I need a proper bassists opinion :help:

[stuarthoskins]

Im a Music student studying IB HL music and hoping to either major or minor when i go to college but recently i think that dream isn't going to work out.

Recently i sent a teacher from last year (who i was close with and jammed with in jazz band and orchestra) this solo performance piece that was slightly improvised.

https://soundcloud.com/stuarthoskins

The response i got wasn't helpful at all and he ceased to email me back when i asked for constructive criticism.

"Hello Stuart,

I was able to read your email and after several technical glitches I had to listen to your composition on xxxxx's laptop.

Stuart, if you are serious about wanting to pursue music at University/College level you are going to have to do much better.

Music needs to say something and needs to go somewhere. Both xxxxxx and myself were left wondering what your piece was trying to convey. A mood? A feeling? A statement? If you submitted that composition for IB or a University entrance paper you would fail. You may have enjoyed experimenting and composing it but I am sorry to say that it is lacking discernible quality relating to the majority of musical elements that we might discuss in a music class.

I suspect that your listening skills are still pretty adept but you will certainly need to work much more on the areas of composition and performance in order to be accepted to study music at University.

Sorry to be brutal Stuart but I do believe you may still make it if you re-calibrate your thinking."



Hopefully you guys can offer advice on what i need to work on. Maybe give me your thoughts on the piece and what i should work on to improve my writing and performance..

Anything would be helpful

 

[phillybass101]

Pay no attention to negative people. They will try to steal your dreams. Contact professors or students at your school of choice and find out what goes on. There is no harm in asking what the expectations are. Surround yourself with postive thinking people and attain ytour dreams. To me this teacher sounds like a loser.

 

[stuarthoskins]

I appreciate your way of thinking, Im just having trouble with why this is not a piece that would be of standard in terms of writing and performance.. I wrote it to be a technically demanding piece. I utilize harmonization between harmonics and bass notes, i get three voices going on in the second section(which is really hard, for me at least) between high notes low notes and harmonics and i modulate to the relative major pretty smoothly. I included tempo and rhythm changes(even into a hemiola). This piece really spoke to me when i was writing it. I just dont understand what standards this response was based on.. Most importantly i would like to know how i can reach that standard and further my playing.

any and all advice (especially critical) on the piece would be extremely helpful and i would be really grateful.

 

[Bethelbass1]

You piece has a cool minimalist vibe to it that I really enjoyed.

I think what he was trying to say is your piece is lacking in some major musical elements:
Melody
Form
Chord Structure
Dynamics

To be honest, trying to get into univeristy is less about technical skill and more about musicality and music knowledge. Your piece sounds hard and probably was, but that won't wow the people that decide who to admit into University programs.

What about playing a classical piece? maybe from the Double Bass repetoire.
What about something that demonstrates your ability to play with others? a Jazz standard or small ensemble.

If you want to really pursue this level of learning with a focus on composition you should compose a piece that shows melodic contour, harmony, phrasing, dyanmics.
Try to use compositional techniques that you are familiar with: sequence, retrograde, theme and variation, etc. (if you are familiar with them). A composition for university entry needs to show your wide level of knowledge in music and should be rooted in western harmony.

That said, I did like you piece and I don't think it's horrible. You should certainly keep it and tweak some things, but you need something different to showcase your skills.
That is why most universities have a audition list; they want to hear specific things in your playing.

hope it helps....

 

[Borzi_4]

The sound is great, you obviously have a good understanding of musicianship as well as your instrument. But in my opinion the melody is not obvious enough for most listeners, at first it was unclear to me if there was a melody or not. I bet if you took that recording and overdubbed with a (arco) doublebass playing the leading tones it would really tie it together.

"it is lacking discernible quality relating to the majority of musical elements that we might discuss in a music class"
is the most improtant thing to take from that email, just my $0.02

-B

 

[elgecko]

^ That. It was more free from doodling than a composition.

 

[dasbusking]

Pay no attention to negative people. They will try to steal your dreams. Contact professors or students at your school of choice and find out what goes on. There is no harm in asking what the expectations are. Surround yourself with postive thinking people and attain ytour dreams. To me this teacher sounds like a loser.

+1

 

[NCD]

I think your old teacher wasn't trying to be critical of the things you did do, he was trying to tell you that something was missing.

Victor Wooten really pounds on these same points in nearly every workshop I've seen and he really hits on them in his 4 hour groove workshop DVD.

Think of it this way:

You wrote it to be technically demanding. That sounds like you wrote it as if it were a kind of demo video that is put together by CGI video artists to demonstrate thier skills.

