Comments on: Help to build a better site

By: Xerxes

Xerxes — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:58:05 +0000

Mange tak for alt Marlowe:)

I live in Amsterdam and love all your vids, thanks for keeping them free of charge!!

1 thing…. I’ve always wondered how this guy played the piece he plays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oERTCNQfugc

Check it out, it’s really good, I love it and would love to be able to play it but just can’t figure out how he does it =/…

Warmest regards,

Abel

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:08:55 +0000

thx man for your offer to help, and remember to pitch your ideas on a regular basis:-). Im not that gear oriented myself, but I would hope to get someone to write about it

By: mathieuh

mathieuh — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:37:14 +0000

I love your site !
Really helpful

I just want to suggest a gear review. I know it allready exist but not enought test was posted.
I must be happy to see and hear an Orange Amp test or an Ampeg SVT test !

Thanks a lot !

PS : I’m a webdesigner (I have experience on WordPress Theme) But i’m not a professionnal !
If you want I will be able to help

PS2: Sorry about my English :p

By: Emeka

Emeka — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:02:49 +0000

hey marlow,

first of all a big thank you for setting up this sight. its amazing. it has helped me wonders. I cant thank you enough.

I will donate I promise. things are just real tight for me at the mo!!

I emailing to ask if you know where I can get good drum beats? or should I save up for a drum machine?

thanks Emeka

emeka.skerritt@gmail.com

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:11:13 +0000

Its a 1963 jazz bass, and you can see more details in some of the desktop pictures under downloads HERE

By: Joeglow

Joeglow — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:47:50 +0000

Not so much a comment or a request on bass lessons but more of a request of the Sunburst J bass you play. The fading on it looks incredible and I was wondering what year it is and if you have any real good close up pics of it. I’d love to see the original weathering up close.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:47:48 +0000

Is coming soon

By: GOSPELFUNK

GOSPELFUNK — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:27:11 +0000

Hi Marlowedk,
I wish you would do a tutorial on how to become great on octave Thumping and Plucking as Graham puts it. I know octaves are every 8th but I need help with this one.

Thanks

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:37:22 +0000

There is no order, look at it as tips, tricks and inspirational entities;-)

By: whoadang

whoadang — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:38:20 +0000

hey marlowe!

love the site! is there a way i can view all the lessons from first to last? i’m trying to go through them in some kind of order. thanks!

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:06:02 +0000

Well my approach to playing blues , is mostly by imitating guitar players, hence the reference to your guitar chops. By the way there is a lot of bluesy licks among my “lick of the day video” videos

By: nice illusion

nice illusion — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:13:55 +0000

ok – yeah – but I guess I was hoping for something – well my Blues guitar playing is proficient – but seems like the bass might do something other than that sound – possibly a rhythmic twist………which DKMarlowe seems to have a skill for coming up with..
maybe you could post a couple new takes on G shuffles – making the gen. approach and turnarounds a bit fresh (?)
BB

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:14:20 +0000

Im talking about notes chosen, not technique. You can always play licks based the G blues scale / Gm pentatonic

By: nice illusion

nice illusion — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:58:29 +0000

Thanks – yeah I can do something as I do on guitar – but that is a little difficult without a pick ! ha ha – really…I am not Jeff BecK!
I guess something that works in the 1-4-5 sound which could be G prog. OR just around G7 (as it IS a short solo, only…)
If I did the guitar-type thing (which is, essentially, what I have done)…it is OK – just trying to get a more comvincing “Bass signature”…could use a clever, doable couple licks which MATCH with the shuffle setting – does that make sense?
really appreciate yer time/effort
thanks again….BB

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:20:00 +0000

You mean a 12 bar blues in G or just a static G7 chord?
One thing i dont understand:
You are a guitar player you say , why dont you play what you normally would play on guitar in a blues setting? Just on the 4 lowest strings on a guitar

By: nice illusion

nice illusion — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:57:34 +0000

DK-
you are ma generous bomb man -
listen I am a guitar player now playing w/ Ron Thompson (a serious blues dude) sometimes…he often asks for a short solo – and I could use something that is say G-shuffle based – rather than the great funk stuff of yours I have been looking at (especially like that line w/ the “James Brown chord”)…can you demo a shuffle solo in G for us – something not tooo tough?
Thanks man -
“Generosity is intelligent self-centeredness”
H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama

