Interesting Practice Method

[Papuzzo]

Due to the coronavirus I am stuck at home with little to do other than play bass all day long. So, I am using this time to practice scales, arpeggios, sequences, rhythm exercises, etc., etc.

And I am learning The Chicken by Pastorius note for note from the Hal Leonard book The Essential Jaco Pastorius. What I am realizing is that just learning a relatively simple Jaco song encompasses all the practice routine I have been doing. I bet that if someone starts at the beginning of the book and works through it one measure at a time starting at a low bpm and then working up the speed and including more and more measures by the end of the book they will be an incredible bassist. And if they take the time to learn how the notes relate to the chords of the song and the rhythm they will also have a healthy command of theory as well.

Opinions?

 

[Old P Bass Guy]

Due to the coronavirus I am stuck at home with little to do other than play bass all day long. So, I am using this time to practice scales, arpeggios, sequences, rhythm exercises, etc., etc.

And I am learning The Chicken by Pastorius note for note from the Hal Leonard book The Essential Jaco Pastorius. What I am realizing is that just learning a relatively simple Jaco song encompasses all the practice routine I have been doing. I bet that if someone starts at the beginning of the book and works through it one measure at a time starting at a low bpm and then working up the speed and including more and more measures by the end of the book they will be an incredible bassist. And if they take the time to learn how the notes relate to the chords of the song and the rhythm they will also have a healthy command of theory as well.

Opinions?

That would be a big undertaking. Since I read notation at about 20 bpm I would be a life long endeavor.

 

[Papuzzo]

My approach to just about everything complicated can be summed up in this riddle:
Q: How do you eat an entire elephant?
A: One mouthful at a time.

Anyway, I was just noticing that in this song there is just about every combination of rhythm combined with a wide variety of note sequences. Even studying just one measure could be really useful as an exercise. Just getting the timing down on some of these passages is a challenge sometimes.

 

[SteveCS]

My approach to just about everything complicated can be summed up in this riddle:
Q: How do you eat an entire elephant?
A: One mouthful at a time.

Anyway, I was just noticing that in this song there is just about every combination of rhythm combined with a wide variety of note sequences. Even studying just one measure could be really useful as an exercise. Just getting the timing down on some of these passages is a challenge sometimes.

The riddle is good, except, with the elephant, once it's gone it's gone. With music you have to put the elephant back together at the end, all in one go!

But you are right about technical exercises. They are not always intended to be be used in full all of the time. Often a few measures from a few places can be extracted, used for a specific purpose then possible never played again.

 

[thabassmon]

I think you may get good at playing Jaco lines by going through the book.

Would that make someone an incredible bassist, going by the many Jaco clones that I've heard over the years I think not.

The more important part is the other thing you mentioned, relating the notes to the chords.

One particular Jaco clone who entered university study already capable of playing a lot of Jaco lines, was very capable technically but struggled musically when playing bebop especially effectively improvising. It wasn't until he focused on the study of music and the analysis of compositions, transcription and analysis of solos and arrangements did his musicianship actually improve. He is now a very capable player, studying Jaco enabled him to develop technical abilities and the 16th note feel, but the study of music made him a good player.

 

[joeeg33]

Also spend a lot, a lot of time learning tunes by ear. After all, it is a hearing art. I’m am very happy that I used to spend 6 to 10 hours a day, when I was starting out in 1980! With a radio Schack cassette player learning songs, melodies etc...

 

[BassChuck]

Good goal. As you said, learning how the notes relate to the harmony is a good thing.
Here's some other goals that you might consider to take you to the same place, but a different road.
Relate the melody notes to the harmony of "Tea For Two" or "Stella By Starlight". There's a world of information in those two songs.
Then, try some music that was not written for EB, or even DB.
"The Swan" by Saint-Saens, or


"Dance of the Blessed Spirits" by Gluck.


You don't have to sound like a 'Cello or a Flute, just sound like an EB playing some music.

 

[BrotherMister]

The same would be applied of any decent book, if you actually spent the time with it and methodically worked from cover to cover you would be better than when you started. But no one does that do they? I'm sure we all have music books that have never gotten past page 10 or something. Sadly!

With the Jaco thing it's one thing to learn the transcriptions note for note, if you work it out slowly and get it together you'll improve somewhat. What I would then do is distill the entire thing down to it's basic components, then play along exploring that concept. One of the things I love about The Latin Bass Book is that each piece you are given the basic rhythms at the start or end and encouraged to explore yourself using those concepts.

So absolutely do what you are doing, you'll get better. You'll get so much more out of it if you use that as the jumping off point to dig much deeper into it.

 

[Papuzzo]

I hope you all aren't reading into this too much, I just find that practicing scales, modes, arpeggios, pattern sequences after a certain point has diminishing returns, and sometimes isn't very musical, and if they aren't done with varying rhythms then I only get better at performing straight 8ths or 16th notes. But learning the songs in this book and taking a bar or two, or four, or even a whole section from each song at a time seems to be a better practice method for me since there are pretty much all possible rhythms and note combinations in a musical way. I worked through the song this way and at the end was able to join everything.

Of course this can be accomplished with many other books and is certainly not limited to Pastorius, but his stuff is pretty rich and complicated versus say learning ACDC songs. Studying jazz, fusion or even classical music could achieve the same. But, I had this book lying around. Also, just to be clear, I am not advocating anything, just offering a possible alternative to the more typical mundane practice routines.

I just finished working through The Chicken, which is one of his easier pieces, and already I have learned a lot. And playing it at 110bpm is not easy at all and requires excellent technique for some of the difficult passages. Anyway, His phrasing and ability to groove is definitely on another level. Now I understand why he is considered one of the greatest.