Ask a Pro #4 - Steve Lawson

[Tryxx]

Steve is going to try and make an account within the next few days. (Immitation accounts will be banned.)

Start compiling some questions!

If you don't know Steve Lawson's work:
A) You fool
B) Check out http://www.stevelawson.net and this video: http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=2648#

[Wintermute]

But Steve has an account at Talkbass/Bassworld!

Yes, we know. And? :p

[katana_manatee]

First question to Steve, "How many chinchillas do you use to play back loops?"

[enim]

QUestion 2, the most obvious:
What got you started into bass playing, and what keeps your interest today with it?

edit: Crap, someone beat me to the first question

[BenJammin]

Oh, neato. I don't have any real questions, but I'm looking forward to seeing his responses. He's my favorite fretless player next to Manring.

[katana_manatee]

To anyone that doesn't know, it is an inside joke, you would have to have been at bassday uk to understand it.

[Wintermute]

"It's great - you guys can see what I'm doing, but as far as those guys over there are concerned, I'm just molesting chinchillas."

:lol:

He went on to give an in depth explanation of how he trained those chinchillas to loop and process effects for him. :lol:

[Tryxx]

:amaze:
I want to go...

Anyway, ask more questions.

[sheephead]

Loved your arrangement of Wonderful World or whatever is was called - the louis armstrong one (i think! I'm not sure if I actually know anything now...).

My question is:
Do you play any other instruments? If so have you applied any techniques from them onto bass or t'other way round? Also, how do you go about composing?

[Tryxx]

Steve's going to be making an account over the next few days. :thumb:

Might want to reserve the questions then. :)

[trumpeter]

Steve Lawson amazes me.

[Tryxx]

That's the idea. :smoke:

And I encourage others to make note of this topic. He's an extremely creative and innovative bassist.

[Steve Lawson]

Hello all,

have just signed up - will hopefully get to answer some of the questions that have been posted already later on today, but wanted to come and say hi anyway...

cheers!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

Hey Steve. Thanks again for coming here. :thumb:

My first question for you is how set in stone your music is? Watching you with the looperative it's as if you're setting up a soundscape just step by step. I almost feel that it has to be improv, seems like it has a lot of emotional context.

(Oh, and in no way are you confined to this thread, feel free to venture out.)

[pukeboy66]

hey steve.

im curious as to what your practice routine for the day is.

and how long do you spend practicing each day

[Jamie]

Hi Steve :) How's things going?


Is there any chance of any gigs lined up in the North East area? Preferably Newcastle! I would have went to Bassday (I actually had my ticket for it...) but couldn't afford the train tickets to Manchester and back!


I'm getting the EMGs I bought off you fitted by Jon at the moment :D Can't wait to hear the results!!

[Machines]

My question - what looping/effects gear do you use, and what makes you prefer them ?

[trumpeter]

Mr. Lawson, great to see you wanting to answer some questions...


Well, what do you do if you are ever in a creative low and don't have any inspiration to play. As well, who are some of your biggest influences/what CD are you listening to right now?

[Steve Lawson]

Hi guys,

thanks for the warm welcome - it's nice to be here. I'll deal with the first batch of questions, then try to deal with any more on a Q by Q basis...

"How many chinchillas do you use to play back loops?"

Depends how well the gig pays - those lil' guys don't come cheap you know! :D

What got you started into bass playing, and what keeps your interest today with it?

I first got into playing bass because I'd tried violin, trumpet, acoustic guitar and piano and was dreadful at all of them. Then I moved to Berwick on Tweed and the guy next door played drums, and had a friend who wanted to start a band. A local school teacher sold me a bass for £25...

What keeps me interested in it? I guess it's just that I've spent so much time and energy developing my voice on the instrument that it's become one of my primary means of getting my ideas and thoughts about things down. It's also great fun, and I love the creative process getting better at making what comes out the speakers be what's going on in my head. :) I love to play bass, and sometimes wish someone else would deal with the business side so I could just play all day...

Loved your arrangement of Wonderful World <snip>

My question is:
Do you play any other instruments? If so have you applied any techniques from them onto bass or t'other way round? Also, how do you go about composing?

Glad you liked Wonderful World - it's a great song, and playing it always reminds me of that scene in 'Good Morning Vietnam' where they play it as a backdrop to a load of helicopter footage of rural Vietnam, highlighting the beauty in the midst of a really screwed up war... I'm a sucker for bittersweet imagery.

I don't really play any other instruments - I own a pair of congas, a cello and a mini USB keyboard for putting stuff into the computer, but whenever I find time to play any of them, I tend to end up practicing bass instead. :D

However, I do use techniques that I nick from other musicians all the time - I vividly remember seeing a Cello masterclass on TV about 12 years ago - I was on tour, playing in Leiston in suffolk, and watching this master Cellist go into such incredible detail over the specifics of how to extract the most emotion from whatever the piece was that was being played was awe-inspiring. I used a lot of that. I was then in a quartet with a classical guitarist, and I copied a lot of right hand ideas from him. And my home-made extended techniques are often attempts at getting close to a particular colour that I've heard from another instrument, or vocalist...


My first question for you is how set in stone your music is? Watching you with the looperative it's as if you're setting up a soundscape just step by step. I almost feel that it has to be improv, seems like it has a lot of emotional context.

It depends on the tune - that Looperlative demo was all improv. I guess this brings up a point about what Improv is, or firstly what's it's not. There's this idea that improvising is about playing things you've never ever played before. Improv is no more about that than conversation is about making up new words that no-one has ever used before. Both are about using your understanding of the language to say what you want to say in that moment - so you're going to use words and sentences and grammar that makes sense to you, and hopefully to the people you're playing with. So while that was improv, I have played 'stuff in A minor' before, which is largely what it was!

However, you're dead right that my main process is emotional - I listen to what I've just played, and try to take the piece in specific emotional directions - there are a lot of places that one can go as a solo musician that you can't go with a band, largely due to the absence of drums - drummers tie things down to a rhythmic grid, which is a great thing if you want music to groove, or to dance to, but they also mean that you miss the effect of stretching things, of pausing, or playing lines without any reference to strict tempo at all. The nice thing with looping is that it does work to tempo, but the tempo may be set by the start and stop points of the loop, so your repeat points can be minutes apart!


im curious as to what your practice routine for the day is.

and how long do you spend practicing each day

The answer to the second one is 'not enough' - a lot depends on what else is going on. If I'm teaching a lot, I don't practice as much - by the end of a 6 or 7 hour teaching day, the last thing I want to do is pick up the bass again! If I'm not then I might do a couple of hours or so. Usually I work on tunes - sometimes arrangements of tunes that I want to do solo versions of - like the version of 'What A Wonderful World' that was mentioned above. But a lot of the time I play diatonic interval studies, looking at getting a great degree of control over the melodic and harmonic potential of the instrument, against a whole range of backdrops, from an ambient pad over a single chord to groove stuff with a drum machine, or the changes to a standard...


Is there any chance of any gigs lined up in the North East area? Preferably Newcastle! I would have went to Bassday (I actually had my ticket for it...) but couldn't afford the train tickets to Manchester and back!

I really want to come and play newcastle again. I haven't played there since 2002, when I played at the Opera House twice in three months! If you have an in at any venues, send me an email!

My question - what looping/effects gear do you use, and what makes you prefer them ?

My looper, as of December is a Looperlative (http://www.looperlative.com) - the coolest looping device I've EVER come across. It was launched at this year's NAMM show and at the moment I have a prototype, but the production units are being built as I write. Whereas every other looper I've used has just been one mono channel that you loop into, with varying amounts of control over what you do with that, the looperlative has 8 stereo channels in a 1U rackmount box. It's amazing, and I'm loving it.

Effects-wise, I've got two Lexicon MPX-G2s and a Kaoss Pad KPII - the Lexicons are just the best rackmount effects/preamp combination I've ever come across - amazing range of sounds, and a nice preamp on the front end. I've got two so that I can run my effects back through the other one...

The Kaoss Pad is for doing weird stuff. :D


Well, what do you do if you are ever in a creative low and don't have any inspiration to play. As well, who are some of your biggest influences/what CD are you listening to right now?

If I run out of inspiration, I tend to either stop playing for a while, or come up with some strategy to make myself play differently without having to think 'creatively' - I'll work on a particular geometry-based pattern on the neck, I'll set myself a rule like 'no two consecutive notes can be played on the same string' or only playing notes on frets that have a dot on them - anything to get me out of old ways of playing and make me think about new things. Either that or I find a new sound to mess with...

My biggest influences are mostly singer/songwriters - Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Jonatha Brooke, David Sylvian, Talk Talk... I'm also a big fan of solo acoustic guitar players like Ralph Towner, Don Ross, Eric Roche, Kaki King, Thomas Leeb...

Bass-wise, Michael Manring is probably the biggest, and he's a safe one as there's not much chance of me ever being able to play like him! Other big influences include Doug Wimbish, Todd Johnson, Danny Thompson, Nick Beggs, Mo Foster, Tony Levin, Mike Watt, Matthew Garrison...

And right now, I'm listening to a bunch of loop stuff that I've had running for the last 20 minutes while I've been typing this - just practice things for a 3 hour solo gig I've got tomorrow!!!!

cheers!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Jamie]

Ahhhh, thanks very much for taking the time to answer all those questions Steve!! :D


About Newcastle: I'm playing a gig in the Opera House in May. Is it a good venue? If you played there again I'd definately be up for going! The problem is all the main venues around here only really have the likes of emo, hardcore and punkrock bands playing. So it might be kind of hard to get a gig at those venues! (places like the academy and the bassment)

[thelowsoundofbass]

:lol: double post by steve. i don't really have a question seeing as i haven't heard very much of your stuff. but i would like to welcome you and to mention that you can venture out of this thread and answer the regular questions or you can hang out in the "casual" thread, you can't miss it, its the biggest thread in here.

lowsound

[muthafunkabass]

Wow, he's actually here.