By: Franbass

Franbass — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:46:02 +0000

hello MarloweDK

I am called Francisco, I am of Argentinean…. Excellent the page… very good exercises… pity that is nothing in Spanish… Not long ago that I touch the low one… I am enough amateur in this. Subi please does not exist any site/clinical in Spanish… some. Podrias to pass some routine to me of exercises to realise daily…? I do not speak English, realises it to the translation with the translator of yahoo jajaja

Me llamo francisco, soy de argentina….
Excelente la pagina…muy buenos ejercicios…lastima que no hay nada en Español…

No hace mucho que toco el bajo…soy bastante amateur en esto.

No existe ningun sitio/clinicas en español…por favor subi alguna.
Podrias pasarme alguna rutina de ejercicios para realizar diariamente…??

no hablo ingles, la traduccion la realice con el traductor de yahoo jajaja

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:29:39 +0000

First of all congratulations on starting out:)

If you ordered online you should have someone set the bass up for you – a bassplaying friend for instance.
There are some beginner lessons to songs on the site (not by me)
I myself has the Korg, its great, but if youhave an iPhone, amplitube has made a gadget for that (no drums though)

By: Yorkfield

Yorkfield — Fri, 21 May 2010 22:14:01 +0000

Hi Marlow,
I have just ordered my bass guitar online.
Looking very much forward to learn how to play and maybe getting really good one day.
I’m very happy to have found your website.
Haven’t discovered everything yet, but hope to find lessons for bloody beginners (like me) too )

I don’t know if that is possible (because of copyright reasons)at all, but it would be rather nice to have access to bass tabs of some nice songs .. to play along.

Another question I’m looking into right now is what bass effect gadget to get.
I like to have many different effect as well as a built in drum computer.

There are three types I’m thinking of:
1. Zoom B1 FX (approx. 89.- Euro)
2. Korg AX5B (approx. 85.- to 90.- Euro)
3. Korg PX4D (approx. 149.- Euro)

Can someone recommend one, or maybe even another type ?
Thank you very much !
Michael

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:42:28 +0000

Have thought about that, its just that most of my own lessons (the lick of the day videos) are intermediate /advanced for many. They are mostly on the spot compositions and werent made with any special level in mind. I actually dont have that much targeted beginner stuff, but recently ive started to do more theory type lessons for players on all levels (i wish someone had shown me when i was starting out).
But the next version of the site will have other ways to navigate the site, i promiss you:-)

By: pbmartin

pbmartin — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:06:38 +0000

Thank you for building a great site, full of great tutorials! Just a suggestion: could you create a track or sequence of lessons and licks that are suitable for beginners, intermediates and advanced players? It would really make navigating all the incredible content on your site a lot easier.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:13:15 +0000

Dont know, but in general african musicians have a strong cultural foundation in rhythm – and that is a “must have” for bassplayers:)

By: Phishind

Phishind — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:57:55 +0000

How is it that four of the top ten African bass players are from Cameroon? What is it about that area that creates great riddim players? Any ideas?

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:36:45 +0000

Thank you for your input:
1) Cannot find any lessons from your italian friend , he is just doing playalongs – as i also did in the start;-)
2) Yes, the repeat method is good, i need to remember that.
3)Much more coming:-)

By: jacek

jacek — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:05:37 +0000

hi !!!
thx for this tutorial website. it’s really good.
my suggestion:
1. if u could show us how to play certain songs, i mean well known songs, and make exercises to them.incorporate some little tricks that u do.
or show how other people play it.i’ll send link to one italian bass player whose playing is really tasty.wish he could be a member of your teaching team :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR5ltYDqM5A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elGpUNgg-LE&feature=PlayList&p=F1AD476C6F1ADCBE&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=16

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2K-eAsXsx4

2.i just started playing bass n some exercises are boring. they dont really sound like music…i loved your exercise for beginners.u played 4 bars n than i repeated. it was gr8.
3.i think its a gr8 idea to teach music theory.carry on, please!!!

thank you:) take care )

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:17:19 +0000

Good point, ill make it longer, thx:-)

By: Gigu Neutsch

Gigu Neutsch — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:12:26 +0000

Hi Thomas!

