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Metronomes and Time/Rhythm Awareness

#101
SteveCS said:
Ha! You know you are not! What a meant was maybe the right people are not! I think you are very much in the choir on many topics, and IMHO, for what it's worth, there is nothing wrong with a bit of thought-provoking dissent in the ranks...
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From "rebellious" WUTP.

"Two things about this knocked me out. The first was Pino's admission that he can't read music."

Pino Palladino: The Story Behind "Wherever I Lay My Hat" Bass Line

Conclusion.
Hey, Pino your timekeeping sucks.

P.S. As a "compassionate" TB member I would use "marksmithbass" diplomatic statement about Pino,

"Pino Palladino would still be Pino Palladino if he'd learned to read music. He'd simply be a stronger player in that area. It just so happens he's happy with the gigs and style he has."

Dumb question: Pino doesn't read music?
 
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#102
Now, let's take a look at the most technically-advanced bass player in the world. The bass player with the most control of the bass guitar (in my only opinion - don't argue) Hadrien Feraud.

Let's read from here:
Hadrien Feraud: Hadrien Feraud

"The bassist's eponymous debut completely justifies McLaughlin's accolades. Completely self-taught and a non-reader, Feraud possesses the kind of harmonic breadth most spend years studying to acquire. He's a flexible player, with the kind of dexterity and ears that few, other than perhaps Matthew Garrison, can match. As a child of the new millennium, his view of high-energy fusion includes the seamless use of technology that's become de rigueur in many areas of contemporary jazz. He's also a fine writer, with a quirky, episodic conception that's as distinctive as it is imaginative."

As a good example of Hadrien's "bad" :***: timekeeping, let's listen to his arrangement and performance of "Sledgehammer".

 
#103
I wouldn't personally discourage anyone from reading or learning to, but I'm pretty sure I heard in one interview given by Janak Gwizdala where he said he had "exactly one reading gig" in his career. and it was mostly whole notes.

For me, personally, other than reading chord charts (which I think is invaluable), I'd tend to think think that most of the music that is actually written down, note for note, is music I really don't want to play anyway. Having said that, I do know that reading can get you more gigs, if you're in it for the money.
 
#104
Whousedtoplay said:
Dear Jeff,
I'm one of those "wrong people" (by my dear TB member, SteveCS) reading your various sophistries about the dangers of the metronome, about "if you don't read Music - you don't understand about Dynamics :roflmao: :hyper:, if you don't read music - your timekeeping AUTOMATICALLY sucks, etc...

I've just imagined your attempt to tell about "tempo", about "dynamics" to some of my Gypsy musician friends who could not sightread Music.
Anyway.

With all my respect for you as a great bass player, composer, I strongly disagree with your "separation" of Classical Music from the bass player!
I can only ridicule your statements, but I cannot do with one of the greatest bass guitar players in the world.
All my life, I have been surrounded/played/recorded by Classically educated musicians, a lot of them Classical Composers, but I've never ever heard about that "separation" of Classical Music and the bass player.

Once again, I always listen to your recordings and tremendously enjoy but your fallacious (and kind of arrogant) statements about Classical education, Classical Music, etc... - I cannot accept it.
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I never said that one can't listen or enter into some kind of involvement with classical music. I said that because modern music and classical music aren't related, there's little benefit to be had by being assigned to study it. By your reckoning, if studying other forms of music are felt to aid one's bass playing, then studying Gagaku or Corrido will help you to improve your bass playing. But, it won't!
 
#105
Spin Doctor said:
I wouldn't personally discourage anyone from reading or learning to, but I'm pretty sure I heard in one interview given by Janak Gwizdala where he said he had "exactly one reading gig" in his career. and it was mostly whole notes.

For me, personally, other than reading chord charts (which I think is invaluable), I'd tend to think think that most of the music that is actually written down, note for note, is music I really don't want to play anyway. Having said that, I do know that reading can get you more gigs, if you're in it for the money.
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Learning how to play has nothing to do with gigging. It has always interested me how bass players and teachers miss this point. Reading music makes bass players into better players. Other than reading artful works often for performance (but not always) the reason that we learn to read music is that it educates us to play in a much more capable and sophisticated manner. If you noticed, the hillbilly people of Virginia in the 1920's couldn't read nor speak correctly. Even before the Crash in 1929, these people lived in poverty due in a great part to a lack of education. When Virginia people acquired a fine education, both their standards of living and their communication completely changed. Bass players should reflect on this when deciding that certain academic principles aren't important because they might not come up in a working reality. Again, learning how to play and playing/gigging are two entirely different principles.
 
