Music Notes!! A pretty Global language!!

[wotnot]

Maybe not all is lost but these kids need to eventually come up with their own REAL music like that

I meant to comment on this previously, perhaps just pulling it back towards topic a tad....ie; music notes, not just music as such. Wrt bassists, first to spring to mind would be Percy Jones on fretless bass guitar ~ he plays the instrument in such a unique way, it's nearly impossible to express it in musical notation...(one should watch part2 as well =)

That, wotnot is my point, if an instrument tries to emulate another, it is still just an imitation of the real thing. Electric pianos are still just that.

Ok, lets try not using a piano keyboard at all....instead using a 1980's Amiga 500 + Protracker =)

[Uncle Fester]

I meant to comment on this previously, perhaps just pulling it back towards topic a tad....ie; music notes, not just music as such. Wrt bassists, first to spring to mind would be Percy Jones on fretless bass guitar ~ he plays the instrument in such a unique way, it's nearly impossible to express it in musical notation...(one should watch part2 as well =)

Music notation is not designed to address the articulations individual instruments can offer and it is mastering these that separates a musical genius from a parrot.

Excellent video from Percy explaining the flageolets and dynamic expressions I mentioned earlier using string instruments, although I think this quote would have been more relevant to refer to

Excellent and from the physical input abilities of operating a string instrument more versatile than just pressing down keys.

Another master on fretless bass is Jaco Pastorius who also loves to remove the fundamentals:



7.4 million hits when I did the search, didn't expect that!


I am now going to contradict myself somewhat, in that you can't play a string instrument on a keyboard because these following plugins do address some of the limitations where you can change the expressions(articulations) with the left hand while playing on the right, which is suitable for bass and also riffs and solos on a guitar.
I only found this plugin of Jaco's bass a few days ago, might want to skip the first 4 minutes of the video as the reviewer waffles around a bit too much at times :



Still a far cry from what Percy is showing on his instrument but fun for us humble sound searchers.


However my favourite plugin of a string instrument is this and the dude demonstrates the expressions better(using MIDI velocity) and gets more to the point on this video :



Both are on goaudio.me to 'try out'.

[wotnot]

Good set of links there, thanks....and yes, I could've quoted you more succinctly, but I was more referring to this observation I had (in light of your comment) ~ yes, that young lass is very talented, and demonstrates prodigious skill playing (someone else's bassline/song) with a 4 string electric bass guitar, but being the pragmatist that I am, I could make the observation she plays at least as good as Suzi Q ....who wasn't particularly known for nor had any 'unique' distinctions as a bassist. Not like Jaco or Percy (and a number of others), who's bass playing style is somewhat immutably their own.

This is as much as to say, I agree with you ~ I would hope the young lass takes her obvious talent to a place where it sounds like some new, special to her style... n'est par?

Seeing Jaco play that bass solo, one of the outstanding tracks on long favourite vinyl LP of mine '801 Live' ... excellent album, pity that group of musos never toured AU. Best one could do back then, was hit the import vinyl record shops, and even if you had no idea what to buy, absolutely anything in the EG Editions catalog was really worth owning and listening to.

I got to think about Percy demonstrating technique, visually and vocally, decades after the events on the new social media of youtube ~ to think, since the late 1970's, all I had was the unique sound of Percy Jones playing fretless bass, and some 40years later, I get to see how he did it, the ideas he came up with wrt style of playing...it's so magnanimous of him to such IMHO.....but then, in a somewhat sad and sombre twist for myself, whilst looking for songs that Percy had collaborated/played on that demonstrated his playing techniques 'in actual use'....

....I discovered had died last year, June 26th... the world has lost a truly unique artist there. Nobody sounds like Jon Hassell did on horns & trumpets ...treated or not.

I doubt many folks even know the name, but it's likely they've heard his playing...somewhere.....sometime....

Brian Eno / Percy Jones / Phil Collins




Jon Hassell - treated trumpet / Percy Jones - fretless bass

[wotnot]