lowquality.net

I was reading some old posts and I came across this one ambitious article about practicing. While reading it I found myself saying things about my own work like it was written by someone else: “This is great advice!” and “This is bullshit!” and “I wrote this??” and “Could I ever practice this much again?”

My practice regiment pretty much sucks. In the last year I have done very little musical, and this has caused me to make a New Year’s Resolution to do more playing. The practice regiment described in that article is based on efficiency and honesty. Some people are just not honest with themselves, and will not admit that a lot more work is needed than they are willing to dole out. Here is me admitting it: I have a lot of work to do.

If you are a professional musician a regimented practice routine is pretty much essential, but even when I did consider myself a professional musician I found it difficult to sit down and practice 90 things in one session. I don’t work well that way, and I never feel like I am absorbing the material the way I’d like to be. Coming from Berklee, that regiment worked for me in order to get through my classes and make it through the course load (sometimes). This method, however, doesn’t really work for me to really absorb a new concept, and it doesn’t always apply to musicians outside of academia. Even if was still pro and gigging every night, I doubt I could afford the luxury of sitting down to practice new material. I really need to rethink the concept of practice… So here is me also saying that I am rethinking the concept of practice.

Take Small Bites
A few years ago I saw a clinic by, session drummer, Kenny Aronoff. He talked for a bit about his insane work routine. He described the not-too-uncommon day he had previous to the clinic where he basically jetset across the country to do several gigs with different major label artists and, apart from a much needed back massage, he had few breaks and maybe the combined span of an hour in front his drums where he could practice. Kenny makes his living playing the drums, and, granted, the fact that he is playing for hours every day is certainly a boon to his progress as a musician, but in order to stay sharp and stay relevant, someone even as successful as Kenny Aronoff needs to keep trying to move beyond his comfort zone. What he suggested was taking “small bites” (my phrase, not his) of a new concept and trying to incorporate it in several ways.

The best way I could translate this to bass would be to, instead of taking on the daunting academic task of digesting an entire James Jamerson or Jaco Pastorius transcription and perpetually feeling as though you are failing at the task, just take a few really key parts of such a piece and trying to learn everything you can about those parts.

Think about it this way: even if you are an excellent site reader and can negotiate some of the Jamerson charts with ease, there is a lot to those lines and they take some time to really incorporate, just playing them won’t transform you into a Motown master. A great example of short concentrated bursts of Jamerson inspirado can be found in “I Was Made to Love Her” by Steve Wonder. In Jamerson’s bass line, the first bar of every verse changes while the remaining three bars stay basically the same (with some slight variation). I assure you, taking ONE of these bars and incorporating the rhythmic and harmonic concepts into your playing will be a hell of a boost to your playing and your confidence and expand your working vocabulary on the bass.

Here’s how I have been going about it: All of these “First Bars” occur on an Fmaj chord, so imagine learning just one of them. Yeah, I learn ONE BAR, but I really take the time to get it down cold. I try to play it so well that it almost sounds just like recording. Since I am only really learning one bar of music I can afford to really focus on it, right? Once I am at that point, I have an amazing lick to play on an Fmaj chord– any Fmaj chord. I know, big deal, but, what if you played it in A major? C major? G# major? You probably could play it in any major key. So, now I have a lick that I can use over any major chord! I can take it to jam sessions, to gigs, change the feel around and see how it works in different styles and tempos.

Needless to say, transposing a player’s signature licks will really give you some insight into the ingredients of their style. For instance, James Jamerson played a lot of open strings when he had them available, which is something much easier to utilize in F major than in, say, G# major.

How hard, do you suppose, it would be to change a few notes to make this lick work on a Dominant 7 or F minor chord? Probably not that hard. What if it I took it yet another level and adapted the lick to different chords in every possible quality?

Now I have taken one 4-beat long lick and turned into a new piece of my vocabulary. Thats really what your practice sessions should accomplish. Not transcription for the sake of itself, or reading through books and books of exercises, or running meaningless scales for hours on end because “you are supposed to.” Practice should be an attempt to expand our horizons. Sometimes we need to spend time with our instruments and practice things that just aren’t any fun and it may take hours on end to climb up to that next level, but that doesn’t mean it has to always take hours to do it every time.

_{P.S. There is NO WAY I am going to get into any debate about whether James Jamerson or Carol Kaye played on “I Was Made to Love Her.” I have read all of the articles, all of the allegations and ultimately I have let my own ears decide. Carol Kaye is a brilliant musician and contributor to the legacy of the bass guitar, but that is not her playing on that track. I don’t know how or why she believes she did, or the circumstances surrounding the mistake, but I just don’t believe that she did it.}