda always figured that's what he was going for with it.

Yes, that is a good point. But in the middle of the second part you can also hear something similar to a strings arrangement. That tune has a lot more to listen to than it seems.

 

[SteveCS]

Valid point. Because with a fretless, similar to a violin, you are able to correct the intonation on-the-fly while playing - which infers that the player is also able to tune his instrument by ear. I agree. Fretless players have no excuse

Indeed we don't - I've only been at it 35 years.

Incidentally, the same individual saying they could not determine pitch was also advising on the nuance of tone of various instruments and amps... I'll let you decide for yourself if you would want to take such advice.

 

[JeffBerlin]

Question: What should I practice now? Chord tones? Reading? Leading tones? Transcribing? I mean what are some generally good things to practice?

Reading etudes is number 1 because you are referring to written music, identifying the notes, thinking about where they belong on the bass neck and physically playing them. Or, you should have a teacher that knows enough about musical content to teach it to you. It isn't a good idea, I feel, that a person unaware of what is needed to learn to be in charge of making decisions about what to practice. People have done this for years and the results haven't been that positive.

Find a teacher that teaches jazz and try to make sure that they aren't not bass players. Bass teachers, for the most part) don't make good instructors because they always begin with the bass or musical performance but not begin with assigning musical content. This makes for very poor teaching. Good luck!

 

[Michael Schreiber]

Indeed we don't - I've only been at it 35 years.

Incidentally, the same individual saying they could not determine pitch was also advising on the nuance of tone of various instruments and amps... I'll let you decide for yourself if you would want to take such advice.

There are endless reasons why one might use a tuner. Just one of those is that he might be deaf. And even Beethoven went deaf - decide for yourself if, back in time when he was already deaf, you would have taken his word on how the (at that time) new trombones would sound.

As for myself, I am fortunately not deaf
I did notice and could describe how different my first sets of strings sounded. I also can feel if something is out of tune.

It was a different story to me, though, to focus on a single pitch in a room full of noise - I simply was not used to have to filter out the noise in my brain. So, I thought, at first, it's nice to learn tuning by ear at home - but I didn't dare to do it in a rehearsal room where I was the noob, and the others were talking, tuning, playing. What should I have said: "Silence please, I want to tune?" Maybe I should have But I was way too shy, so I got used to a tuner pedal when practicing anywhere else than at home. Does that imply I cannot hear something is out of tune? Not per se - only when I couldn't concentrate. That did take training, and it still does.

And mind you: Who started playing bass in front of others and wasn't nervous? Who started playing and thought he could hear what he played - then listened to his first recording and thought: Crap, that was what I played???

Just saying: Shyness might be one reason that one prefers using a tuner; a humane reason, IMHO.

 

[gln1955]

Can you expand about your view of what happened in music education in the period that you refer to as the stone age? What do you think went down back then in music education that isn's just as meaningful today?

I can only make a stab at that from my own disorganized experience and what my kids have done. It may not be very representative of what was going on then or now.

When I was in elementary school, music class included learning to read standard notation on G an F clefs, understanding scales and keys and timing. This was applied to playing recorder in the 4th grade (everyone). Band started in 5th grade so everyone that went down that road started with that same foundation. The first couple years of band focused on the technical side of making noise with your instrument. After a couple years in band, I took guitar lessons for a while. What I remember of that was that there was a fair amount of chord theory. I did not take lessons long enough to get too deep into jazz type stuff but I was comfortable about how stringed instruments made music. I learned blues improv from just paying with others and was also able to self teach myself on banjo, mandolin, fiddle and keys and much more recently bass. I took an introductory theory class in college, which was a good refresher but I knew most of it already.

My kids had a similar elementary school music education. They played in band (flute and two drummers) all through high school and took piano and/or drum set lessons. What I hear a lot about recently is the watering down or elimination of school music programs, especially in school districts on tight budgets. That is a huge loss, of course. When kids come out of school with a knowledge of music fundamentals they are in a better position to decide how they want to further their musical life.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

Incidentally, the same individual saying they could not determine pitch was also advising on the nuance of tone of various instruments and amps...

P.S.: I thought further about that example... and don't understand it.
Do you mean knowing the name of the tone one hears, and it's sharp- or flatness, would have to do with being able to hear and feel that very tone?

I mean all that's needed in order to tune by ear is being able to feel (or hear) a difference between two simultaneously sounding tones - not to determine "This is C, slightly sharp by 10 cents," right? Which, of course, is useful and desirable, agreed Just not needed for tuning, IME. Also not for determining if Amp A sounds warmer but les dynamic than Amp B.