When I listened to your song what I noticed was that the first 45 seconds were one skill, then from 45 seconds to around 2:15 (a minute and a half) sounded like one fast moving technique that moved from chord to chord, repeating over and over and over, but never really changing. In other words, it seemed as if you were demonstrating techniques, not playing something from the heart.

When your old teacher said that music needs to go somewhere, I think he was saying what Wooten says this way:

"Have something to say"

For example... if I were to talk by saying the same ten word tongue twister over and over again while moving my vocal tone around like I was doing chord changes, what would you hear? You'd hear the same ten words, over and over again. After about the fourth time you'd probably look at me and say: "Yea, I get it already. What else do you have to say?"

I think of it this way. If my music isn't saying anything interesting, why should anyone listen to it?

Music communicates emotion... happiness, sadness, cocky attitude (think 12 bar blues with confidence and cockiness). But it should always communicate something.

What it communicates is what it says... "Have something to say."

Music is made up of phrases. Phrases work together to form paragraphs and tell a story. Look at Darling Dear... when I play that, I think of an old man telling a group of 4-5 kids a story in a way that keeps them on the edge of their seats and wide eyed!

Check out the videos in the bottom of this reply. One is an isolated track from the master recording and another is of Ryan Butler covering a different song. Listen to where the bassline "goes" in each of these. Try to ignore anything technical... hear what the phrases say as they work together like sentances in order to tell you something. Hear the story that the bassline tells from beginning to end. What does that story mean to you? What do you think the bassist is saying as he "speaks" through the instrument?

You're hearing something, but we all interpret it differently. One thing is for sure though... these line have something to say, and they really "go places".

Almost no one does lines these complicated anymore... but you can have something to say while keeping it simple too.

The point is that when you play, you're expressing ideas by using the bass instead of your mouth. Either way, what you say needs to make sense.

Good luck! Here are the videos:

 

[unclejane]

Music needs to say something and needs to go somewhere.

I see. What exactly does it need to say and where does it need to go? Short answer: it doesn't need to "say" anything or "go" anywhere.
This is utter crap from a fool, best to ignore it.

This is why you probably don't want to go to college or into any other academic environment to study music. This kind of nonsense will absolutely stalk you the entire time you're there and drain your wallet dry. And you'll learn only nonsense like music having to "say something", but lord only knows what that is.

Anyway, this is just what you'll have to deal with if you go into music as an academic subject. So I'd suggest doing something else in school and continuing to do music on your own for your own enjoyment. That's what I do nowadays; I never set foot in a music department ever in my decade or so long collegiate career and, if I had it to do over again, I'd do the exact same thing.

The crafts of music are freely available anyway and you can learn as much or as little as you need to make music the way you want to.

Above all, stay away from idiots like this guy who wrote you that boorish, stupid email. That's not what music is all about...

LS

 

[oniman7]

I will listen to the recording when I grab my headphones.

From hearing you talk about it, I will say it sounds like he's got a point but he is really being condescending and kind of a jerk about it.

I am listening now and I agree with a little of what he has to say. There are some note choices that to me say that you are either sticking with an improvised note or picking a note on purpose that is (imo) just a bad note choice. A lot of times it seems like you're diminishing a note to add tension but hanging on that tension.

With the exception of 2:56, the parts are all well defined and have very strong definition.

Here's what I would encourage you to do: take the parts and refine them (a lot of it is artistic choice, but please consider resolving a lot of the chromatic and accidental tension you have). Once you have parts, put them together in a format that's more easy to comprehend. It can be verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus, sonata form, whatever you want, but try to put it into a form.

Also, I really think it would be great with some low key groovy drums. A little closed high hat, light kick and snare, a couple ride hits.

Once you do that, consider making the melody clearer. I have a feeling you have a melody there but as you're supporting bass, harmony, and melody with one instrument it's getting lost. I would suggest doubling what you intend to be the melody line or perhaps playing it an octave up either on bass or on guitar with some kind of effect such as distortion or chorus to emphasize it.

Your playing is great, your writing is great, I definitely hear a "mood" to it. I'm amazed you can pull off 3 voices on bass. I can handle two on classical guitar and I can barely do 3 on piano on songs like Moonlight Sonata (though I'm a beginning pianist)

 

[Duckwater]

Honestly I agree with your teacher. I'm no virtuoso myself, but that piece isn't something I found enjoyable or interesting to listen to, and it didn't leave me with anything after it was over.

 

[Jazzdogg]

I'll try to be honest without being brutal. I had difficulty listening to your recording; for me, there was no "there" there.

Imagine you were trying to describe your "composition" to an educated/accomplished musician who had never heard your recording. What words would you use? How would you describe your song using standard musical terminology?