I've got a question:

Steve, if you had to pick just one song, which of your songs do you think contains the most of your emotion, and how do you fit your emotions into a song?

[Tryxx]

Steve, I understand the reason for wanting a hollow body Quantum, but why the wooden board as opposed to the phelonic? Are there any discerning qualities between the two for you? I love the phelonic board myself.

[Spaceman Spiff]

My biggest influences are mostly singer/songwriters - Tom Waits
:eek:

I like you already.

If I can think if a question then I'll come back and ask.

[trumpeter]

You said you tried trumpet, whatever happened to that ;)?

[Jamie]

:eek:

I like you already.

If I can think if a question then I'll come back and ask.

Same here :D Tom Waits is quite the legend. Very unique voice :)

[Steve Lawson]

Jamie - the newcastle opera house is one of my favourite venues I've ever played at - the shape of the room means that you're really close to everyone, and Newcastle audiences seemed to get the nonsense I talk between songs better than most! :D Perhaps something to do with me growing up in Berwick on Tweed.. it's a north-eastern thing. ;)

Song with the most emotion? boy, that's a tough question - there are those which mean the most to me given the subject matter, but that doesn't necessarily come across to the listener in the same way - there's a track on Not Dancing For Chicken called 'Jimmy James' which has a lot of memories for me, but the version on the album doesn't really do it justice so I think I'm going to do it again on the next record. I've got a new tune I wrote for my friend Eric Roche (http://www.ericroche.com) who died of cancer last September - he was one of the most incredible acoustic guitarists I've ever heard, and a huge inspiration to me in lots of different ways, so playing that means a lot to me too, and fortunately it seems to connect with audiences really well too - I haven't got it recorded yet, but it'll be on the new album! :)

Wooden fingerboards - I think it softens the attack of the instrument quite considerably, and it means that the fretless sound doesn't have that 'zing' - I've got a phenolic board on my Q4, which sounds and feels amazing, but I just prefer the softer, warmer sound of the wooden board, especially with flatwound strings.

What happened to trumpet? I was crap at it, and wasn't playing the music I was listening to... I'm sure if my teacher had been showing me Tears For Fears and Howard Jones tunes, I'd have stuck with it!

cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[fingerstyle]

As a more 'progressive' bassist, how do you handle situations in which you feel pressured into playing like a 'stereotypical' bassist 'should'? In example, I have sometimes been told to do things like 'just sit up the back and walk', or when people see me playing chords and melody on the six string bass they wonder why I don't just go get a guitar.

I guess my question really is how do you incorporate you're own interpretations of the role of the bass in contemporary music into a traditional ensemble environment without totally alienating the listeners and your band mates, as is so easy when there is so much 'expected' of a bass player?

[Jamie]

Jamie - the newcastle opera house is one of my favourite venues I've ever played at - the shape of the room means that you're really close to everyone, and Newcastle audiences seemed to get the nonsense I talk between songs better than most! :D Perhaps something to do with me growing up in Berwick on Tweed.. it's a north-eastern thing.



:D You've got me excited about it now! We were meant to be playing the Sage Gateshead but they're completely booked for the next year!..

Any chance you could post around the bass forums aswell as your Ask A Pro thread? :) I'm sure your words of wisdom will be greatly appreciated! (We've had people like Jean Baudin and Manring on here in the past and they very rarely posted outside of their Ask A Pro thread!) And I mean, you do post alot over at Bassworld! :D

[trumpeter]

What was your first bass?

[BenJammin]

I've got a non-music question for you. After popping onto your website this afternoon and reading your recent blog, I was wondering how you feel about the international political arena?

Do you think that too much time and resources is being devoted to trivial issues (such as the Danish cartoon incident, which, although the after-effects have turned out to be terrible, could have perhaps been resolved quicker and more effectively), where there are many greater issues which are currently receiving less attention than they should, or being ignored entirely (such as overpopulation, global warming, hunger, etc.)?

I'm just curious as to your thoughts.

[Steve Lawson]

As a more 'progressive' bassist, how do you handle situations in which you feel pressured into playing like a 'stereotypical' bassist 'should'? In example, I have sometimes been told to do things like 'just sit up the back and walk', or when people see me playing chords and melody on the six string bass they wonder why I don't just go get a guitar.

I guess my question really is how do you incorporate you're own interpretations of the role of the bass in contemporary music into a traditional ensemble environment without totally alienating the listeners and your band mates, as is so easy when there is so much 'expected' of a bass player?

I guess the distinction to draw here first is between 'unfettered art' and doing a job... both are fantastically rewarding if you approach them with the right mind set. I LOVE playing straight bass parts, and doing it well. I love the feeling of having the people I'm working for dig what I'm playing, and not just cos I whip out an Ebow and dazzle them with weird noises. ;)

If it's a country gig, I'm going to play country bass - understanding idiom is hugely important, at least as important for band playing as having your own voice. I often try 'channelling' certain bassists - if I'm playing country I think 'what would Dave Pomeroy or Roy Huskey Jnr do here?' If I'm playing funk and soul, I think about Freddie Washington, Louis Johnson and Bernard Edwards. If I'm playing metal it's Doug Pinnick and Steve Harris... Those give me at least a starting place, and often that's where it stays - if it sounds good it is good.

The point with doing the more esoteric stuff is that it HAS to come after you've proved your self as a working bassist in the setting. If I'm doing a session, or playing in a covers band, my number one priority is to get the lines down in their most basic, grooving form, getting the sound and the feel as close to perfect as I can. Once that's done, once it's finished and tight as tight can be, only then would I ever suggest trying anything else out that I might hear on the track - in the studio I might suggest an ebow part or a bass melody or something, if I can hear it happening on the track. On a covers gig, I might suggest changing the intro of one of the songs to bass and voice, just to mix it up, but only after I've earned the right to do that by nailing the lines that are expected.

If you get the order wrong, you're destined for a life of being kicked out of bands, no matter how blinding your chops are. ;)

Bass is a zen thing - it's all about the tiny details. Nailing a country bassline is just a rewarding as playing a solo tune for me - I love doing a good job, making every note as right as I can. That takes a lot of concentration, and stops the seemingly simple stuff from getting boring.

cheers!

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

What was your first bass?

a short scale SG copy that cost me £25 (about $40).

I broke a string on it not long after I got it, and I didn't even know you could buy new strings - I had the string tied round the bridge for nearly two years!

cheers

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

I've got a non-music question for you. After popping onto your website this afternoon and reading your recent blog, I was wondering how you feel about the international political arena?

Do you think that too much time and resources is being devoted to trivial issues (such as the Danish cartoon incident, which, although the after-effects have turned out to be terrible, could have perhaps been resolved quicker and more effectively), where there are many greater issues which are currently receiving less attention than they should, or being ignored entirely (such as overpopulation, global warming, hunger, etc.)?

I'm just curious as to your thoughts.

hi Ben,

that's a MASSIVE question, that takes in issues about the media and who controls it, the influence of biased reporting on our perception of certain things, the Ethnocentric self-interest of most government policies... Is this the place for it? I'm happy to talk politics, but it's perhaps best dealt with over in the forum on my website, rather than inflicting it on all the bass-heads here. :)

cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Spaceman Spiff]

Which is your favorite Tom Waits album?

Mine is either Real Gone or Rain Dogs.

Also, seeing as you like him, are you a fan of either Nick Cave or Mark Lanegan?
If not, you should check them out, I think.

[Steve Lawson]

Which is your favorite Tom Waits album?

Mine is either Real Gone or Rain Dogs.

Also, seeing as you like him, are you a fan of either Nick Cave or Mark Lanegan?
If not, you should check them out, I think.

Favourite Tom Waits album??? blimey, I like them all for different reasons. If I HAD to choose, I think it'd be either 'One From The Heart' or 'Blue Valentines', but I really love Rain Dogs, Swordfish Trombones, BoneMachine, Real Gone, Mule Variations... picking a favourite Tom Waits song would be slightly easier - that's got to be Kentucky Avenue...

I've not heard Mark Lanegan, but I like Nick Cave - need to get more of his stuff though...

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[katana_manatee]

Ah yes, I had forgotten to ask you this before Steve, (I'm the long haired Glaswegian guy from Bass Day and the Whimbish clinic) what albums would you strongly recommend I should listen to by Doug?

Also, have you done any interesting sessions lately, or have any upcoming ones?

[Steve Lawson]

Ah yes, I had forgotten to ask you this before Steve, (I'm the long haired Glaswegian guy from Bass Day and the Whimbish clinic) what albums would you strongly recommend I should listen to by Doug?

Also, have you done any interesting sessions lately, or have any upcoming ones?

Wimbish recommendations - I've not heard his solo album yet, but that's on my list of things to buy (I've been trying to slow down on buying new albums of late, and get through the backlog of things I've bought and only listened to once, as well as the pile of 70 or so CDs I've been sent by people to 'check out'. Stain by Living Colour is another great bit of Doug's playing, and I've got a great single by Bomb The Bass called Sandcastles that features a lot of Doug's crazy bassing, including an extended solo all on artificial harmonics...

