Do you guys ever get scared?

Fear? Anxiety? feeling apprehensive? these are human qualities and human conditions that certainly we are all capable of tapping into...to mitigate the negativity associated with the aforementioned we at Berklee in the Bass Department teach our students how to prepare for situations...musical situations are similar to life situations, and we can best serve the opportunity of playing music in a positive light by working at our craft and becoming a healthy practitioner of bass playing and music making...the very essence of preparedness here is understanding what it is you're involved with, assuming several roles that might work and then committing to one...our mission as a bass player is to contribute to the musical landscape at hand...we show our students how to practice improvising, meaning creating in the moment, and letting that communication be a serviceable one musically speaking...we work on groove, ones' rhythmic speech..and we work on harmonic ideas, how to hear where a song is at and where it's going, and how any tonality (a note and it's consequence to the music at that particular time) will vibe the music..take the rhythmic groove stuff and the harmonic layering together and you have a "sound" idea..as a bass player I suggest you grow with each situation, enjoy the experiences and hone your skillset...for years I would teach students vocabulary that others engaged in, aka learning your musical history..however, now I'm more bullish on along with digesting the history of bass and it's vocabulary, I like discovering with my students and observing a students imagination and creativity, and working through that, surveying that, and opening up the pathways that can help to serve music from the "low end". This is the vocabulary I'd like my students to engage in, inquire about and discover through playing..after all, chords are build from bottom to top. What we do as bass players has a significant effect on the music being played...it's heavy!! but that should not cause anxiety!! So with all this, I hope you see clearly that you can work at feeling good at whatever it is you are playing..and look at the bright side...when in doubt, leave a rest, and in that rest, that tacet, you might encourage someone else in the ensemble to do something that will shape the next chapter of the story unfolding, and then you come in with one big phat bold whole note, and everyone hears it and feels it, and you know what? you're in it!! in the game, in the story...was just watching the Eric Clapton documentary which btw has some beautiful Carl Raddle bass playing in it. He was a session player form Oklahoma who played on several of Clapton's recordings, the Derrick and The Dominoes Layla record is a great one to check out..also a bunch of sides from Leon Russel, recorded for Shelter Records..anyhow, in the documentary BB King is singing Clapton's praise saying, "he just plays a few notes, but what he does with those notes, how he tells a story, that's the true mark of a great musician"...so take that advice and attitude while you play bass... enjoy the ride, pave the road with good notes, good groove, good sound, and try this idea, "there are no wrong notes", just play, play from your heart..one note at a time, and make it magical....anxiety? say what? haha, I totally forgot that's what we were talking about. you see! because we were talking about music and music making...anxiety has no part in it...have fun, Danny Instagram#dmoplaysbass