What kind of language might a music professor use to describe your "composition" to a class full of music students?
Meter signature
Rhythmic structure
Modality
Choral progression
Melody
Phrasing
Dynamics
etc.

Here's a corollary: I teach college woodworking. Imagine one of my students tells me he is interested in pursuing a degree in furniture design and asks me to take a look at one of his furniture designs and give him feedback. I taught him design. He knows what my expectations are and what the required portfolio content is. What he gives me is a pencil sketch, not drawn to scale, without a description of the materials to be used, dimensions, descriptions of the hardware or finishes, measured drawings, a bill of materials, etc. It's not a design; it's a pencil sketch.

If he calls it a design, hands me a pencil sketch, and asks me for a critique, my response might be similar to the one you received from your former mentor.

 

[JimmyM]

You definitely have skill at a crazy level, and considering the title of the song, I think what you wrote fits it. I doubt I'd have sent that to a college for an audition piece, but it sounds to me like you're entirely capable of writing something that's more than a platform for your techniques. I thought his letter was really harsh and assumes a lot about you that may or may not be true.

But if it means that much to you to get into their program (or any college program), write something with much more emphasis on melody and chord structure. That's what they want, so give it to them if it means that much to you to get in. But don't stop writing stuff like this piece, either. Sometimes music should be a little jarring and not follow the "rules." The marketplace will let you know if you're on the right track or not soon enough.

 

[oniman7]

I see. What exactly does it need to say and where does it need to go? Short answer: it doesn't need to "say" anything or "go" anywhere.
This is utter crap from a fool, best to ignore it.

This is why you probably don't want to go to college or into any other academic environment to study music. This kind of nonsense will absolutely stalk you the entire time you're there and drain your wallet dry. And you'll learn only nonsense like music having to "say something", but lord only knows what that is.

Anyway, this is just what you'll have to deal with if you go into music as an academic subject. So I'd suggest doing something else in school and continuing to do music on your own for your own enjoyment. That's what I do nowadays; I never set foot in a music department ever in my decade or so long collegiate career and, if I had it to do over again, I'd do the exact same thing.

The crafts of music are freely available anyway and you can learn as much or as little as you need to make music the way you want to.

Above all, stay away from idiots like this guy who wrote you that boorish, stupid email. That's not what music is all about...

LS

Or maybe that is what music's about to some people. OP doesn't have to let music be about that for him. But it's wise to consider the viewpoints of others even if you end up not acting on them.

 

[Einherjar]

Haven't listened. But I am a fine arts major (i paint) and what I've noticed with the instructors is most of them are bitter and feel like society doesn't recognize their knowledge. So sometimes they can be very harsh. However, accepting a critique is a very important part of a career/education in the arts. You need to be able to handle someone saying something you spent countless hours on sucks. And to think about it and how to keep the original feeling yet give something appreciable to your worst critics. It's very hard. Don't give up. Use the energy from his response as fuel to make it even better. The arts are all about channelling personal emotion into something relatable. (or just making something pretty. Mediocrity sells)

 

[Nasty Nate]

Stuart,

I was previously in the Classical Brass program at NYU, and am weighing my acceptances to Berklee, Peabody, and the New School for next fall for jazz bass. Here's my take.

1. I like your song, I think that it conveys both idea and emotion. The only thing I can say is lacking is the form. A B C is not a particularly strong form, you don't see it used often for a reason.

2. Your instructor was a d1ck, having taken private lessons for 12 years, and teaching myself as well, that is not appropriate, imo.

3. This recording would get you into many music departments. Probably any state school (with exceptions, such as UNT). Your technical skill is certainly not hindering you. Mcnally Smith or Berklee would probably love this. However, the top conservatories are looking for players who fit into one of two boxes: jazz or classical. So either start learning jazz standards, or Bach cello suites. It depends on your goals, really.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, I've done a lot of auditioning at various schools for various things. Don't be discouraged, you are a talented player!

 

[two fingers]

I'm just going to spitball a couple of things at you and you can take them for what they are worth.

The intro is nice.

The two minutes of hammer-ons after the intro are nothing short of annoying. If I were you I would try something in this section similar to the part at the end where the melody is sustained under the chords. Only in place of the hammer-on section you could play the melody ABOVE the chords to switch it up from the part at the end. I think that would sound more like a "song". Two minutes of hammer-ons just sounds like noodling. But flowing from the (again really nice) intro into chords plucked under a sustained melody would be nice. Yes, we were all fascinated with hammer-ons when we learned them too. From a playing standpoint they are fun and flashy. From a listener's standpoint they are good for a few seconds and then resemble fingernails on a chalkboard. Use them sparingly and tastefully. But nobody want to hear them soloed for more than a few seconds.