My session career slowed almost to a stop for a while after I started playing solo - I did such a good job of letting everyone know what I was up to that they all assumed I was a) much busier than I really was, and b) was no longer into playing 'bass' bass. Neither of which was true. ;)

Fortunately it picked up again, and over the last few years I've done quite a few singer/songwriter sessions, some hip-hop/R 'n' B stuff and most recently I've played on a couple of tracks for an upcoming project by BJ Cole and Davey Spillane, which sounds amazing. Some of it was 'bass' bass and some of it was more melodic stuff. I'm hoping I get called to play on some more of the record, as the tracks I've heard so far sound fantastic.

And while I was in the California in January, I recorded an album with a free improv/avant garde trumpeter called Jeff Kaiser - all improv looping stuff - which sounds great, and once it's mixed, we'll decide whether to release it on his label, my label or do it as a download only sale thing from my webshop...

And I'm about to start working on a new solo album,

:)

cheers

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Matte89]

Hello steve!
Since I snapped up that you're a bass teacher, I just have to ask you a kind of basic, "boring" and probably hard-to-answer question; Which excercice do you find the best to improve your knowledge on finding different positions on the bass suitable for the key your playing in. So in other words: how to best improve your skill in finding notes on the neck.

Thx in advantage

[Steve Lawson]

Hello steve!
Since I snapped up that you're a bass teacher, I just have to ask you a kind of basic, "boring" and probably hard-to-answer question; Which excercice do you find the best to improve your knowledge on finding different positions on the bass suitable for the key your playing in. So in other words: how to best improve your skill in finding notes on the neck.

Hi Matte,

There are two questions here - one about naming the notes, and the other about playing in key. I spend relatively little time thinking about the note names when I'm playing, but I'm always aware of where I am in the key that I'm in.

But let's start with naming the notes - the first thing to give yourself is a process for working them out - we know that all the natural notes have a sharp or flat between them except B/C and E/F - if we know that and where the open strings are, we can work out where any note is.

Our next landmark would be knowing that the fifth fret on one string is the same note as the next highest open string - so fret 5 on the E string is an A, fret 5 on the A string is a D etc. That means we can then use those as landmarks for working out where the notes are above that, and don't have to work from the open strings all the time.

Next up, we know that the octave of any note is two strings and two frets up. So the Fifth fret on the E string is an A (as we've just found out), therefor the 7th fret on the D string is also an A.

The other octave pattern is that the 7th fret on the next highest string is the same as the open string on the string you're on - so the 7th fret on the A string is an E (one octave up from the open E), 7th fret on the G string is a D (8ve up from the open D) etc.

This is the process - it's like a spider building a web - start with getting the corners attached, then fill in the spokes, and finally go round and round til all the gaps are filled!

The next step you're aiming for is removing that process, so the note stops being an A because the 5th fret is the same as the next string, and instead just becomes 'A', because it is. That only happens through repetition. When you're playing lines that you've worked out by ear, get in the habit of talking through what the notes are that you're playing as you play them. This'll help you to start remembering where they are, as you'll just be learning them almost as a byproduct of talking about them.

The second half about playing in key is harder to play, but probably easier to explain. If, in the key of C, we play from C to C, we get a C Major scale. that's just all the notes in the key of C in a one octave span starting on C, in real musical terms it's no more significant than any other group of notes in the key of C, it just gives us a pattern that easy to remember and label.

If instead of playing C to C, we play D to D, but still don't play any sharps or flats, we'll still be in the key of C, but it won't be a C Major scale - always remember to differentiate between key and scale. We'll get a different one octave scale pattern, still in the key of C. We can do this starting on each note in the key in turn, and we'll end up with 7 different one octave scale patterns. These are often referred to as 'modes', but don't get hung up on naming conventions now - it's MUCH more useful to see then as being 'the notes in a major key, starting on the 3rd' or whichever interval you're starting on.

The process of learning them over one octave is again just for ease of memory - there's nothing magically musical about octave patterns, so what we then do is start to join them up, so they eventually become one big grid across the neck in the key. So we can start on open E, and in first position play as many notes in that key on each string as we can, finishing on B or C on the G string (assuming you're playing 4 string bass).

try that, and get back to me. ;)

cheers

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

I think someone should copy that and put it in the lessons part of the site! (http://www.sputnikmusic.com)

Next question: What do you take from other players you see or hear performing? What do you first notice or critique, and what's the easiest way to learn from them? I guess, how do they influence you at all? :p

[Sade]

Steve:

Peanut butter:

Chunky or Creamy?

[Deacy]

Steve, has anyone ever mistaken you for Geddy Lee?

[Steve Lawson]

Next question: What do you take from other players you see or hear performing? What do you first notice or critique, and what's the easiest way to learn from them? I guess, how do they influence you at all? :p

That's a great question, and the answer is crucial to finding your voice. When I hear music I like, I don't try and sound like it, instead I try to write music that makes me feel the way that music makes me feel. Music is all about connection, and often that connection comes because there's some residual reminder of some other piece of music in there, but if I did a whole record that sounded like Joni Mitchell's Hejira there'd be more than a reminder there, and the overall effect would be that of 'Steve's trying to sound like Joni... and failing!' - instead, I try to find what it is about Joni's music that connects with me in the way that it does. Part of it is the story telling, part of it is the open approach to harmony, the unpredictable melodies, the phrasing.. even the reverb! So I try to take from them the essence of what it is to make music with that particular narrative footprint, and work on telling my own story the same way...

cheers

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

Steve:

Peanut butter:

Chunky or Creamy?

Neither, I think the stuff is foul... Gimme mushroom pate instead on toast, any day.

Steve

[Steve Lawson]

Steve, has anyone ever mistaken you for Geddy Lee?

Many many times people have said 'dude, you really look like Geddy Lee'. Once a guy thought I was Geddy til he got up close, and two people were overheard at NAMM one year having a conversation where one said he'd just seen Geddy in a fur coat... I'm guessing that was me :)

There are bits on the Rush in Rio DVD where even I think it's me... :D

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Jom]

So there were rumblings that we have a celebrity around here, and I think that's pretty awesome.

I don't really have any questions at this time, but I just wanted to say welcome, and thank you for taking the time to answer any and all questions. It truly means a lot, so thanks again! :)

[trumpeter]

Steve its awesome you are around, is there anything that musically really bothers you, like for me its when people play horrible, unclassy feedback, anything like that for you?

[Steve Lawson]

Steve its awesome you are around, is there anything that musically really bothers you, like for me its when people play horrible, unclassy feedback, anything like that for you?

I don't know that anything 'bothers' me as such. There are lots of things that I don't like. Like everyone else, I don't like most music - the range of music that I would choose to listen to, when set alongside the amount of music being produced in the world is pretty small, despite the fact that I have seemingly very wide taste - within any particular field there are generally only a small percentage of the people making that music that I enjoy, from singer/songwriters to death metal, hip hop to avant-garde.

I think this comes down to the fact that it takes a long time to really get control of the process of making great music. It's why bands with a handful of cool ideas often need a great producer to pull it into shape for them (ever heard a killin' album then seen the band live and been very disappointed?) - the producer is the one who's put in the time learning about the process of making great music. The kids in the band just have some raw 'talent' that left on its own would go unrealised as they don't have the complete range of skills needed to turn a few good hooks into an album that will last.

All of that I take as a challenge to not give up working on what I do, to keep refining my idea of what I should be sounding like, and keep working on the skills needed to make it happen. So when I hear music I really don't like, I try to use that to help me define what I do and don't like about music... I also try and differentiate between music I don't understand, and music I understand but still think is rubbish - there's a big difference!

From the other side though, I tend not to pay much attention to people who don't like what I do - there are bound to be loads of them around, as there are with any musical especially one that isn't trying to be populist - if you pursue your own musical vision, you're going to lose a lot of people along the way. What is vitally important to me is to have my 'council of reference' - people who have earned the right to intelligently critique what I do and help me refine my musical vision, people who encourage me in what I do, and don't make stupid suggestions about doing a funk record or an all ambient record. :)

I guess the flip-side of this is trying to see the good in music as well - as a teacher, I listen to my students play all the time, and it's my job to help take them from where they are to a place where they more fully realise their own musical vision. That requires me to understand what they do, what they are trying to do, and what's needed to do it better. So I have 'different ears' for different situations. :)

cheers

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[thelowsoundofbass]

steve, do you ever play basses that are fretted and more than 4 strings? (at least i think that you are a 4 string player)

lowsound

[Tryxx]

He plays a Fretless Semi-Hollow Modulus Q6.

[BenJammin]

He plays a Fretless Semi-Hollow Modulus Q6.

And is it ever nice. Mmm.

[Tryxx]

Well, duh. :p

*Hold his Q6 and crys*

Next question: I don't want to make this sound harsh or anything, but that probably won't work. How do you judge a student's abilties? How do you find the best way to teach them, and at what pace? What sort of take on teaching would you pass onto others, students and teachers alike?

[RoMeRz]

Short question here, if you tapping with two hands - with your right hand, so you rest your thumb on the neck ?

[muthafunkabass]

You could, i guess. I soemtimes do it. But usually ill work it into the tapping.

