Hey Janek,

My ambition is to develop my melodic sense of soloing whilst being a groove-based player - a role which you, among a very select few, I think, define.

In my eyes, it's necessary to learn the whole bebop language thing to accomplish this, so I work through Charlie Parker books and transcribe solos etc. I feel I'm making pretty good progress, and when I'm working in my own home, working over groove-based songs, I'm really happy with some of the melodic development I'm coming up with. I'm using players such as yourself and Tony Grey to study your approach to soloing.

Now, here is my question. I played a jazz gig last night - pretty traditional affair, lots of swing and latin stuff, standards really. Whilst I felt my walking was ok, my soloing was horrendous! I don't feel the fast changes or tempo in some of the tunes allowed to steady development of my solo. So I ended up playing very clichéd licks, and just some general rubbish.

I'm playing this sort of music because I think it's an important thing to do - I know you've very publically said you're a long way away from either walking or soloing over standards - but is it (and was it for you) a crucial thing to do in terms for your development as a player?

I came away from the gig really disillusioned - but should I persue it and work to excel in this area as part of my overall development as a bassist, soloist and musician?

Sorry if this was a bit wordy or confusing - I guess I'm asking, should I persevere with the standards scene or can I skip it? I suspect the answer is no, I can't skip it, but your thoughts would be most welcome!


Regards,


Mike

Well it was certainly a big part of my development as a player because that's what I was initially inspired by. I was really into bebop, into straight ahead (whatever that means anymore) jazz. I was transcribing coltrane, Miles, Cannonball, lee morgan, sonny rollins, dexter gordon, freddie Hubbard... etc etc etc so i was immersed in that music. But it's because it was what initially inspired me to approach improvised music. And if you want to have a command of any language, be it through music or through spoken word, you have to work at it a ton in order to become fluent.

I learnt 100's of standards, played gigs that required me to walk bass lines for hours, played solos, and all the rest of it. I'm just saying that I use very little of the actual meat and potatoes of that homework I did back then. I think you might be thinking a little bit too much about the process and not enough about what the finished product might look like. Not that really is a finished product, but maybe I'm talking about your further development as a musician and what goals you might have for that.

What it boils down to in the end is this: the more time you spend with your instrument working on things that inspire you, the better you're going to feel and sound. There's no way around just spending time. I think many people who ask questions about developing as a player are talking way too much about specific aspects of what their day to day musical life is, and are not just getting on and enjoying what they're doing and letting go of it all.

It's the hardest thing to do, to totally let go of all self expectation and just get on with life. It took me freakin years and years to do it. But now, in the best way possible, I just don't care. I have the upmost respect for the music, for those people I work with, and for my own playing, work, and development as a player. But I really don't care about anything except being happy, and having fond memories after each time I make music. Once you let go, and stop thinking about all the things you "have" to learn and cram into your own playing, you're going to reach a point where things appear naturally in your playing because you work on them so much.

I don't have a set plan for practicing, and never have had. I have certain exercises I do to get my fingers and body warm if I know I'm going to be playing for a number of hours, but when it comes down to it I have no idea what I'm going to work on until I have the instrument in my hand and I start experimenting with it.

Don't be afraid to be inspired by yourself. The best thing is actually to be inspired by a mistake. I will never forget my first class (and one of the only classes I attended) at berklee I was jamming with the guys in the ensemble. We were all excited to be playing and be in school and all the rest of it and in a slight pause before we started to play again I was messing around with the bass. I played some super hip sounding thing that I had never played before totally by accident and the drummer turns to me and says "do that again!! that was killing". Of course I had no idea what it was, but that tiny "mistake" was my practice for the next two weeks until I figured out how I had got the sound, and then worked on it. That was something that didn't come from a lesson with someone, from a transcription or anything. I just sat there and made a silly sound that ended up sounding hip, and it gave me something to work on for weeks.

I would highly recommend getting rid of all the books about music you own. I would stop taking lessons with anyone if you are right now, and I would get all the recorded music you can possibly get your hands on. Then shut yourself away for however long it takes for you to be so inspired, jumping around, happy, sad, emotional or whatever it is you hear that starts your engine, and go with it. forget about what other bass players are doing, forget about what gear people are using, forget what the magazine adverts are telling you to buy. Just be you with the instrument without any pollution from anything else except recorded music. You're going to learn a lot about yourself, and you're going to be able to ask yourself huge questions about what you want from music, and be able to answer them honestly. Once you've asked and answered the question, all you have to do is work harder than anyone else at whatever it is you've chosen to do. Learn everything you can from those records and you'll start to think in that frame of mind and will no longer be a parrot churning out clever phrases you learnt from someone else, you'll be you speaking with words, phrases and paragraphs that you learnt from other people (just like you did as a child learning english from your parents) and forming your own opinion with them.

And please don't take the parrot thing as an insult at all, it's not directed at you personally, it's just a really good way to illustrate the fact that almost anyone can learn a charlie parker lick from the omnibook and spit it out when the Bbmaj7 chord comes along. But it's the individual, the artist, the unique soul that uses that phrase to say something new and original.

Another thing you're going to find once you have a substantial catalogue of transcriptions that you've made is that you'll need very little of a solo to inspire you to make something new. It's like studying socrates, aristotle, plato, chomsky, rousseau etc etc for years. You read 40 or 50 scriptures and books etc and you're going to know where they're coming from and a certain amount of basic language that they use. You can use any of this to help form your own opinions and then construct interesting statements for yourself to make. read book number 51, 52, 53....... and you might only get a few pages in before it's inspiring you to have many more thoughts of your own before getting to the ultimate point of the book.

This is how I look at transcribing solos now. I have 100's of complete solos that I've worked on from maybe 50 different soloists.... I really don't know, I'm just guessing, but it's up there. Now all that needs to happen for me to have hours and hours of material to work on is to hear one simple phrase. 4 or 5 notes maybe. Maybe it's the notes themselves, maybe the rhythmic idea, maybe the super imposition over the harmony.... any number of things can cause that spark of inspiration. But from those few notes I can literally write a symphony if I wanted to. I generally work on those ideas and develop them into harmonic and melodic language that is relevant to what I'm trying to say, but none the less the range is limitless.


To sum up, if you want to skip something cos you're not inspired by it, go right ahead. You might find your calling is to move to sweden and play heavy metal. You never know until you immerse yourself as deep as you possibly can in the music and ask yourself some questions.

Easy,

Janek

What it boils down to in the end is this: the more time you spend with your instrument working on things that inspire you, the better you're going to feel and sound. There's no way around just spending time. I think many people who ask questions about developing as a player are talking way too much about specific aspects of what their day to day musical life is, and are not just getting on and enjoying what they're doing and letting go of it all.
What a great quote,...well done!

Wow - what an answer. I have read it once but I think I will be studying it very closely for some time. Thanks so much for your time and effort, hugely appreciated. I'll get to work - and possibly hassle you via this forum again!

Regards

Mike

PS Cheers for the GREAT articles in Bass Guitar Magazine - pretty much the only reason I buy it.

WOW!

What a great resource. It's very cool that you take the time to explore these ideas for all of us out here. The time that you put in staying on top of these questions does not go unnoticed and is HUGELY appreciated. Cheers!

-Dave

All I have to say is wow......

Great post Janek

I only wanted a yes or no ;)