The little breakdown after the hammer-ons never really came together for me. It's a nice change of pace, but you need to develop some sort of melody line there as well. Plus there are quite a few technical mistakes in that part.

The section after the breakdown where the melody is sustained underneath the plucked chords is really, really nice. Rather than tacking on the extra few bars at the end that don't really add to the song, maybe you could figure out a way to "bow out" of the song at the end of the lower melody section.

It's just too long. You could cut out the breakdown (or shorten it) and cut out the last few bars that don't really add anything. Develop the breakdown a little bit with some sort of melody. Get rid of the hammer-ons section (or possibly use a couple of bars of that stuff just as a transition from the higher melody part mentioned earlier to the breakdown).

Critiquing means being critical. And that's what I just did. That being said, the piece has a lot of potential. Some parts sound really "mature" and some parts sound like noodling. But if you were to polish it up a bit I think it would be a really nice piece. It's a good rough draft.

You have two choices here. You can take what he said, and what I said, and get mad. You can leave here thinking "This is MY ART. How DARE you pick on MY ART." Or you can take our criticisms back to the drawing board and turn that rough draft into a really nice work of art.

Either way, you show a ton of potential and I wish you the best of luck with whatever road you choose.

 

[stuarthoskins]

First of all, I would like to thank all of you guys for taking your time to listen to the piece and also a special thanks to everyone who commented. I just joined this forum for the advice but I’m now staying for the community. Ill reply to you all and then at the end put together all I gathered from the criticism.

@Bethelbass1 John Adams, Philip glass, steve reich and minimalism in general is my favorite after neoclassical in terms of western art music (I can see your into some Stravinsky as well) so I really take that as a huge compliment. Maybe that explains why my teacher didn’t like it, as when we were studying minimalism he expressed his hatred over it and even preferred serialism…

Do you have any classical pieces that would be good solo repertoire? I used to be in orchestra(double bass) and I would just sight read tonics and dominants until I fell asleep..
I was also in jazz band and that was fun, I got to improv walking bass lines and cover some(I know clique) herbie hancock. But the thing is the IB HL requires a SOLO performance otherwise I would love to play with others as that’s how I usually practice.

@BORZI_4 Thanks! Your right about the choice of elements that music class touch upon are limited to the ones that not everyone might think are important.

@elgecko good ears, it was improvised to some degree.

@NCD I particularly liked your comment, I had the impression that value was added to the level of technicality. All your points really spoke to me as you can probably guess by just me being a bass player that im a big fan of wooten, seen him live all over the country, met him a couple times and read his book every couple months.
Your videos were great, Thanks.

Me and him couple years ago!^D
@unclejane Thanks for the support but hes actually a really nice guy whos really smart. I think that’s why I took it more seriously then I should have. I do want to study in that kind of environment because the demands that are required which I can include with my own learning as well, but learning from other musicians and seeing there perspectives will definitely round me out a lot better.

@Oniman7 Im pretty your referring to the harmonic minor scales 7th degree because other then that everything fits into basic tonality(not that harmonic minor scale isn’t basic). I understand people might not like it, but its one of my favorite intervals.
I showed this to a friend and he said the exact same thing about the drums!
Btw! I played this on a BTB mahogany bass!

@Duckwater, thanks for the constructive criticism dawg, pretty much you just resaid something that was the topic and stated your not a virtuoso. Your opinions appreciated but it doesn’t really serve much purpose to me so its not valued.

@Jazzdog It’s a rough draft and I would actually have fun explaining all those elements to people except modality would be short since I just utilize as mentioned previously the harmonic minor and its relative major (melodic minor flattened 6, aeolian major 7 or mohammedan and ionion).

@JimmyM Great advice on writing something that’s not a platform for techniques! Your advice was great, I want to learn everything, the rules, how to break them, how I want to break them, how I don’t. Everything! I don’t think im ready for the marketplace just yet though. Ill give them there close minded same **** music they’ve heard a million times if that’s what they want.


@Einherjar Makes sense, I wont give up bass because some trombone playing teacher I had for a year told me to..Hahaha probably wouldn’t quit for much but it certainly would not be because I wasn’t good enough, that’s motivation for me.

@Nasty Nate
Thanks man! although I don’t think berklee would think much of this hahaha Im sure they get better stuff then this all the time. I’m probably going to go to a state school. I will actually PM you , feel like you know whats up!