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#109
JeffBerlin said:
Just remember that if you haven't learned how to play, then your gigging life won't last. Learning how to play is first.
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How is it that you assume nobody knows how to play except you? That nobody knows anything except you? I've never had any problems getting or keeping gigs.

By the way, I gotta tell you, I listened to your stuff with guitarist Kazumi Watanabe and I honestly couldn't take it. Spice of Life 2, I think is was.

I listened to "Mobo", same guitarist, but Marcus Miller on bass and it is a truly sublime record.

I listened to your "High Standard". Again couldn't stand it. Turn off the chorus dude... The upright player was great though. I've given your playing a few other listens, but, nah...

My take away is that so far there is no project that you've participated in or fronted which appeals to me. How come your "learning" isn't blowing me away? I'll tell you why... To me, your playing sounds contrived and calculated. It's over trained, and not organic. If what you say is true, then I should be floored by your expertise and knowledge of music.

There's nothing you say that I need to remember. If I don't like your playing, why should I listen to you? Besides, I'm pretty sure you said weren't gong to respond to my posts. I'm honestly fine with that, going forward. Really.
 
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#111
Whousedtoplay said:
"Two things about this knocked me out. The first was Pino's admission that he can't read music."

Pino Palladino: The Story Behind "Wherever I Lay My Hat" Bass Line
Click to expand...

Another of the world's great musicians who doesn't read music is Stuart Duncan, who performed on one of my favorite records of this century, "The Goat Rodeo Sessions" together with Yo Yo Ma, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer. Here's a video forwarded to the clip of Stuart talking about how he and Yo Yo could have been separated by genre forever except for the fact that they all feel that "music is music".



There are many such musicians, some of whom go this route by choice, and others who go this route due to disability, like Michael Cleveland, Stevie Wonder, Marcus Roberts...

Of course, none of this says that reading music is a bad thing. I still strive to get better at it regularly because it comes up in my musical sphere - Just two weeks ago I was lucky enough to be involved in a performance that required me to read a bunch of parts for a concert featuring orchestra and jazz sextet and I could not have survived without this skill. But clearly, the gentlemen mentioned above demonstrate that the highest levels of musicianship can be attained without focusing on this sphere.
 
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#112
Chris Fitzgerald said:
There are many such musicians, some of whom go this route by choice, and others who go this route due to disability, like Michael Cleveland, Stevie Wonder, Marcus Roberts....
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From Marcus Roberts website....
Q: Can you read music and how do you learn music if you can't see?
A: I can learn music different ways: by reading Braille music notation, listening to recordings of a piece or listening to someone else playing a piece slowly, separating the hands so that it's clear which notes are played by the left or right hand. Louis Braille invented the Braille music system so that he could play organ music. Braille music notation uses the same system of 6 dots that literary and mathematical Braille use. However, the dots mean completely different things. Just about anything that can be notated in standard written music can be written in Braille music. The biggest drawbacks with Braille music notation are that it's cumbersome (very bulky to handle) and it's difficult to use because you obviously cannot see more than one line of music at a time. So you must memorize it line by line as you go, which is very different from the way that you listen to music. I find that I use both Braille music and an aural approach to learning music and both have advantages and disadvantages.
 
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#113
Spin Doctor said:
How is it that you assume nobody knows how to play except you? That nobody knows anything except you? I've never had any problems getting or keeping gigs.

By the way, I gotta tell you, I listened to your stuff with guitarist Kazumi Watanabe and I honestly couldn't take it. Spice of Life 2, I think is was.

I listened to "Mobo", same guitarist, but Marcus Miller on bass and it is a truly sublime record.

I listened to your "High Standard". Again couldn't stand it. Turn off the chorus dude... The upright player was great though. I've given your playing a few other listens, but, nah...

My take away is that so far there is no project that you've participated in or fronted which appeals to me. How come your "learning" isn't blowing me away? I'll tell you why... To me, your playing sounds contrived and calculated. It's over trained, and not organic. If what you say is true, then I should be floored by your expertise and knowledge of music.

