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Jeff Berlin

C

CircleOf5ths

Feb 25, 2024
55
93
Fort Mill, SC
#1
Does anyone know where I can get bass transcriptions (tabs and/or notation) for Jeff Berlin songs... especially during the time that he played with Bruford and Holdsworth? I find it strange that his music is rarely transcribed. Perhaps its because they are so difficult to pick out/play. You would think Berlin himself could make a killing if he transcribed his own music and posted it on his website.

I see lots of posts about a member here (Rob Palmer) who had a site BilbosBassBites.co.uk with supposedly tons of great Jeff Berlin, Percy Jones, Geddy Lee, etc. transcriptions. But when I navigate to the site it says he's in the process of building a WordPress site. I believe this is a standard splash page on BlueHost that appears when someone installs WordPress and then does nothing with it. I have reached out to him via PM here to no avail.

Does anyone have old copies of Berlin tunes they might have downloaded from Rob's site, especially those during the Bruford/Holdsworth days... Fainting in Coils, Hell's Bells, Beelzebub, Joe Frasier, etc? Also I will take everything people have by Berlin as well as Percy Jones as well.

Thanks in advance!
 
#2
I believe Mr. Berlin is here on the forum. Have you reached out to him directly?

It would be tricky to transcribe Percy’s lines as they contain so many peculiarities to his technique. Also, he doesn’t read so he’s never going to sit and transcribe his own stuff.

It sounds like this could be a great time to brush up on your transcribing!
 
#3
CircleOf5ths said:
Does anyone know where I can get bass transcriptions (tabs and/or notation) for Jeff Berlin songs... especially during the time that he played with Bruford and Holdsworth? I find it strange that his music is rarely transcribed. Perhaps its because they are so difficult to pick out/play. You would think Berlin himself could make a killing if he transcribed his own music and posted it on his website.

I see lots of posts about a member here (Rob Palmer) who had a site BilbosBassBites.co.uk with supposedly tons of great Jeff Berlin, Percy Jones, Geddy Lee, etc. transcriptions. But when I navigate to the site it says he's in the process of building a WordPress site. I believe this is a standard splash page on BlueHost that appears when someone installs WordPress and then does nothing with it. I have reached out to him via PM here to no avail.

Does anyone have old copies of Berlin tunes they might have downloaded from Rob's site, especially those during the Bruford/Holdsworth days... Fainting in Coils, Hell's Bells, Beelzebub, Joe Frasier, etc? Also I will take everything people have by Berlin as well as Percy Jones as well.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/bilbos-bass-bites-free-transcription-website.1474844/

Around post #633 @StayLow tried to save all the transcriptions a lot are still there
 
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#6
StayLow said:
I’ll see what I have.
Click to expand...


It seems that NONE of the Google cache links work anymore. What a waste. Looks like there was a treasure trove of transcriptions there. I hope they were not all lost. I even checked the Wayback Machine on Archive.org. It has no record of the site. Bummer.

On a good note... the PDFs still appear to exist on the website, but because WordPress has not been configured, there are no web pages leading you to them. But IF you know they exact URL on WordPress where the URLs are stored, then you can still get to them.

https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Bloodsucker-Roger-Glover-Bass.pdf

Hopefully someone preserved all of these as these appear to be really good transcriptions. Going to read all the way through the thread you linked and hopefully find/save some that can still be accessed.
 
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#8
@beaglesandbass : dear moderator, if OK with the OP, and I hope it is, would you please change the title of this thread to something like “Jeff Berlin Notation Bonanza” for benefit of future searches? Also feel free to edit this in any way you see fit, if you think it should be…

To no one in this thread, just sayin’: when people contribute a gigaton of value let’s please give them the energy of gratitude, attention and respectful discourse even if in disagreement.

Also to no one in particular, just riffin’ on a meme: Mr. Berlin was totally correct about the metronome thing. Maybe not endearing in how he communicated it, but neither were the armchair bassists who dogged him. And I’ll bet 100% of us learn/ed the same way he recommends, and not just on bass, if we’re doing it well.

