| On "Wooten Clones"
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First of all, I don't think anything is wrong with learning from your favorite musician, but I have noticed some things. None of these are "bad," but just some observations:
We get on so many players for sounding like a "Vic clone." And I was thinking about it today after my "Victor Wooten: Live at Bass Day '98" arrived in my mailbox. With all of the amazing bassists we have out in this age, why do so many follow the techniquedf of Vic?
Then I realized, that not only is his material so much more available than anyone elses' (which it really is; from the fact that he has so many records in retail stores compared to other bass players, to his website, to even the vast amount of ways to acquire pirated files of his, like on bittorrents, YouTube, etc.), but also the general fact that he actually CARES to explain what he's doing on the bass. Prime example is that there's an hour video on the DVD where he explains some of his techniques, and that he's written a book for musicians, and when I met him and asked if he'd like to hang out, he did--for about three hours. Just me and one other friend of mine.
So, what I've noticed is that more people play like him, not only because he can play, and I mean REALLY play, but because there's instruction on how he does what he does.
Additionally, Vic has taken the older techniques of the electric bass, which is a very young instrument, and added some more of his. As we all know, a good player should be able to do everything that's been done on his chosen axe. So, since he's the only one out there really doing it, it makes sense that everyone else "sounds like Vic." And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
What I have noticed, though, that ARE bad things:
First, I'll just say that I'm a jazz bassist, and I learn from my idols by listening to them on recordings. And that's what I did when I started wanting to learn slab. I started listening to and imitating Jaco.
I went to a guy who learned to play through Vic to just hang out one day. I played a Jaco line when we were just fooling around. And he asked how I learned that. I told him I pushed play on my computer. And he said he could never do something like that; learning by ear.
That was the first thing. So, now that Vic has made it very simple to learn his stuff, people think they could learn it by watching Vic on a video while explaining how it's done. While Vic knows and understands what he's doing by hearing it in his head, many of our "Victor clones" don't.
The other one is, like even Victor has said many times, is the whole reading thing. There are cats around here that can play circles around me on slab twenty times over. But I'm going to get more calls for the professional gigs. Why? Because I can read most anything you put on my stand (except the whole bop heads melody thing I discussed in another thread). So, while Vic hears what he's doing, and understands the theory behind what he's doing, and can notate and/or read any bassline down, many of the "Victor clones" can't.
So, what I've been thinking, is if these guys can just get the last two things down, they'd be working all the time. People wouldn't harp on those guys so much if this was the case, too.
Does this make sense?
By the way, this reminds me of a Mingus tune called "Gunslinging Bird." The original title was "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats."
Nick | 
