Best musical advice you ever got

[goyin108]

I had an instructor in college tell me during jazz ensemble that if I made a mistake to repeat it the second time around and people will think your doing some cool modal thing. Most of my best ideas come from my mistakes now.

[zenlowend]

Only girls slap! - me

[jaywa]

"Spend the first few years learning what to play. Spend the rest of your career learning what not to."

[tZer]

"If you can't say it, you can't play it." - meaning you cannot play complicated parts with your fingers if you can't reproduce the part vocally demonstrating that your brain fully grasps it. A sure way to find out if you really understand a part is to say/sing it. If you can say/sing it, it's just a matter of a little woodshedding before your fingers will be able to play it. If you cannot say/sing it, you could spend days trying to train your fingers to play it to no avail.

"Practice is what you do at home. Rehearsal is what we do together. You don't practice at rehearsal - you rehearse. If you don't practice, you are wasting my time and the time of those at rehearsal who do. "

-- My high school band director, Mr. Boedges.

I use both of these little bits of wisdom everyday and they've served me well! I am not the best player on the planet, but I sure know how to be a reliable part of an ensemble.

[Fretlessboy]

"Think of allll of the cool stuff you could ... then play what's left after you leave the cool stuff out" - Neil Jason

[skeptikal]

"You should pick-up a bass and let me know how that works out for you." - My drummer,

Best thing I could have ever done.

& "Practice won't make you perfect, but at least you won't suck." - My bass teacher

[BassIsBoss]

James Singleton, wonderful jazz bassist, said to me, "Man, bass is boss". He also said, "So, how'd it go with that chick with the snake". Wise words indeed.....

[tonedeaf]

Best advice I've gotten, in no particular order

- Learn to read standard notation
- Relax your left hand
- LISTEN
- Play all styles of music, even the ones you don't like to listen to
- Learn fretting hand positions and how to play in them (this was big for me as a self-taught bassist)

[UncleBalsamic]

Listen to everyone you are playing with.

[jmcgliss]

"Buy an Ampeg B-15N fliptop and go get some work", my bass teacher advised in 1973. That $375 purchase turned into over 500 paid union gigs, supplementing my post-college income by 30%-50%. Note that his advice was NOT to buy a 1000 gigawatt wall of sound. Aside from the money, the amp symbolized his faith in my transition from self-taught noob to a working musician.

[CapnSev]

Originally Posted by scottbass

"Play fewer notes and put more soul into each one you play." - Willie Dixon, when he sat in with our band

+1

Is there anybody cooler than Willie Dixon? No. There is not.

[namraj]

"shut up and play" - (feel it)

[20db pad]

"Slow the (expletive) down" - Rohn Lawrence

[StyleOverShow]

Playing at Harrah's in So. Lake Tahoe in the mid 70's. Charlie Hayden's brother, a bassist too, was playing Trader Vic's. He and his guitar player and I had been out most of the night, after our gigs and were scurrying back to our motel rooms before dawn when he said "Give this life up or you'll end up like us...over fourty and still dating waitresses, living in motels".

[mkrtu9]

Do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do.

[Wespe]

"You suck."

Discouragement is sometimes the best kind of motivation there is.

[Thunderthumbs73]

One finger per fret.

[RONQUITO]

"Cut down those nails, you´re not Geddy Lee you know?"

- My Bass Teacher.

As abrasive as this might have sounded, he was right, what works for Geddy (a personal hero BTW) doesn´t necessarily had to work for me. It took some time for me to adapt though.

[69nites]

play what's in your head not what's on the radio.

random guy on the bus.

[dean82]

Always practice with a metronome. Even when warming up/noodling.
It can be one of the most depressing things you can do, to turn off the CD or drum machine and play a tune you think you have cold to a metronome. It lays your playing bare and if you have a weakness, it will show up.