Not about Mr. Berlin specifically: a little reading comprehension, self-reflection, and giving a busy world-renown icon some space and grace probably goes a long way. Virtually every actual pro here has been chased away, badgered sbout banalities, or posts anonymously (or in the DB forum). And yes that’s a 2-way street, at least.

That said, this should keep everyone busy:
 

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#9
Thank you so much @StayLow!

I literally spent most of the day yesterday going through that entire thread where you tried to preserve all the Rob Palmer transcriptions dumping off all the transcriptions that had links directly to the PDFs (not those linking to broken pages on his site or expired Google cache pages). I found tons of transcriptions for favorites by Rush, Return to Forever, Weather Report, UK, King Crimson, as well as songs by many other bands I had never even heard of. It was fun searching YouTube for those I didn't know and discovering even more great music.

What you provided above gives me even more Berlin tunes than were accessible in the aforementioned thread. What a great legacy Rob Palmer left with his transcriptions and requesting that people pay it forward by helping others out. You certainly have, and I appreciate you taking the time!
 
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#11
CircleOf5ths said:
Thank you so much @StayLow!

I literally spent most of the day yesterday going through that entire thread where you tried to preserve all the Rob Palmer transcriptions dumping off all the transcriptions that had links directly to the PDFs (not those linking to broken pages on his site or expired Google cache pages). I found tons of transcriptions for favorites by Rush, Return to Forever, Weather Report, UK, King Crimson, as well as songs by many other bands I had never even heard of. It was fun searching YouTube for those I didn't know and discovering even more great music.

What you provided above gives me even more Berlin tunes than were accessible in the aforementioned thread. What a great legacy Rob Palmer left with his transcriptions and requesting that people pay it forward by helping others out. You certainly have, and I appreciate you taking the time!
Click to expand...

Thank you too. Rob gave the bass world an epic treasure, and asked nothing for it.
 
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#14
MarkM13 said:
StayLow: Very, very well said! And a huge thank you for the charts.
Click to expand...

Happy to help.

I’m still working on Alain Caron and Jaco charts from … a long time ago when I first discovered Rob’s gift to us.

His efforts made a very positive, lasting impact on my life. Musically at least, but I think beyond given his selfless and profoundly patient attitude about it all.

I’d emailed with him a few times back when the site was still up - IIRC I didn’t discover it through TB - and he was only gracious, patient and encouraging. And much of what he transcribed wasn’t the usual, so it’s irreplaceable.

In case anyone’s wondering, and this is buried toward the end of Rob’s original thread, after some months someone was able to confirm he’s alive and well. Apparently he’d decided to quit online media.

I have put it out there, online and through people who seem to know him, that I’d gladly take over costs to keep the site running - in case he’d passed away, or it was a time & cost burden - but it seems that isn’t the issue. Will probably try to make contact and offer that again at some point, but if someone wants to be left alone I certainly respect that.

Lesson: maybe the Internet isn’t always forever, and cherish what you have while you have it. Unreal amount of time to salvage what I did, and organize it, after discovering the site went down. I’m glad to find fellowship among even complete strangers who appreciate the awesomeness of what we had, and lost, and what remains.

This active thread also has a LOT of great transcriptions - https://www.talkbass.com/threads/bass-transcriptions.1167875/

For those into Rob’s work, like me probably leaning to the more complex / prog / fusion stuff, @ChrisDev has some transcriptions that borders into that. Give him energy, donations, thread bumps… and discover some cool, unfamiliar music!!
 
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#15
StayLow said:
Happy to help.

I’m still working on Alain Caron and Jaco charts from … a long time ago when I first discovered Rob’s gift to us.

His efforts made a very positive, lasting impact on my life. Musically at least, but I think beyond given his selfless and profoundly patient attitude about it all.

I’d emailed with him a few times back when the site was still up - IIRC I didn’t discover it through TB - and he was only gracious, patient and encouraging. And much of what he transcribed wasn’t the usual, so it’s irreplaceable.