[jaco jr]

yeah steve, great to have you here, havent got round to reading your column in the latest issue of BGM yet as i have been engrossed in a berklee prospectus i just got sent,

sorry ignore this bit; i just read a bit further down, so it would appear people do mistake you for geddy lee, well, id say thats quite an honour
firstly a non musical question, me and my friend thought you looked remarkably like geddy lee, is that at all true or is it just the picture of you that they use in BGM makes you look like him?


for a more bass related question, are there any pieces of music you would say that every bassist should learn, or at least listen to, so i guess what above all inspired you or helped you as a bassist?
cheers
dan

[Steve Lawson]

Next question: I don't want to make this sound harsh or anything, but that probably won't work. How do you judge a student's abilties? How do you find the best way to teach them, and at what pace? What sort of take on teaching would you pass onto others, students and teachers alike?

I try and work out the student's learning style - are they visual, conceptual or analytical? I then change the way I explain things to fit - some people love being given a mathematical system that explains how music fits together, others prefer a more open creative abstract approach that involves hearing what sounds right and then labeling, rather than the other way round... that's all done just by listening, watching, adapting... constant feedback from the student.

I think the most important elements of a student teacher relationship are honesty and mutual respect - the number one rule I tell all my students is that if they don't understand what I'm saying, it's my fault not theirs. What they are paying me for is to make sense, not just to rant - if all they wanted was polemic, they could buy a DVD. I'm there to explain it in a way they understand. If they don't understand it, it's me that's failed not them. Don't ever let any teacher tell you otherwise.

and the mutual respect comes in because the teacher has to respect the student's own observations and experiences as they are going along - there's no such thing as a stupid question, as all questions will help to point you to where you need to be. In fact, I find out more about what a student has understood by the questions they ask than by the answers they give. If a teacher is patronising the student, or giving it 'I'm the bad-***, you're the schmuck', find a new one. They are your employee - you're hiring them for their wisdom and experience.

The flip side is that the respect has to be mutual - there's no point in sticking with a teacher that you don't think can teach... ;)

I think it's really important to teach process, not to skip to the end result - it's all too easy to just take a tune copy it mechanically, and move on. That's passive learning. Active learning involves extracting from whatever the current example is all the possible lessons - why are the notes where they are, what does the line work, how does the sound affect it, what right and left hand techniques are being used, how does the bass sit in the overall mix, how much of the line sounds improvised and how much sounds written, how many different stylistic influences are at work? there are a million questions you can ask that allow you to squeeze a whole lot more information out a tune than just learning it and moving on...

that'll do for now! :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

for a more bass related question, are there any pieces of music you would say that every bassist should learn, or at least listen to, so i guess what above all inspired you or helped you as a bassist?
cheers
dan

There are classic bits of bass playing in a lot of styles, I guess, and great players that all players would do to familiarise themselves with, whether it be checking out Jaco and Jimmy Haslip or Matt Freeman and Mike Watt.

My own favourite bass albums, that I've found most inspiring would include -

Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live (Tony Levin)
Joni Mitchell - Hejira (Jaco)
James Taylor - Live (Jimmy Johnson)
Michael Manring - Soliloquy
Chic - C'est Chic (Bernard Edwards)
Iona - Beyond These Shores (Nick Beggs)
Yes - Fragile (Chris Squire)
Mike Watt - Contemplating The Engine Room
Morphine - Cure For Pain (Mark Sandman)
The Cure - Disintegration (Simon Gallup and Robert Smith)
Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life (Jaco)
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (James Jamerson)
Todd Johnson/Kristin Korb Trio - Get Happy
Bill Frisell - Live (Kermit Driscoll)
Mo Foster - Time To Think
SadHappy - Depth Charge (Paul Hinklin)
King Crimson - Discipline (Tony Levin)
David Cullen/Michael Manring - Equilibre
Ralph Towner/Gary Peacock - Oracle and A Closer View (Gary Peacock)
Julie Lee - Stillhouse Road (Dave Pomeroy)

however, a lot of my favourite and most inspirational music either doesn't feature any bass playing, or the bass playing isn't the bit of it that inspires me directly. For example -

Eric Roche - With These Hands (solo guitar)
Don Ross - Passion Session (solo guitar)
Kaki King - Legs To Make Us Longer (solo guitar)
Daft Punk - Daft Punk (no live bass that I'm aware of, all programmed stuff)
Squarepusher - Go Plastic (all programmed)
Kelly Joe Phelps - Shiny Eyed Mr Zen (guitar/vocal)
Jonatha Brooke - everything she's ever done, and ever will do.
David Sylvian - anything (a whole slew of great bassists, from Mick Karn to Danny Thompson, but it's the overall vibe that gets me)
Talk Talk - same as above...
Juliet Turner (acoustic singer/songwriter)
Iain Archer (singer/songwriter)
Athlete (indie guitar band)

And so on.

The thing is, there's so much music in the world, most of it I don't like. BUT that still leaves more great music than I could listen to in a lifetime even if I only listened to all of it once and played it continuously! I haven't even touched on non-western music, folk music, orchestral music, chamber music, etc. etc. etc.

Listen, whenever you can, as a discipline, not just as the soundtrack to shopping... :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Left Shoe]

if you could give other bassists one tip to make them play better what would it be?

[Steve Lawson]

if you could give other bassists one tip to make them play better what would it be?

Get some lessons.

:)

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[trumpeter]

Mr. Lawson, what was the first album you ever bought, mine was Led Zeppelin's untitled 4th album.

[Steve Lawson]

the first one I got was 'Songs From The Big Chair' by Tears For Fears... :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[jollygiantchris]

Mr.Lawson! I have a couple of questions for ya starting with how old were you when you first picked up the bass? And I see on your bio on your website that you first album you played on was 1994 - Chris Bowater; A New Day on ICC, at the time this album was released how long had you been playing bass?

[Steve Lawson]

Mr.Lawson! I have a couple of questions for ya starting with how old were you when you first picked up the bass? And I see on your bio on your website that you first album you played on was 1994 - Chris Bowater; A New Day on ICC, at the time this album was released how long had you been playing bass?

I got my first bass for my 14th Birthday, went to music college when I left school at 18, for two years, then went pro. That record came out when I'd been playing for about 7 and a half years - I think I was on two tracks on it. I'd done a fair bit of recording when I was at college (most of it rubbish), and done demo sessions before that too.

cheers!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Deacy]

How long's your 6pm set at the National Theatre Foyer on the 4th March going to be?

EDIT: And by free entry, it is free right? No weird catch like having to fend off ninjas until doors open or something along that line :p

[Steve Lawson]

How long's your 6pm set at the National Theatre Foyer on the 4th March going to be?

EDIT: And by free entry, it is free right? No weird catch like having to fend off ninjas until doors open or something along that line :p

I think we'll be playing about an hour and a half for each gig on that day (we're playing twice, at 1pm and 6pm) - and yes, it's genuinely free. ;)

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[katana_manatee]

I am definately going to come and see you on the March the 4th gig. I'll try and get as many people from the Institute along as I can too.

One last question, how did you get into the solo bass scene, or rather where did you start off as a solo bassist and how did you go about getting your first solo gigs, and what places did you first play at?

[Left Shoe]

steve i got a fretless bass yesterday, i havent had any real problems yet (except for i got the bass and had to go right to jazz band practice, and they wanted to rehearse the song where i have a bass feature...haha) my intonation is good. any tips or things i should be practicing differently than fretted bass?

[trumpeter]

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

[thelowsoundofbass]

Get some lessons.

:)

steve
www.stevelawson.net

what if this is not possable, for example in my town i would love to take lessons again (i quite my last teacher when he said that he had tought me everything that he could, and i still sucked at that point) but there are no worthwhile teachers. so my question is, other than taking lessons what is the best way to improve your playing?

lowsound

[Steve Lawson]

I am definately going to come and see you on the March the 4th gig. I'll try and get as many people from the Institute along as I can too.

One last question, how did you get into the solo bass scene, or rather where did you start off as a solo bassist and how did you go about getting your first solo gigs, and what places did you first play at?

Is there a solo bass scene? I wish! I started playing solo sort of by accident - I was in a quartet called Ragatal, a sort of world/fusion quartet with acoustic guitar, tabla, elec. violin and bass, and in the set I did a solo tune with some looping in it. After one of the gigs, I was approached by a promoter who asked if I had a solo set of material. I lied and said 'yes' and he booked me for a gig about 6 weeks after that, so I had those 6 weeks to write a set of material.

I recorded the gig, put a load of MP3s up on my website, and it was very well received - people started asking when the album was coming out! 'What album?' thinks me, so I booked some more gigs and recorded them, and my first album was a compilation of tracks from my first solo album.

The wild card in all this was that I was writing for Bassist and Guitarist magazines at the time, so had a bit of a platform from which to launch a career, and at the time the biggest forum for bassists online was The Bottom Line - an email discussion list, on which was a fairly well respected contributor on teaching things...

So my first couple of solo gigs were at The Troubadour in Earls Court - I've probably played there 6 or 7 times over the years, and it's a lovely venue, it's just become a bit expensive to hire...

Look forward to seeing you at the gig.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

steve i got a fretless bass yesterday, i havent had any real problems yet (except for i got the bass and had to go right to jazz band practice, and they wanted to rehearse the song where i have a bass feature...haha) my intonation is good. any tips or things i should be practicing differently than fretted bass?

Intonation is definitely the biggie - the more complex or exposed the line the harder it will be to stay in tune. Definitely record yourself playing to an external reference, and check to see if your intonation is as good as you think it is - sometimes the recording can give you a bit of a shock!