I would suggest to enlarge the “most recent posts” section
on the main side. You have so many new guest teachers
and there are a lot of new incoming posts (which is great).
But sometimes it´s nice to have a certain post, which you
might want to see more often, some days longer easy to reach.
Or you might miss some good post returning after a 2 weeks
holiday….
Cheers Gigu

By: elinfoot

elinfoot — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:52:07 +0000

Hi ,

I’m new to bass but not to guitar.The things that are giving me the most difficulties (I thought it would be really easy,I was wrong) is the right hand technique (I’d love to see some more on that),arpeggios and linking them together in a progression and that confusing extra B string .
Ultimately ,I’d love to play funk,jazz fusion and world music (particularly latin and african) on the bass

Thanks a lot

Eric

By: hsullman

hsullman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:25:45 +0000

Hi Thomas, Outstanding site you have. Since are moving towards the fusion side, “Beneath the Mask” by Chick Corea Electrik Band is one of my favs. Also Jean-Luc Ponty and Scott Ambush with Spyra-Gyro are great. All tips aside, you are right that playing on front of real people can be the best and worst critics. Hopefully your getting more beers than your buying!

thank you for all your efforts…Howard

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:17:37 +0000

I use the Multi-level navigation plugin for wordpress and there is no way to turn off the links of the parent menu items.
I dont think i can use the javascript trick unless i use a html generated version of the menu, and since i frequently change things i like to keep it dynamic
Otherwise im open to suggestions:-)

By: gwideman

gwideman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:41:58 +0000

Hi again Marlowe:
I just took a quick look at the html for your generated menus. I’m guessing that somewhere you have to configure those menus with target URLs right? Assuming there’s not some obvious option to say “no link”, you can set the link to “javascript:void(0)” so the resulting output is href=”javascript:void(0)”, which essentially disables the link.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:02:18 +0000

Yeah i know, but havent figured out how to disable topmenu links, its a dynamically created menu. Ill keep it mind for next update thx

By: gwideman

gwideman — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:34:49 +0000

Hi Marlowe,
Many thanks for all the time and energy you put into your YouTube vids, and now here.
Web-page-related suggestion: Your drop-down menus (Lessons, Pages, Links etc) activate on hover, but also have a hyperlink. This means that if user tries to click, they see menu appear, but soon the menu disappears because the page reloads. I think it might be better to have no link, and either have menu appear on click, or hover. Just a minor issue, but confused me until I saw what was happening in the browser status bar.
– Graham

By: ajcrm125

ajcrm125 — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:57:24 +0000

Marlowe,
Thanks a ton for the recent lessons you’ve added on the major scale. It’s nice to have a change of pace where you explain the theoretical stuff in more details. I think this was the first series of lessons where I actually heard you speak.

Keep it up.. I’m an intermediate bass player and I need some more of the theory.
THANKS!

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:04:49 +0000

youplayalong is a site for everybody. Ive only done a few “how to play” a certain song, and “use me” is not among them – its fairly easy so you should have no trouble figuring it out

By: Jim S

Jim S — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:54:15 +0000

Am I correct that you do not offer transcriptions or slow versions of your work on the “play along” site? My band has asked me to learn “use me,” and it would be great to see a transcription (if you did one and I just have not found it). Thanks.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:04:30 +0000

Im not that much a tone “fiddler”, use two settings on my bass – all full or favoring the bridge pickup and turning the tonecontrol down

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:02:21 +0000

Yes, its always good to take actual music that uses scales, rather than just run up and down them

By: JRandorff

JRandorff — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:51:18 +0000

Hi there! I’m new to the site and have been enjoying your video lessons. I’ve been playing professionally for about 10 years now and I very much enjoy your wordless approach to getting your ideas across… it makes the universal language of music come across without verbal hinderances.

Anyway, I would love to see some ideas on setting tone. The idea that I had was to record a lick/groove into a looping unit and then run that through your various effects, changing their respective parameters and hearing the real-time tone shaping.