@two fingersLol thanks for the options bro, I don’t have that much of an ego for it. Im not posting this for validation(that would be kinda sad) haha its for knowledge.

Now, from what I gathered I should write an entirely new piece for a university portfolio. I should include compositional devices etc. but I think I might just do it with various instruments as you guys know from being bassists chords and harmony don’t always go well with this instrument.. For this piece itself I took your advice and im going to tone down the dynamics on the second section, make it shorter but keep it and maybe expand on the melodic sequence there so that 7# doesn’t sound too dissonant.(but im keeping it, sorry oniman7). The part following that will make a clearer use of harmonics used to form a consistent melody(this part was improvised) and the section after that’s staying. But ill structure the sections differently, I was thinking a rondo form, but I really like how the B section goes into the C section..Any advice on that?

 

[Bainbridge]

It's a harsh critique, for certain, but don't be put off. When I started my undergrad composition studies, I had to submit a portfolio. I thought my compositions were pretty good. When it came time for the interview, the adviser had a listen, thought for a moment, and plainly said "I don't like it." Ouch. I asked him what I could do about that, he gave me the contact information for some of his grad students for lessons. I took a few composition lessons and came back the next semester with a portfolio that got me accepted. A couple months ago, I listened to the pieces from my first portfolio with one of my friends. Oh, sweet Jesus, I'm embarrassed that I ever wrote that stuff.

What sort of program are you planning on entering? Classical comp? Media or commercial comp? Performance? Since you're writing, I assume you're going for composition of some sort. Your piece is better than what I submitted, but it's not the sort of thing that will get you in. What it lacks, as other have stated, is form (and, as your teacher indicated in somewhat uncertain terms, development). I can't tell you in one post how to make formally and motivically tight music, but I can certainly encapsulate some of the basic concepts.

When you write your music, you want to do two things: give the listener enough new material that they stay interested, and repeat enough that they aren't completely lost. The clearest form that does this is ABA. 'A' establishes the mood, 'B' departs from that mood, and the second 'A' gives a sense of return, something we specifically refer to as "recapitulation" when the return happens after a significant departure.

Here is a very short example of ABA:

The first system is A, the second system is B, and the third system is obviously the return of A.

Here is a larger ABA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQL3OWs_zNU

Claude Debussy - Pour le piano, mouvement 2, "Sarabande"

0:00 - A
1:46 - B
2:51 - A
4:28 - Coda (based on material from B)

Notice how the recapitulation of A has a different character than the original. It's more stately, more resolute, more noble, perhaps more pensive. That is what your teacher means when he speaks of music "going somewhere" - there is a philosophy in the music doing something, departing, then coming back with a new perspective. It's tough to write like that, and you don't learn about this kind of thing until you go to music school (or get private lessons from a composer). It's a bit of a Catch-22: you need to know form to go to school to learn about form.

Ignoring for the moment all of the motivic development going on in the Debussy example, let's have a look at a form that is perhaps more familiar to you.

The Police - Synchronicity II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8jsqJHVLk

0:00 - Introduction
0:41 - A - "Verse"
1:06 - Interlude - "Prechorus"
1:31 - B - "Chorus"
1:43 - A
2:06 - Interlude
2:30 - B
2:43 - C - "Bridge"
3:07 - A
3:30 - Interlude
3:57 - B
4:09 - Coda

Getting rid of all the fluff, this is the form: ABABCAB
"A" and "B" are always occurring next to each other, so let's break it up into smaller chunks.

[AB][AB][C][AB]

"AB" is our home. C is the departure this time. Then, we come back home to AB again. Nothing really significant changes between each repeat of A and B, so that C is helping to break up the monotony a bit.

This song has a similar form (notice where the differences occur, though) and changes on the repetition of the chorus -
Genesis - Seven Stones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubb__W5JMXA

If you could pull off a composition that has the sort of organization as any of the above examples, you'd be set. It would also behoove you to get some exposure to working with cells and motives. I'll spare you too lengthy a post, but this video is a decent introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x33NihQShyw

 

[stuarthoskins]

I study form, but as you can see im pretty bad at applying it.
Hahaha and to be honest im more familiar with debussy then the police or genesis.
The snow is dancing is one of the first legit pieces i learned on piano.
I learned a lot from your post though, mostly based on the twinkle twinkle little star i learned that my sections should be of repeating phrases and contrast(or develop) shortly after the phrase that builds up to a new section as opposed to contrasting sections..Correct me if im wrong. Also i learned that recapitulation doesnt only apply to sonata forms modulation to the dominant(hahha thinking back i think thats a pretty nooby mistake)

Thanks bunches man!
Wish there was a way i could give back to you guys!