Metronomes and Jeff Berlin

[Ed Fuqua]

At your request, XAVIERG:

Anyone can contradict me. I can contradict anyone. If anyone asks me to back up something I present, I will be more than happy to. But it's disrespectful to ask for the same consideration?

Perhaps since you are a relative newcomer to the board, all you have to base your opinion (vis a vis "disrespect") is the current exchange. But I have used "diminutives" and variations of people's usernames here in a variety of posts since at least 5 boards ago, ample time has past for those so addressed to inform me of their wish to be addressed otherwise. I do think that it's funny that PUKERTOO objects to it if he's mad at me, but when he's not it doesn't matter. And there are any number of people here who actually LIKE having a sobriquet.

And which high horse are you refering to (I have so many)?
A. metronomes are a tool that all musicians will benefit by using
B. if you hold to a position that is objectively quantifiable, be ready to back up your position with proof
C. get a teacher
D. upright bass is a vasty different instrument than electric
E. the best approach to building a walking line is not from books but working on exercies that get the harmony in your ear and then playing what you hear

Those are about all the positions that I harp on incessantly that I can remember, if anybody has others, feel free to add'em.

 

[Gabu]

Ding, Ding!

Calling all moderators... blue-light special in technique!

I think this thread is dead, Jim.

Just fighting and stuff now.

Also, I believe that some valuable discussion was achieved on peoples opinions positive and negative on time keeping.... so maybe time for (as JT calls em) the pruning sheers?

 

[XavierG]

Where's jazzbo when we need his samurai sword?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by XavierG
Where's jazzbo when we need his samurai sword?

If I'm not mistaken, he's probably practicing in a hotel room somewhere. WITH his metronome...

I'm gonna put in my .02c worth and try not to deepen the amount of "Upward Undergarment Creep" that seems to be going around on both "sides" of this issue. I may fail to do so, but I'm going to try. Oh, and as a disclaimer - yes, I have been in correspondence with Ed and we have traded recordings of our playing, NOT, as some might suggest, to inflate our egos so that we can feel superior to others, but so that we may learn from each other. When I listened to the tape he sent, I remarked that his technique was more advanced than mine because of his greater experience, and that he had a nice light time feel. When he wrote back about my recording, he commented that my time was solid, mentioned - in a very nice, constructive way - that he could hear places where my technique was holding me back, and added that he felt that my harmonic concept was more advanced than his own. Sorry if that story seemed boring or superfluous, but the point of telling it is that, to coin a phrase, didn't nobody disrespect nobody . It was all positive, and I hope to do it again.

Disclaimer #2: I have also Emailed back and forth with pkr2, and I think he's a nice guy too. Most of his postings are either interesting, funny, or helpful, or some combination of the three. So, I have no problem with anybody personally. Having said that...

I think that what is going on here is in part a territorial thing. Down in DB, posters have a very dry and sarcastic way of dealing with each other - kind of like brothers or families in general who are so fond of each other that they display it ironically, or with sarcastic putdowns which are actually displays of affection in a perverse kind of way. If you've spend some time in the DB forums, you get used to this, and those of us who "live" down there find this practice a highly amusing sideline to the actual discussion at hand....deadpan style. He calls me DURRL as an affectionate insult, and I refer to him as FUQHORN EDHORN, or whatever. It's there for comedy relief. If you didn't know Ed from this context, it would not be impossible to see how he could be viewed as an obnoxious blowhard. But that's just his screen personality, and 99% of the time, everyone thinks it's funny, as I do, because they recognize that it's an affectation geared toward introducing colloquial informality into what can tend to be an otherwise dry atmosphere. My take on what happened here is that Ed posted his opinions completely in character, but he was in the wrong neighborhood where this character is not so well known. It's like the white/black thing: it's ok for a white to call a white a "stupid honkey", or a black to call a black a "dumb n*****", but you start mixing the two, or walking into a situation where nobody knows when you're being serious and when you're not, and the fur is gonna fly.

I've been busted up here in BG for the same thing - for posting in the same "sarcastic mode" that I use down in DB, and one time I (quite unintentionally) offended a moderator. It happens. In that instance, I contacted the other party off board to let them know that I simply forgot that not everyone speaks that language, and was sorry if they found it offensive. On the other hand, some of the BG guys play the DB language game very well: jazzbo, for instance, once reffered to me as F SCOTCHTAPE (that's Edspeak for, "F Scott Fitzgerald), and had me laughing so hard that I had to stew for about an hour on how to top that in reply before posting back. Pkr2 has also been know to take part in the typically goofy "DB reindeer games".

Okay, I'll stop rambling now. I just wanted to say that I feel fairly sure that nobody was trying to cause harm with their posts... I just saw different languages being spoken while people were trying to make their points. Hope this wasn't too boring...

Peace,
DURRL

 

[Yvon]

Like gbrooks said, I also think this thread is dead and not going anywhere. So I'm closing it.

Yvon