Regards,
~~James

By: slagheap

slagheap — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:04:43 +0000

hello, marloweDK. love the site so far, certainly a lot to try to digest. btw, i think the unison line from stevie wonder’s ” sir duke ” is a great use of pentatonic construction. by playing that in various keys i first began to learn about pentatonics.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:23:38 +0000

60 for 1 lesson, an hour with me on Skype.
Or via a video lesson from Ashbury music hall with written material and evaluation of your homework – you upload videos where yuo play the asssignment i gave you and i judge and correct if needed

By: derek trull

derek trull — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:56:11 +0000

I mean how long before I got to pay the 60 dollars again??

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:26:09 +0000

A month? No, an hour;-) Sorry , I dont really understand the question

By: derek trull

derek trull — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:04:00 +0000

was just wondering if I started taking the 60 dollar lessons how long does it last like one month or what thanks

By: derek trull

derek trull — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:56:00 +0000

yes sir
jusk keep it in mind I think pino has a lot of great licks thanks

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:31:25 +0000

Thx Derek and i like john mayer trio (with pino) a lot, but i think ill do some other cover tutorials first at least

By: derek trull

derek trull — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:49:51 +0000

hey I would just like to say thank you for taking time out to do all this work I have been playing bass for about three years and you my friend are a pro man I love the blues and I have studied all your vids I cant quite play them as well as you but I live some one who can break it down so simple any way my ? was have you ever listin to the JOHN MAYER TRIO they play a lot of blues and pino is a great bass player I was wondering if you would cover some of there stuff if you had the time thanks and God bless

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:56:12 +0000

Most my videos are hosted on blip.tv but some older ones are hosted at youtube. I think its you who have problems and im not moving 400 videos because of you;-) Try watching them on another computer just too see or update your Flash player

By: TobiasAddict

TobiasAddict — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:15:38 +0000

I always have problems to watch your videos: someone are OK but I can’t watch the other and I don’t know why. If you could host your videos on an other site, that may change it. I hope my English don’t trouble you

Thanx for your site and keep grooving

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:39:47 +0000

low action and fretnoise:-)
This is not the right forum for that question mind you;-)

By: clevey

clevey — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:30:33 +0000

Thanks for all you do. Brief question…..

You make this look so effortless. Do you have your strings very low to the frets, even though it may cause some fret noise when plucking, or is the action normal height and your hands just do the work?
-Chris

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:49:53 +0000

Its about experience, studying others basslines and playing a lot, to make up good basslines oneself.
So its a good idea and there is allready backing tracks with some of the licks,

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:45:01 +0000

Sounds like a case for Gigu Neutsch

By: soporific

soporific — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:48:51 +0000

Just an idea..
Playing licks and songs is good for getting a wide musical vocabulaire on the bass, but in what way is it effecting your own style. As a more or less beginning bassplayer, I find it sometimes hard to come up with my own grooves. So maybe it’s an idea if you (mDK)make like a backing track, and the visitors can record and post their own bassline with that. I think it would be nice to see the diversity of ideas of different players.

Have a good one! Kors

By: Phishind

Phishind — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:24:09 +0000

I am a big fan of Bakithi Kumalo, Sipho Gumede, and afro beat. It is not easy to find assitance in learning this type of music; mix meters, phrasing, lyrical/vocal bass melodies, etc. Could you do some lessons on this style of bass playing.

By: MarloweDK

MarloweDK — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:47:51 +0000

Dont worry about speed, practice and make it sound good in the tempo you can manage, only when that is relaxed yuo may increase. This is not the olympics;-)

By: KhanguruMc

KhanguruMc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:53:59 +0000

Hello, my name is marc and would like to say thank for your helps MarloweDk and guest Teacher’s.

The most difficult for me is my right hand ,I can’t go really fast picking with two or three fingers and most grooves in the site are relatively fast and when the grooves in the video is slow down sometimes I can follow but sometimes it’s still to fast for me.I know that I have to continued practicing and not be decouraged .In the past I have over practicing my right hand the wrong way , very crisp tobe more faster and develop a tendinite (dont know if is the wright name in English).

my question is :is it possible to integrate some
good exercises for right hand to improve my speed without sacrify a relax hand.

Sorry for my poor English language.

Thanks for your attention.

I love so much this instrument.

Marc.

khanguru65@hotmail.com