Seminar for Young Bass players?

[Steve Clark]

I'm in the process of developing a seminar for bass players. They are varying levels of experience at a local high school. Mostly electric and a couple of double bass players. I usually teach one on one so a group session is a new challenge. There will be two 1 hour sessions. Vic Wooten's groove workshop DVD has been an inspiration to me and plan to follow a similar path.

I'm posting to get some input from the boards on what to cover based on what I write here. I'm confident I can deliver a valuable experience to the players.

I would cover, in no particular order at this point:

My history/experience (briefly)

Tone/Technique - a can review and improve their tone and technique through getting them to play something they are working on either in school or on their own. I can work on getting great tone out of their fingers and how they play the bass. Both double bass and electric.

Time - I'd work on different ways that they can enhance their time keeping through a metronome/drum machine. May have a teacher available to play kit but not necessary.

Improv/composing bass lines - They don't get a lot of experience with functional harmony so might introduce that as a concept. I love Vic's exercise about wrong notes vs right notes. That was a big light bulb for me that came way too late in life.

Articulation of notes, keeping the groove going are other aspects I'd work on.

We could look at a tune like Autumn Leaves for key centres and work on attempting some solo playing. I could play chords, one could walk and one could solo. And then have the next group do the same thing.

Another amazing Vic exercise is having someone play a piece once and then play it again with a feeling or an emotion in mind. I tried that very thing with a Grade 6/10 year old bass player yesterday who has been working with improv on their own and you could really hear and see when he was not thinking about what to play and when he reacted to 'mistakes'.

We could go back to what ever tune we were using and try applying an emotion rather than notes.

I've asked the school to provide a PA so that all can plug in.


So I'm interested in getting input from you on what other elements of bass playing you would cover. Or creative easy that you would cover the topics I've listed.

Thanks in advance.