Other than that, it's definitely worth spending time on the articulation things that fretless offers, in terms of the change in attack, slides, the way that hammer-ons and pulls-offs respond differently, and just re-examining all the things that you do on fretted, from slapping to playing with a pick to playing double stops, and seeing how they change minus frets,

enjoy!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

With any luck, doing what I'm doing today, just more of it to bigger audiences. Hopefully I still be teaching, playing, recording, improvising, collaborating, writing and generally being musical and creative, and channeling some of that energy into encouraging people to think about the things that are most important to them, be they political, social, spiritual or philosophical.

cheers!

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

what if this is not possable, for example in my town i would love to take lessons again (i quite my last teacher when he said that he had tought me everything that he could, and i still sucked at that point) but there are no worthwhile teachers. so my question is, other than taking lessons what is the best way to improve your playing?

lowsound

I'd probably stress making the most of your practice time. It's easy to get caught up in 'practicing practicing' - getting great at the exercises, scale patterns, arpeggios and right hand techniques, but without developing a vocabulary with them. It's the equivalent of practicing phrases from a foreign language phrase book for months, trying to get the accent right and everything, but never actually learning how to use the language to say what you want to say.

So spend 10 minutes before you practice thinking about the skills that you lack or areas where you need improvement, in order to do the gig that you do, and then work on those, take them one at a time, and list what the problems are, and where you want to get to in the next hour. Take the problems, break them down and START SLOWLY - it's really really important to remember that speed is merely a function of repetition. There's no new way of playing that's required to do something fast, you just need to do it right, so work on accuracy and control, not just speed.

The way to use this time productively is to 'contextualise everything' - always practice to something musical. Could be just a drum machine, or a backing track, or a loop (this is where some kind of loop device becomes your greatest practice friend). Give your practicing some context. If you're never going to have to run through a two octave major scale and back down again, stop practicing that! Start phrasing it in an interesting way, start missing out some notes on the way up, changing direction, making it sound like a bass line/fill/melody. Practice MUSIC.

on a gig the audience couldn't give a **** how fast you can play scales. They're there to hear the music, and your job is to stay out of the way, to not put any obstacles in the way between them and what the music is trying to be. That's a pretty tough concept to get your head round, but it comes together if you stop practicing practice patterns and get into the habit of creative actual music that you can work on specific areas of music within.

cheers!

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Jody LeCompte]

Steve

This question has probably been asked but I can't really afford the time to sift through 5-6 pages of questions as of yet, but anyway. You do a lot of session work, no? How does one go about getting their foot in the door for consistant session work? I imagine avid sightreading and understanding of music as well as differnet musical styles would help, but are there any parlor tricks?

I would like to be a session musician at some point in time, but I dont want to live off Macaroni and curd...

Thanks for your time.

[Steve Lawson]

Steve

This question has probably been asked but I can't really afford the time to sift through 5-6 pages of questions as of yet, but anyway. You do a lot of session work, no? How does one go about getting their foot in the door for consistant session work? I imagine avid sightreading and understanding of music as well as differnet musical styles would help, but are there any parlor tricks?

I would like to be a session musician at some point in time, but I dont want to live off Macaroni and curd...

Thanks for your time.

Hi Jody,

first question is, what do you mean by 'session musician'? Can you name me a few people who are making a living from how you define session musician? I get this question a lot, because for good reasons we all want to make a living playing music.

The problem is that the job of session musician is pretty much non-existent now, at least as a sole source of income. There are very very few players who make a living out of playing on different records every day, and most singers who gig under their own name tend to use the same band for a long time, rather than changing their musicians every month, so those gigs quickly switch from being 'a session' to just being a regular gig. And people tend to get those the same way they always did - by meeting people are parties or in the pub, or through a friend with an in.

If you get wind of them, there are a few open auditions around, but they tend to be for putting bands together, not for short term things, and often involve playing for not much money for a while in the hope that the project takes off.

Even at my busiest as a session player, I was doing a couple of short tours a year and a handful of studio sessions - nearly all my work came from the same people, with whom I'd been playing for years. Then, when I started playing solo, almost all my studio work dried up. People assumed I was no longer interested in playing in bands (a false assumption), and started calling my students instead! Guess I did too well as a teacher. :D

If you want to make a career in music, the fastest way to start earning money is playing in cover bands, doing weddings, corporate functions, etc. I know a lot of players that make a good living doing that. The skill set required for that is that you need to know a lot of tunes, be able to nail the sound and feel of each style (whether it's a jazz set or a 70s funk set or a 60s soul set or whatever), be punctual, dress well, and learn fast. Being able to read music is great for learning jazz tunes, or doing theatre gigs, but isn't necessary for most gigs. It's a great skill to have as a musician, but isn't going to get you work over someone who plays better than you and has better connected friends.

The rest of it is luck. Fil Eisler who played bass with Robbie Williams for years got the gig by bumping into Robbie's MD in a club in London, they were both hammered, hung out and the next day Fil had an audition for the band - he wasn't even a bassist, really - he played guitar most of the time, but got the gig cos they liked him.

Being a great bassist won't get you work, but it will keep you the job when you manage to luck your way into it.

Failing that, form a band, start gigging and get to work marketing yourself - bands like The Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire and Nizlopi have proved that you can have chart-level success by spreading the word online. If you're good.

Almost all the bassists I know who are known as session players are now doing other things to supplement their income - some are teaching in colleges, some are writing library music. One friend of mine who was doing weekly sessions throughout the 80s and early 90s now does two or three a year. I do a couple of low-key album projects a year, for singer/songwriters, and a couple of years ago I had a month or two of doing hip-hop sessions...

cheers,

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

Steve, it's been awhile since anyone posted here. :p

But I was just going to ask you about your opinion on the E-Bow. I'm thinking of investing in one for just fun. Outside of solo bass, what do you feel the practical uses for it are? I don't plan on really ever playing for money, just want to have fun, but I'm curious.

And if it matters, I'd be playing it through my fretted Quantum 6 and Mesa Walkabout and Epifani T-212 cab.

[Steve Lawson]

Hi Tryxx,

I think it's no overstatement to stay that the E-bow is one of if not THE most expressive additions you can make to your gear list. To suddenly have control over not just the start of the note, but what keyboard players call 'aftertouch' - what happens to the note after the initial trigger - is amazing. It's most often used for big ambient stuff, but it's great on melodies as well, if you find a way to hold it that means you can drop it onto the back end of a note - have a listen to 'La Sagrada Familia' by Michael Manring for some idea of what it can do in this context, or 'Exit Sandman' by me.

For $70 or whatever they cost, it's a pretty huge potential shift in the instrument.

A word of warning though - it takes a while to get comfortable with, it may even take you a week or so to be able to get a sound with it properly. In that it's no different from any other new technique - no-one learns how to slap in a day, but people seem to expect to turn the Ebow on like a pedal and just wail. It's not going to happen. It's very sensitive, and you need to hold it in just the right place to get it to respond the way you want. But when you do, it's the ****. :)

cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

Thanks alot Steve. The E-Bow is $119.95 USD here. And as always your recordings are awesome, it made me want one more. :lol: Your advice is much appreciated. :thumb:

[Deacy]

Just got back from London after seeing your excellent performance earlier, Grace & Gratitude's been put on straight away, loving what I'm hearing :thumb:

[Tryxx]

Just got back from the store with the E-Bow. I figured out how I'm going to use it. I just lean it on the higher string above it (Lower if on the high C) and tilt it towards it. Pretty comfortable, just takes some getting used to. I'm going to have to mess with some settings to figure out this immitation stuff.

Thanks for the advice though. :)

[trumpeter]

Alright, Everyone wants to have a "legacy"...how do you want to be rembered, both as a person and as an artist....

[Steve Lawson]

Alright, Everyone wants to have a "legacy"...how do you want to be remembered, both as a person and as an artist....

that's a very interesting question... I hope I'm remembered honestly, for what I did, and for what I didn't do. The bigger question I guess is 'what do you plan to do that'll be memorable?'

I hope the music I make and will make will be interesting and meaningful enough to be remembered, listened to and enjoyed long after I'm gone. It'd be nice if people thought what I was doing was good enough to be inspired by it to do their own music.

Personally, I hope that the people who know me remember me as someone that was honest, fun and cared about the state of the world while trying to make it better in whatever way I can... but again, only if I actually deserve it!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[trumpeter]

What is your favorite meal when you are out and about

[muthafunkabass]

Steve, how did you get so good?:)

[Steve Lawson]

What is your favorite meal when you are out and about

veggie curry

[Steve Lawson]

Steve, how did you get so good?:)

practice

;)

[muthafunkabass]

What do you find is the best thing do when practicing? Learn scales and chord progressions? Use a metronome? Eat tofu?

[trumpeter]

If you could reccomend one book, non bass related, fiction, what would it be and why?


...and do you plan on coming to America any time soon?

[Steve Lawson]

What do you find is the best thing do when practicing? Learn scales and chord progressions? Use a metronome? Eat tofu?

pick something you're not very good at, slow it down to find out what it is about it that you're struggling with, isolate that part of it, and play it right, evening if it takes two seconds per note. keep playing it right til you're comfortable with it, then pick another one. :)

But eating Tofu is always a good thing to do, if properly flavoured. ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

If you could reccomend one book, non bass related, fiction, what would it be and why?


...and do you plan on coming to America any time soon?

second question first - I'll come to america as soon as I get booked for some dates! I'm hoping to make it to the east coast some time this year, New York/Boston etc.

one fiction book? Probably 'Girlfriend In A Coma' by Douglas Coupland. The challenge at the end of the book to question everything, live deliberately and make a difference is pretty compelling, and the story's very well told.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[muthafunkabass]

pick something you're not very good at, slow it down to find out what it is about it that you're struggling with, isolate that part of it, and play it right, evening if it takes two seconds per note. keep playing it right til you're comfortable with it, then pick another one. :)

But eating Tofu is always a good thing to do, if properly flavoured. ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net
Haha, :lol:.