In case anyone’s wondering, and this is buried toward the end of Rob’s original thread, after some months someone was able to confirm he’s alive and well. Apparently he’d decided to quit online media.

I have put it out there, online and through people who seem to know him, that I’d gladly take over costs to keep the site running - in case he’d passed away, or it was a time & cost burden - but it seems that isn’t the issue. Will probably try to make contact and offer that again at some point, but if someone wants to be left alone I certainly respect that.

Lesson: maybe the Internet isn’t always forever, and cherish what you have while you have it. Unreal amount of time to salvage what I did, and organize it, after discovering the site went down. I’m glad to find fellowship among even complete strangers who appreciate the awesomeness of what we had, and lost, and what remains.

This active thread also has a LOT of great transcriptions - https://www.talkbass.com/threads/bass-transcriptions.1167875/

For those into Rob’s work, like me probably leaning to the more complex / prog / fusion stuff, @ChrisDev has some transcriptions that borders into that. Give him energy, donations, thread bumps… and discover some cool, unfamiliar music!!
Click to expand...

@StayLow I spent 23 years doing IT work. I've spent the last 17 doing digital marketing (search engine optimization and conversion optimization) but still dabble in IT work. I have built a few dozen WordPress sites over the years and would GLADLY volunteer to revive BilbosBassBites.co.uk should you somehow get access and even fund future hosting. If you manage to get access to the domain & hosting account, I could restore the website so that it used the exact same same URLs that previously existed (so links in old threads here and elsewhere will work once agian), even with the same content if the WordPress database (or a backup) still exists on the hosting account. I know all the PDFs exist in the old locations at BlueHost because you can still access them. It looks as if he installed a new copy of the WordPress software but simply never installed/configured a theme for it.

Let me know if I can ever help. And thanks again!
 
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#17
MrLenny1 said:
Try reaching out to him. He is on Facebook
And writes back to inquiries.
Click to expand...

Would someone please try?

A link to this thread would suffice.

I’m not on Facebook. Was once going to call a pub in the U.K. his trio gigged at to ask after him… hadn’t thought he’d be in FB if he’d quit his site, this one, and Basschat.uk
 
#18
CircleOf5ths said:
@StayLow I spent 23 years doing IT work. I've spent the last 17 doing digital marketing (search engine optimization and conversion optimization) but still dabble in IT work. I have built a few dozen WordPress sites over the years and would GLADLY volunteer to revive BilbosBassBites.co.uk should you somehow get access and even fund future hosting. If you manage to get access to the domain & hosting account, I could restore the website so that it used the exact same same URLs that previously existed (so links in old threads here and elsewhere will work once agian), even with the same content if the WordPress database (or a backup) still exists on the hosting account. I know all the PDFs exist in the old locations at BlueHost because you can still access them. It looks as if he installed a new copy of the WordPress software but simply never installed/configured a theme for it.

Let me know if I can ever help. And thanks again!
Click to expand...

Fantastic! We’ll discuss. First let’s see if Rob’s got any thoughts about it.
 
#19
StayLow said:
@beaglesandbass : dear moderator, if OK with the OP, and I hope it is, would you please change the title of this thread to something like “Jeff Berlin Notation Bonanza” for benefit of future searches? Also feel free to edit this in any way you see fit, if you think it should be…

To no one in this thread, just sayin’: when people contribute a gigaton of value let’s please give them the energy of gratitude, attention and respectful discourse even if in disagreement.

Also to no one in particular, just riffin’ on a meme: Mr. Berlin was totally correct about the metronome thing. Maybe not endearing in how he communicated it, but neither were the armchair bassists who dogged him. And I’ll bet 100% of us learn/ed the same way he recommends, and not just on bass, if we’re doing it well.

Not about Mr. Berlin specifically: a little reading comprehension, self-reflection, and giving a busy world-renown icon some space and grace probably goes a long way. Virtually every actual pro here has been chased away, badgered sbout banalities, or posts anonymously (or in the DB forum). And yes that’s a 2-way street, at least.

That said, this should keep everyone busy:
Click to expand...


Thank you!
 
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