I know you mentioned in an earlier thread that you don't have the time to practice bass as much, though you spend a lot of time playing. When you were spending more time in the woodshed earlier in your career how did you approach practicing and what kind of things did you do to get your playing to the level it's at now?

I jammed. With tons of people and tons of scenarios.

But as far as me alone, I played along with records.

And on the educational side, I took some lessons with Jamie Faunt, a really interesting, innovative teacher out here in LA. He focuses on fundamentals...but fundamentals that go quite a bit more "basic" than what you would normally consider fundamental. Such as:

- clapping with a metronome 1/4 notes at 100 bpm until beats effortlessly disappear without effort or thought. Then, changing 2 bpm down, doing the same thing, 2 bpm up, doing the same thing, essentially "fanning" around the metronome until you are a master of 1/4 notes. This is done with clapping only, mind you. THen the same drill with 8th notes, within reason (some tempos too fast). Same with 16ths, then various rhythms. THEN, doing the same on the bass. This exercise alone can take months to master, and I still do it. Really fun, really gives confidence.

Ear-training wise, same sort of principle: practicing only SINGING tones to match them with a keyboard or bass or something, then improvising melodies that you sing first, THEN playing them. Lots and lots of exercises in this realm, the whole goal being that you hear things before you play them. In principle, the purpose being to get people out of the "bad habits" of letting your hands make shapes and regular patters which circumvent an actual original thought of creating a note, a rhythm, a melody.

Anyway, that's the tip of the iceberg. Interesting, eh?

Jamie has now become really hard to see because he has a waiting list, but someday I hope he writes a book because he's a total genius. I found that stuff very formative and inspiring.

JMJ

Definitely some supremely valuable stuff there, Justin. I took a few lessons from a great bassist named Mike Frost who was similarly big on emphasizing a player's ability to express what he called the "inner voice", the melodies and harmonies we hear in our heads. I've sort of been stuck in a rut lately and I find my fingers leading me around too much by muscle memory, and it seems that these exercises will be a great way to help me break out of that.

Cool! Good on you.

JMJ