Thanks for the advice man.:)

[trumpeter]

Steve, tell us when you come to America, I would love to see you play.

[Spaceman Spiff]

one fiction book? Probably 'Girlfriend In A Coma' by Douglas Coupland. The challenge at the end of the book to question everything, live deliberately and make a difference is pretty compelling, and the story's very well told.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net
:thumb:

Well, I haven't read this book yet, but I am a Douglas Coupland fan. I've read Microserfs, Generation X, and All Families Are Psychotic.

No question here, just thought I'd comment on this.

[Steve Lawson]

:thumb:

Well, I haven't read this book yet, but I am a Douglas Coupland fan. I've read Microserfs, Generation X, and All Families Are Psychotic.

He hasn't written a bad book yet, so get all the others! :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

Steve, tell us when you come to America, I would love to see you play.

the best way to keep in touch with what I'm up to gig-wise is to sign up for my mailing list (http://stevelawson.net/PHPList/) - obviously your email address won't be shared with anyone else, but you'll get the scoop on what I'm up to with gigs/cds/magazine articles etc.

cheers!

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

just a quick heads up to a couple of new MP3s that are up on the recycle collective myspace page - http://www.myspace.com/therecyclecollective

The Recycle Collective is a monthly gig I curate in London, with me and all my looping genius friends - the two MP3s give some idea of the vibe... next gig is on March 16th... see www.recyclecollective.com for more.

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Left Shoe]

steve what are you currently listening to?

[muthafunkabass]

What music do you hate the most? What in a song can really bother you?

[Steve Lawson]

steve what are you currently listening to?

Right at this precise moment, I'm listening to a minidisk of my gig with Theo Travis from Saturday night at the National Theatre in London. :)

Other than that, I've been listening to James Taylor Live, Bruce Cockburn 'Speechless', Mark Isham 'Tibet', Lleuwen Steffan 'Duw A Wyr', Juliet Turner Live, Imogen Heap 'Speak For Yourself', Bill Frisell 'Ghost Town', Erkan Ogur's latest album... all kinds of stuff. :)

to see a more accurate list of what I've been listening to over the last couple of years, go to http://www.last.fm/user/solobasssteve - that's pretty much where it's at for me.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

What music do you hate the most? What in a song can really bother you?

Very little - I don't like having music foisted upon me, even good music can be intrusive if you have no choice but to listen to it in a situation where it doesn't work. But as a general rule, if it doesn't work for me and I'm in a situation where I can, I'll just turn it off.

I'm much more annoyed by the way the big record companies keep signing mediocre karaoke singers at the expense of promoting anything of substance - whether it's the latest crop of time-wasters from a reality TV show, or nonsense like James Blunt, there are a thousand way more talented people out there who are going to be ignored because the industry doesn't want to work an artist anymore.

It's almost become a cliche to mention it now, but Kate Bush was signed for two or three years before she even released a record, and was paid all that time as part of a development deal. That just doesn't happen any more. Instead, you debase yourself on a crap TV show, prove you can just about hold a tune if it's got really obvious handles, and sell three singles then get dropped. That's not good.

It used to really wind me up. Then I realised I'm not in the same business, we're not competing for audiences, and I just get on with what I do. The ones I feel sorry for are the gifted singer/songwriters who are getting overlooked. Thank God for the internet... :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Spaceman Spiff]

He hasn't written a bad book yet, so get all the others! :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net
I plan on it. :)

Have you read any of his non-fiction stuff?
If so, what do you think of it? Is it stuff worth reading too?

[JBJ]

favorite movie/actor?

[Steve Lawson]

favorite movie/actor?

tricky, but probably So I Married An Axe Murderer. Spinal Tap's also up there, as are Cry Freedom, Pulp Fiction, Ghandi, The Wedding Singer and Whale Rider.

favourite actor? Right now, Ben Stiller seems to be on a roll. Favourite actress is Miriam Margolyes. The quality in actors/actresses I admire the most is the same as it is for musicians - they've got to be believable. If they can convince of the argument that their character is trying to put across, as well as that they are in fact that person, they've one. With musicians, you have to believe that the music is what's inside them, not some focus-group-driven nonsense that the band/singer/front person has had nothing to do with. Sometimes the switch in a person's career from believeable to impossible-to-believe is quite stark - Rod Stewart pre/post 1972-ish, or Mariah Carey's first album which was magic, anything else she's done has been highly polished nonsense. (IMHO)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Radiobass81]

tricky, but probably So I Married An Axe Murderer. Spinal Tap's also up there, as are Cry Freedom, Pulp Fiction, Ghandi, The Wedding Singer and Whale Rider.
I saw it on HBO a while ago. Bizarre movie, but I liked it.

EDIT: On the topic of movies...

What do you think of Jack Nicholson? You were mentioning that actors have to be "believable". This guy, IMO, can do it all, mainly. From a comedy with Sandler (Anger Management), to a movie about self-discovery (About Schmidt), to a romantic comedy with Diane Keaton (Something's gotta give), and back.

*ends fanboy-ish post*

[Steve Lawson]

I saw it on HBO a while ago. Bizarre movie, but I liked it.

EDIT: On the topic of movies...

What do you think of Jack Nicholson? You were mentioning that actors have to be "believable". This guy, IMO, can do it all, mainly. From a comedy with Sandler (Anger Management), to a movie about self-discovery (About Schmidt), to a romantic comedy with Diane Keaton (Something's gotta give), and back.

*ends fanboy-ish post*

The films I've seen with Nicholson in I've liked. I do struggle to get past what a foul lecherous self-obsessed loser he seems to be in real life though...

I'm a big film fan, but not much of a film expert - one of those things that really needs rectifying. I'm pretty knowledgeable about 80s Brat-Pack movies though. :D

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[muthafunkabass]

It's a little personal, so you might feel uncomfortable anwsering it. For that, I'm sorry.




































Are you kookoo for cocoa puffs?

[Steve Lawson]

Are you kookoo for cocoa puffs?

Nah, but I go mental for muesli!

[muthafunkabass]

Haha, that was good for a laugh.

[Tryxx]

Steve, do you notice anything different with this forum from the others you frequent? Anything you prefer, dislike etc.?

[Steve Lawson]

Steve, do you notice anything different with this forum from the others you frequent? Anything you prefer, dislike etc.?

The basic flaw with internet forums like this is that they tend to cultivate negativity of all kinds - it's very easy to sit behind a computer screen and anonymously criticize everything and anything without any qualification. People write things they'd never say if it was a get together in a pub, or - specifically - if you were sat round with a bass in your hands. that's pretty much the same on all forums - the signal to noise ratio is astonishingly low. The only thing that changes that is when you start to form more meaningful friendships with the people you're talking to - I've met some great people who I first came in contact with on bass forums.

So I'm sure that this place has the same mix of threads that help people further their knowledge of the instrument, and threads that do nothing for anyone other than to criticize people who they wouldn't dare critique to their face, without any context. C'est La Vie.

This thread has been a lot of fun though - some good music-related questions, and some funny stuff too. It's all good.

I guess it's unsurprising that my favourite forum is the one on my own site - www.stevelawson.net/interact - the traffic's not huge (which keeps it manageable) but the regulars are a great bunch of people.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Wintermute]

the signal to noise ratio is astonishingly low

I like that. Forum SNR theory. May have to steal that from you. :D

[Steve Lawson]

I like that. Forum SNR theory. May have to steal that from you. :D

...use it by all means, it's definitely not a Lawson original! I think I first saw that phrase used on The Bottom Line.

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[PaulR]

Do you have a favourite piece you've composed, arranged or been involved in?

Oh, and how do you go about composing a piece? What inspires you?

[Radiobass81]

I do struggle to get past what a foul lecherous self-obsessed loser he seems to be in real life though...
What do you mean?

[Steve Lawson]

Do you have a favourite piece you've composed, arranged or been involved in?

Oh, and how do you go about composing a piece? What inspires you?

My favourites change from time to time - obviously the new things I'm working on excite me the most, but everyone says that. ;)

Of the stuff on record, I particularly like 'Grace And Gratitude', 'There But For The Grace Of God', 'Ubuntu', 'Exit Sandman' and from the CD I did with Theo Travis, the track 'Lovely' (a few of these are on my myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson))

Composing is a fairly haphazard process for me, but largely consists of trying to not play things I've played before! I tend to set myself 'games' whereby I play within rules established to make me play differently from before. That often results in something fun. I tend to look for some kind of phrase or hook that i can loop first, and then look for other parts to play. Almost always this process happens as a single performance, either on stage or while recording a track at home, rather than as a step-time build-it-up-over-weeks type thing.

Cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

What do you mean?

Just about every bit of information one ever receives about Jack revolves around his spending his time trying to get his 'leading ladies' into bed - you'd have thought that at his age he'd have grown beyond such adolescent behaviour and pursued relationships of substance. Each to their own, and he's entitled to live how he wants, but it's not a path I'd choose, not does it endear me to him, if indeed he's anything like the way he's portrayed in the press. Which he quite possibly isn't. ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[BenJammin]

I tend to look for some kind of phrase or hook that i can loop first, and then look for other parts to play. Almost always this process happens as a single performance, either on stage or while recording a track at home, rather than as a step-time build-it-up-over-weeks type thing.

Cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

Ah, that's cool! It's the same way I'll do things. Normally I'll be playing around with one phrase that I've come up with and I'll record it and keep looping it until more ideas come to me. Glad to see I'm not the only one who does it, as all of the recording musicians I know all take a number of days to work out their songs. If it takes me longer than 6 hours from start to finish, I usually don't bother. :p

[PaulR]

Ah, that's cool! It's the same way I'll do things. Normally I'll be playing around with one phrase that I've come up with and I'll record it and keep looping it until more ideas come to me. Glad to see I'm not the only one who does it, as all of the recording musicians I know all take a number of days to work out their songs. If it takes me longer than 6 hours from start to finish, I usually don't bother. :p
Yeah. I'm the same as well. I tend not to write anything down, or sometimes even remember it.

[Manticore Guy]

Steve what type of wah do you use on tracks like Shizzle? It sounds fantastic.

[trumpeter]

Are you in a realtionship?

[Left Shoe]

Are you in a realtionship?
you are soooo desperate

[hitmanslilhell]

i dont know if you sing or not in your band or w/e, but do you have any tips for singing and playing bass at the same time?

[Steve Lawson]

i dont know if you sing or not in your band or w/e, but do you have any tips for singing and playing bass at the same time?

Sadly not - I can't sing and play at the same time at all - well, I do occasionally when I'm teaching to try and demonstrate a particular point, but it's probably fairly painful for the student in question. ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[bass_apprentice]

Hey Steve. I just started playing bass and i am not doing bad. Problem is, I have only had my bass for 2 days and I've played so much my fingers have blisters and it hurts when i play. I was wondering if I should play with a pick...but I doubt i would do HALF as good with a pick. It slows me down.

[Steve Lawson]

Hey Steve. I just started playing bass and i am not doing bad. Problem is, I have only had my bass for 2 days and I've played so much my fingers have blisters and it hurts when i play. I was wondering if I should play with a pick...but I doubt i would do HALF as good with a pick. It slows me down.

take it easy! it's probably best to take a day or two off to give your fingers time to recover, and in future, don't play if it hurts!

Playing with a pick should be all about the sound - if you want that kind of sound, and the kind of feel that playing with a pick gives, go for it. If you're happier with the sound and feel with your fingers, give them time to recover now, and then take care of them. ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

what do you like most about playing bass?

[Steve Lawson]

what do you like most about playing bass?

One thing? the feeling that I've accurately soundtracked what's going on inside my head. That's how I define what I do - the soundtrack to the inside of my head. The process of externalising that, writing/playing/improvising music that expresses that in a way that feels right is tough, but when it happens it's the best thing in the world.

But, to be honest, I love pretty much everything about playing bass - I like the sound of it more than any other instrument, I enjoy the feel of playing it, I love the role that bass takes in a band, I love the way it works as a solo voice, I love the challenge of playing fretless, I love the feeling of playing in uncharted waters when I find an effect that I haven't used before. etc. etc.

it's all good. :)

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

Steve, you talk about your experimentation quite a bit and as you said "playing in uncharted waters." What do you expect is the sort of criteria for solo bassists now? Not just yourself, but what must one have to break into the scene so to speak. I'm sure there will always be things left for a solo bassists to do, but I'm curious your thoughts.

[ChimPz]

Steve,

It might be a stupid question, but when you see a really good musician doing his thing, do you still get the feeling of "Wow, I wish I could do that too:eek: ". Not just bassists, but musicians in general.

[Steve Lawson]

Steve, you talk about your experimentation quite a bit and as you said "playing in uncharted waters." What do you expect is the sort of criteria for solo bassists now? Not just yourself, but what must one have to break into the scene so to speak. I'm sure there will always be things left for a solo bassists to do, but I'm curious your thoughts.

I'm not sure that there are any criteria, any more than there's a 'scene'... The most important criteria for any musician to be aware of it that of being any good! It sounds really obvious, but a lot of people - especially bassists - tend to focus on having something to prove. There's nothing to prove, just a story to tell. It's so important for you to find out what you have that you want to say as a musician. If you start thinking in terms of 'scenes' and 'criteria', it's way too easy to get sidetracked into meeting someone else's vision of what's valuable/possible/permissable on the instrument, and lose sight of that which really gets you excited.

That's not to say that we should ignore what other people are doing - it's fine to take influences from anywhere and everywhere, and also to find that your own vision for how you want your music to be is pretty close to what someone else is doing, but if you dig deep, you'll find that you can't help but be unique, given that your life experiences and musical history is going to be different from that of the person that you're listening to...

Sorry if that all sounds a bit like new age self help stuff - it's not meant to, honest!... ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

Steve,

It might be a stupid question, but when you see a really good musician doing his thing, do you still get the feeling of "Wow, I wish I could do that too:eek: ". Not just bassists, but musicians in general.

There are no stupid questions, only bad answers... ;)

the 'wow' bit happens fairly often - there are loads of musicians who amaze me with their skills, both in terms of what they play and how they play it. The 'I wish I could do that' bit is less common, given that I'm happy with the direction my playing is heading in, and while I can see lots of room for development and improvement, it tends to be in the way that I'm heading anyway. However, it does happen every now and again that I hear someone do something, and resolve to find out how the hell they do it - the first time I heard Matthew Garrison was very much like that - his right hand technique is out of this world, and I'm still working on the bits of it that I've tried to steal two years on... Same happened when I first heard the acoustic guitarist Don Ross, and when I started listening to Bill Frisell.

However, what usually happens is that a particular piece of music will move me in a certain way, and I'll squirrel myself away in my studio/office/practice room and work on making myself feel the same way... the things that draw me into music tend to be emotional, rather than technical, so more often that not, it's a song that does it, rather than a bit of tricksy instrumental prowess...

cheers!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

[Az_Holl]

I'm not sure that there are any criteria, any more than there's a 'scene'... The most important criteria for any musician to be aware of it that of being any good! It sounds really obvious, but a lot of people - especially bassists - tend to focus on having something to prove. There's nothing to prove, just a story to tell. It's so important for you to find out what you have that you want to say as a musician. If you start thinking in terms of 'scenes' and 'criteria', it's way too easy to get sidetracked into meeting someone else's vision of what's valuable/possible/permissable on the instrument, and lose sight of that which really gets you excited.

That's not to say that we should ignore what other people are doing - it's fine to take influences from anywhere and everywhere, and also to find that your own vision for how you want your music to be is pretty close to what someone else is doing, but if you dig deep, you'll find that you can't help but be unique, given that your life experiences and musical history is going to be different from that of the person that you're listening to...

Sorry if that all sounds a bit like new age self help stuff - it's not meant to, honest!... ;)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

http://www.stevelawson.net/home.shtml

Sorry thats been annoying me :)

[Steve Lawson]

aha, good to know that the site doesn't parse web addresses properly without the html bit!

thanks,

steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[EADG]

aha, good to know that the site doesn't parse web addresses properly with the html bit!

thanks,

steve
http://www.stevelawson.net


Yet you did it again.

[Steve Lawson]

sorry, previous post should have read (and now does read) withOUT the http bit. so that was there in the post, and the link now works.

Go on, click on it, I dare you.

:D

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[BassVirtuoso]

Hey Steve I noticed you sent a friend request to my myspace (www.myspace.com/subcontraharmony)

Was this you or some other guy?

[Steve Lawson]

it was me. :)

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Wintermute]

Have you ever experimented with non-standard tuning systems? I mean leaving behind 12-tone Equal Tempermant, as opposed to just different tunings. It's something I'm having to research/experiment with for an upcoming assignment, and I wondered if you've fiddled with it on your fretless at all. :)

http://www.jeroenthesseling.com/media/jpt-aufs.mp3
^^^
Jeroen Thesseling actually manages to acccurately use a 72TET system on a six-string fretless... that's just scary.

[PaulR]

Should I buy a looping pedal?

What can you recommend?

[Left Shoe]

any hints at getting started on composition of solo pieces?

[Steve Lawson]

Have you ever experimented with non-standard tuning systems?

I've dipped my toe in the world of quarter-tonal ideas, just sliding notes half way between the frets, and deciding on where in a very visceral kind of way, certainly not with any mathematical process in mind. I just don't have the ear to distinguish a lot of it, though I do have a Harry Partch CD, 'Delusion Of The Fury' which is amazing.

cheers!

Steve
htttp://www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

Should I buy a looping pedal?

What can you recommend?

I think looping pedals are an amazing addition to any musician's arsenal, both for performance and for practice and composition. The ability to hear what two parts will sound like together immediately makes writing multiple lines much easier.

As for which one to get, that depends on the features you think you'll need, and how much you've got to spend. the Looperlative - http://www.looperlative.com - is the coolest one around at the moment, but quite some margin. But, it's pretty spendy...

of the cheaper ones, the Line6 DL4 is great, and the RC-20, RC-50 and Digitech JamMan are all worth a look, as are the two freeware software options, Mobius and SooperLooper.

cheers!

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

any hints at getting started on composition of solo pieces?

there are various ways to get started. one of the best is to start by doing an arrangement of a song that's already written, working out the melody and the bassline together.

keep things simple to start with - you may even end up keeping the finished thing simple, simple music often communicates in a more direct way than highly technical music - and get a sound that you like before you do anything else. if your bass sound is nasty, it'll just depress you. A bit of reverb does wonders for your solo sound.

