P̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶P̶i̶t̶c̶h̶ Perfect Time

[bloke]

Do you ever play this game?

- Stick room-temperature coffee (or whatever-temperature whatever) into your microwave oven.
- Punch in XX seconds or X minutes.
- With your back turned away from the microwave oven, count down from that number of seconds to 0 (or up to that number of seconds FROM 0) at 60 bmp
- Notice how closely - to simultaneously - you and your microwave oven complete your counts.

bloke "Those who've played bass in combos tend to do better, I suspect."

[JESimmons]

Yes.

[tubanh84]

All the time. Sometimes the microwave slows down while my back is turned.

[Doc]

Yes.

And even more juvenile, I've done the MacGyver disarming-a-bomb thing where you stop it at the last micro-second before it beeps.

[iiipopes]

Yes, I lifted my head just as the teacher wrote 60 on the blackboard.

[Three Valves]

You expect me to say "one Mississippi" etc, 60 times in succession??

[bloke]

You expect me to say "one Mississippi" etc, 60 times in succession??

If it's one of my B.A.C. of coffee - and the only-900W microwave oven (which is closer to the timed-out coffee pot than the more powerful microwave oven - I might actually be counting to 150.

[Mary Ann]

Frequently. Funny how it changes speed when I turn my back.

[Three Valves]

Besides, when one has World Class Sound, who needs pitch and time??

[iiipopes]

One little known item of trivia: Ringo Starr has, and has always had, perfect time. Once a tempo was set for a recording in the studio, he never varied. Only when you dig into the book about the studio diaries of the Beatles do you see where one part of one take, one part of another take, and maybe even one part of a take hours or days later could all be spliced to make the "best" recording; and this was mostly because of Ringo's consistency and perfect sense of time. As a bass player, whether tuba, electric, singing, or anything else, I try to emulate that as much as the conductor or the rest of the band will allow.

[BopEuph]

James Jamerson was also known for having perfect time. They always said no click was needed when Igor was playing.

Victor Wooten always does a thing live where he loops 2 bars on his looper, but he only plays a note on beat 1 of the first bar. Then you hear the most amazing solos...and he never misses that single note being back on one. I've seen him do it in master classes where he'll put his drum machine behind him, muted, with the light flashing the tempo--once every FOUR measures. And without his bass, he'll be answering a question and say, "oh, by the way, one is right HERE." It's the most amazing thing.

Also reminds me of a part in an old Zelda game that one of the challenges was to hit a button in exactly ten seconds. I always nailed it.

[bloke]

Of course, you're referring to the Detroit bass player ("the Duck Dunn of Motown"), but - if you mention that name in Memphis, people will assume you're referring to this person:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Jamison

James Jamerson was also known for having perfect time. They always said no click was needed when Igor was playing.

Victor Wooten always does a thing live where he loops 2 bars on his looper, but he only plays a note on beat 1 of the first bar. Then you hear the most amazing solos...and he never misses that single note being back on one. I've seen him do it in master classes where he'll put his drum machine behind him, muted, with the light flashing the tempo--once every FOUR measures. And without his bass, he'll be answering a question and say, "oh, by the way, one is right HERE." It's the most amazing thing.

Also reminds me of a part in an old Zelda game that one of the challenges was to hit a button in exactly ten seconds. I always nailed it.

[BopEuph]

Of course, you're referring to the Detroit bass player ("the Duck Dunn of Motown"), but - if you mention that name in Memphis, people will assume you're referring to this person:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Jamison

Heh, what's amusing about Igor being called "The Duck Dunn of Motown" is that Duck always felt discouraged when he heard Motown stuff. Like he wished he had Jamerson's chops. But at the same time, his "less is more" approach was almost 100% his own, and he would always listen to his first take and say "I bet I could do a better job with half the notes!" and always nail it the second time.

I didn't know Jimi's name...I would have always called him the singer for Survivor. But man, was that band Iconic, too.

[gwwilk]

To determine the distance of lightning, as a child I learned to count one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three, one-thousand-four, one-thousand-five, etc. until the thunder arrives. Divide by 5 and that's the distance of the lightning in miles.

So, you can count to sixty or whatever seconds using this method. Instead of one-thousand-x up to 10, it becomes two-thousand-x up to 10, etc. The only time it gets tricky is when the number has two syllables or more, e.g. seven, eleven, thirteen, etc. One of my pet peeves in our brass group is when a clearly marked tempo of 60 or so bpm is marked and the leader counts it off at 90 or so and isn't aware of the error.

[bloke]

Heh, what's amusing about Igor being called "The Duck Dunn of Motown" is that Duck always felt discouraged when he heard Motown stuff. Like he wished he had Jamerson's chops. But at the same time, his "less is more" approach was almost 100% his own, and he would always listen to his first take and say "I bet I could do a better job with half the notes!" and always nail it the second time.

I didn't know Jimi's name...I would have always called him the singer for Survivor. But man, was that band Iconic, too.

re: "less is more"...I'd wager that far more of Duck's bass lines are immediately recognizable.

[BopEuph]

re: "less is more"...I'd wager that far more of Duck's bass lines are immediately recognizable.

I think both of them are immediately recognizable, though. Jamerson recorded so many tracks I'm still hearing new ones every couple of days (there's a James Jamerson fans page on Facebook), and you can tell his style almost immediately, because of the virtuosic playing over perfect rhythm and syncopation.

The funny thing is, both guys were THE bass player for their soul music studio, played almost the same exact instrument, but are polar opposites in sound. Even playing a single note, you can tell who's who. That's the sign of a great bassist.

They both knew of each other, considered each other colleagues, but never met. That's crazy to me, too.

For what it's worth, I got most of my initial tuba chops cutting my teeth by playing the basslines from Stax and Motown.

I feel if EVERY tuba player spent their time as the bassist of a rhythm section, their "pocket" and articulations would be much tighter.

[bloke]

I would like to know who the bass player was for the south Texas one-hit-wonder band, Archie Bell and the Drells (a band that would have gone places, were he not drafted).
This bass line has always fascinated me, and it is incredible:

[Three Valves]

And furthermore, Tighten Up is one repeating loop in one key!!

Like Lowrider. (WAR)

And Little Birdie. (Vince Guaraldi) On vocals yet. Sounds a lot like Randy Newman!!

[bloke]

And furthermore, Tighten Up is one repeating loop in one key!!

Like Lowrider. (WAR)

And Little Birdie. (Vince Guaraldi) On vocals yet. Sounds a lot like Randy Newman!!

The structure of the piece is certainly extremely simple, but it must be admitted that - when the noun, “music“, is altered by the adjective, “dance“, the noun is usually greatly weakened.

...but you are ignoring the amazing 4-bar “bridge” where they “make it metal/mellow” (as he pronounces it both ways).

[Three Valves]

Well, the bass isn't playing so yes, I'm ignoring it!!