There's nothing you say that I need to remember. If I don't like your playing, why should I listen to you? Besides, I'm pretty sure you said weren't gong to respond to my posts. I'm honestly fine with that, going forward. Really.
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LOL... you lose. You let him get you to that point :)..

It's incredibly difficult not to argue in these threads because of their absolute ridiculousness.

We only win by not participating at all. IMO.

And thank, by the way. I enjoyed reading that :).
 
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#114
"If you want to play, as every great player did, you don't need to be coddled, you don't need lessons from the internet, which for the most part aren't useful anyway, I'm sorry to say." - Jeff Berlin's 5 tips for bassists, Musicradar.com, 9/15/2015

"Jess Berlin announces his new online bass education series." - Markbass.com, 4/10/2017


Joe Nerve said:
We only win by not participating at all. IMO.
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I'm still quietly following every post in this thread in an exercise of self control. But I had to google some info on this guy who makes absolutely no sense to me and constantly contradicts himself unknowingly. Two of the first things that popped up we're the above contradicting quotes about online lessons. I guess I have failed my self control test by sharing them. :yawn::unsure::(:crying::thumbsdown::banghead:
 
#115
JeffBerlin said:
...
I said that because modern music and classical music aren't related, ...
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But this is a false premise...
There is clear lineage from Medieval through Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic to Rag, Jazz, Blues amd Rock, each adapting/adopting ideas from it's ancestors and combining them with new ideas and discoveries. Often the enablers of progress are new instruments. At only 70 years or so old, the EBG qualifies as such. I believe as bass players we owe it to the future of the EBG to inherit as much legacy as we possibly can for those that come next...
Music is music regardless of genre...
 
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#116
SLO Surfer said:
"If you want to play, as every great player did, you don't need to be coddled, you don't need lessons from the internet, which for the most part aren't useful anyway, I'm sorry to say." - Jeff Berlin's 5 tips for bassists, Musicradar.com, 9/15/2015

"Jess Berlin announces his new online bass education series." - Markbass.com, 4/10/2017


I'm still quietly following every post in this thread in an exercise of self control. But I had to google some info on this guy who makes absolutely no sense to me and constantly contradicts himself unknowingly. Two of the first things that popped up we're the above contradicting quotes about online lessons. I guess I have failed my self control test by sharing them. :yawn::unsure::(:crying::thumbsdown::banghead:
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:). I hear ya and felt the same exact way when I posted.

I hope you know you can block yourself from certain forums sections and never see a single thread. I did that and was doing quite well, and then someone had to go and start this thread in General Instruction, which I won't block. I can't block individual people because doing so makes me want to see what they posted even more when the "blocked response" message shows. Blocking forums, ya simply don't em. Much more effective :).

All pooping aside... the way I (we) allow this dude to get to us I believe has some self-discovery lessons in it. Nothing to do with playing bass either. More with the idea of why am I even entertained by this nonsense? 95% of the bass playing world familiar with Jeff's assertions know that the guy is wrong. 90% just laugh and ignore him. 5% get their panties in a bunch. What's up with us 5%ers!?!?! Maybe we should start a 5%ers club??? Or a support group of some sort :).

Going back into lurk mode now.
 
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#118
Spin Doctor said:
How is it that you assume nobody knows how to play except you? That nobody knows anything except you? I've never had any problems getting or keeping gigs.
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It always has been interesting for me to see all the bass players that do not know the difference between learning and gigging/playing. The two principles don't relate, but bass players don't know this.

My views are based in academic principles. I have no comment about what or how someone chooses to play. I should add that if you feel that I believe that nobody knows how to play the bass as you stated, then you haven't read carefully what I have posted.

I was taught by some of the best music educators for decades, none of whom were bass players. They were pianists and saxophonists. In that no one that I am aware of that plays the electric bass has the kind of musical training that I received in my life, it is logical that many bass players aren't going to grasp some of the statements about learning that I offer.
 
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#120
SteveCS said:
Music is music regardless of genre...
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If music is music regardless of genre, then is grammar just grammar? Are there no differences between a verb and a noun? Is medicine just medicine, or is an antiretroviral different than a decongestant?

Music is not just music! As with all things, the arts, languages, medicine, religion or sports, are uniquely different and don't always relate with each other because of their differences. I've heard people say before that music is music. But, this is a statement from people that couldn't have been taught properly and don't understand how it works even if they gig regularly.
 
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