Pick a pair of chords, find an interesting voicing for each, and then change the top voice second time round, so that it becomes a simple tune, build it up slowly... then come back and tell me how you got on. :)

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Kyvek]

Hey Steve...I'm going to be getting my hands on pretty much everything off your site's webshop within the week; I only have Grace and Gratitude right now, but I really love your whole approach to solo bass. Anyways, I read almost all of this thread so far, but not all of it, so you may have already gotten this question: Did you take lessons at any point in your life? I saw you give someone advice to take lessons, so I assume you yourself did at some point. How long did you take lessons for? And in a very general sense, what was taught?

Thanks a lot Steve for taking the time to answer our questions!

[Steve Lawson]

Hello! Really glad you're digging the music. That's great, thanks for the encouragement.

I went to music college for two years - before that I didn't have any bass lessons, as I lived in a tiny town with no bass teacher, and didn't get off my arse to go and visit one in a city nearby, which is what I should have done. I regret not having had lessons earlier, as it ended up taking me a very long time to pick up some fairly obvious things...

Fortunately, my bass teacher at college, Pete Honeyman, was fantastic, taught me loads, and taught me how to teach!

cheers,

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[IPolkaLikeThis!]

There was a NAMM pic i saw a while back, and you look kinda like Geddy, are you a big fan of him?

[Steve Lawson]

There was a NAMM pic i saw a while back, and you look kinda like Geddy, are you a big fan of him?

I do like Geddy's bass playing a lot - I'm not mad keen on his voice, but there are certain bits of Rush's music that I love, particularly the Moving Pictures album.

And of course, I dig his style, though he's clearly been copying me. :D

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

you play any upright bass?

[Steve Lawson]

you play any upright bass?

Sadly not - I'm constantly saving up for an electric upright - an Azola, when I can afford it - and as soon as having enough money coincides with a time when the car hasn't just died or the central heating doesn't need replacing, I'll get one!

I have got a knackered old cello that I play like a mini upright most of the time. :)

steve
www.stevelawson.net

[kaiser]

I do like Geddy's bass playing a lot - I'm not mad keen on his voice,



that makes two of us

Q: What inspired you to pick up bass?

[Steve Lawson]

Q: What inspired you to pick up bass?

A combination of factors - I remember watching Level 42 on a Saturday morning kids' tv programme in the mid 80s. They were doing a gear giveaway, and I was just impressed that Mark King had more stuff than the rest of the band to give away! It was also the case that my favourite member of each band I was into at the time was the bassist - John Taylor in Duran Duran, Curt Smith in Tears For Fears, Nick Beggs in Kajagoogoo... Then I was offered the chance to buy a bass for £25 from a local school teacher, and the kid next door played drums... All things conspired to turn me into a bass holder. :)

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

your thoughts on legalization of marijuana in the states?

[Steve Lawson]

Do you really want to know? Is this the place for discussions about legalising drugs? Who knows... For medical marijuana to be illegal is one of the biggest medical inconsistencies of our age - given how damaging so many prescription medicines are, to ban a pain relief agent like that from being used is pretty heinous...

however, for recreational use? It's inconsistent for it to be illegal and for alcohol to be legal, given their relative levels of negative impact, but it's tough to create a strong human right's defence when what you're defending is the right to talk rubbish, eat too much, get paranoid and bore the arse off anyone who is unlucky enough to try and strike up a conversation with the stoner in question.

Even if it were legal, it'd still be illegal in any band I was in, having tried working with stoners in the past... :)

steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[BenJammin]

You seem like you're pretty well educated, Steve. If you don't mind divulging, what level of (formal) education do you have?

[Left Shoe]

good answer on the marijuana.

[Spaceman Spiff]

On the contrary to what you just said Steve, one of my friends (who happens to smoke pot) fronts a band and is one of the best musicians that I know.

Obviously there are plenty of people like the ones you just mentioned, but there are more than enough who still take their music, or whatever else they do, very seriously.

Just remember that not all people that do smoke pot are not like the ones you described.

[Steve Lawson]

On the contrary to what you just said Steve, one of my friends (who happens to smoke pot) fronts a band and is one of the best musicians that I know.

Obviously there are plenty of people like the ones you just mentioned, but there are more than enough who still take their music, or whatever else they do, very seriously.

Just remember that not all people that do smoke pot are not like the ones you described.

I'm SO not getting into this on a bass forum... however, just because some people can still play well after smoking dope (and only a fool would suggest that no-one could, given that many of the greatest musicians of the last 40 years have smoked weed and done a lot of harder drugs than that), it doesn't mean that they are going to be reasonable to work with. I've know loads of very talented people who smoke weed, none of them were better people to be around while stoned than not stoned. Some of them ended up being horrible to be around all the time because when they weren't stoned they were irritable and needing a smoke.

There are quite possibly some musicians that I work with who smoke occasionally in their spare time. I'm not suggesting for a moment that one puff on a spliff is going to send you psychotic and render you incapable of playing music. But, I've never ever met anyone who was a better person, better at dealing with life, better at problem solving, discussion, conversation, writing, arranging, recording, etc. when they were smoking than when they weren't. And ALL the habitual users I know have been damaged by it. For those around them who don't smoke, it's all too easy to see.

I don't hand out a 'do you do drugs?' questionnaire to every musician I play with, but I don't allow any kind of drug effect to be an excuse for not functioning or getting the job done.

I'm not going to post again on this topic here - it was perhaps remiss of me to answer the first one... if you really want to talk it over, feel free to head over to the forum on my website...

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Steve Lawson]

You seem like you're pretty well educated, Steve. If you don't mind divulging, what level of (formal) education do you have?

Not that high at all, really - like so many musicians, I never achieved the academic qualifications I could have because I chose to go to music school instead of doing English or Biology or whatever at uni, and then dropped out to go on tour... I don't know to this day whether I got any qualification from the music college I went to - the certificate was destroyed before I got a chance to check it out, and I have never had enough interest in whatever the qualification was to find out whether I passed...

Suffice to say, I'm teaching at post-university level now, and read voraciously. :)

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

Sorry for not interjecting earlier, but really not the kind of place for that discussion. You can discuss it in the Political News and World Issues forum. :p

But I doubt Steve really needs to go out of the way to post there, they have tons of discussions on it.

[Omega Red]

steve i saw you at namm you were talking about how you wanted another leixcon g2, well i'm selling mine.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=459498

[Steve Lawson]

...interesting marketing strategy there, Mr Omega :) - not in the market for a new one at the moment, but good luck with the sale...

steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

what instruments have you been wanting to try out? do you like the tone of a chapman stick?

[Steve Lawson]

what instruments have you been wanting to try out? do you like the tone of a chapman stick?

I'm a big fan of certain Stick/touch guitar players - particularly Tony Levin, Trey Gunn and Nick Beggs, but having tried one out a few times, I just can't get past the limited attack of tapping. there are a few people who seem to have taken it to a point where they can be very expressive with it - Bob Culbertson, Don Schiff, Jim Lampi and a few others sound great on it, but the idea of playing two independent lines on a fingerboard like that was something I stopped doing in the mid 90s, after a two year obsession with tapping...

The main non-normal bass instrument that I'm interested in is an Azola upright - I've been wanting one for years, and have been saving up intermittently. They play like a dream, look gorgeous and Steve and Jill Azola who are the company are two very lovely people indeed.

So that'll probably be next on the list... for the most part it's enough of an effort to learn to play the basses I've got the way i want to without adding other instruments to my practice time!

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[Tryxx]

That kind of brings up a question from me: What defines a "bass" instrument to you? You've talked about how much the instrument can still be explored, whether it be going to a 12 string, 3 octave, fanned fret, fretless. But when do you draw the line? Going with an example, the 8 string Chapman Stick Bass. Or something like that.

[Steve Lawson]

That kind of brings up a question from me: What defines a "bass" instrument to you?

It's a two-fold answer, in that ultimately, I don't really care what anyone labels a particular instrument as. :) I feel a greater connection with The Cello or even the Tenor Sax in terms of how I see the instrument I play, than I do an 11-string bass. That's not to denigrate basses with billions of strings, just that I've never seen or played one that made any ergonomic sense to me, and as such I don't feel any sense of connection with it.

The flip-side is that those instruments that get defined as 'bass guitars' - as in the case of a 10 or 11 string 'bass' - are those that are built within the bass guitar luthiery continuum. The look of a Conklin or Bee or Adler is shaped by the builder's desire to build a bass with a squillion strings. I'm pretty sure that if someone was just building an instrument from scratch with that many strings, the ergonomics would be significantly different from the design of those basses, but for the players, the bass-ness of them is clearly a big feature. I haven't thus far come across any guitarists or mandolin or banjo players that have switched to 10 string bass for the extra range... all the people playing them are bassists who want to add more strings, so the bass-ness of the design makes perfect sense in the light of that.

Does that make sense? :)

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

last album you purchased?

[Steve Lawson]

I bought three a couple of weeks ago - Walk Across The Rooftops by The Blue Nile, Brown Sugar by D'Angelo and Nocturama by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net

[JBJ]

would you say it's been a long time since you played air guitar?

[Tryxx]

would you say it's been a long time since you played air guitar?

Dude, your questions are a bit silly. :lol:

Still... keeping Steve pre-occupied seems to be a job only taken by a few. So yeah, again, Steve you can venture out of this thread if you feel so inclined.

[Steve Lawson]

Hello all,

I've just uploaded two new tunes to my MySpace page, from my new album - Behind Every Word (released mid-June) - have a listen at http://www.myspace.com/solobassstevelawson

cheers!

Steve
http://www.stevelawson.net