Jeff Berlin asks - What Is Taught Without Only Teaching the Facts!

[Whousedtoplay]

As one approaches this intellectual plateau, it becomes difficult to comprehend increasingly difficult concepts.

Let's say, a car mechanic (not a NASA engineer!) must always learn something new about the cars. You can have that "intellectual plateau" but even a "simple" car repair mechanic must always learn something new!
The cars are always changing.

 

[smtp4me]

I may get flamed for my response, especially from the self-taught crowd. I agree with Mr. Berlin.

My musical education began with formal piano lessons as a child. From there, I moved to saxophone and more formal training, including at school (eventually including college). I am actually a "self-taught" bass player, but the phrase means something different in my case - I already had music knowledge/background when I decided to play bass - I was only teaching myself where the notes are on the fingerboard and the mechanics of playing that instrument.

As Mr. Berlin mentions, music is another type of language or communication. If a person never studies language academically, they can of course still learn how to speak. When they study language formally, their vocabulary expands and they learn new words to express thoughts/ideas/feelings with better precision than if they did not study. Music is similar - you can play bass without a single lesson, and a music education will allow you to communicate more effectively. It also creates a common language where musicians can speak to and understand each other.

 

[brianrost]

Dedicated books of etudes like the piano or violin or other instrument should exist on bass too!

But if you want to play Jazz or classical, you have no books with full songs for the bass. Just books with chords or scales. This is very frustrating.

For classical musicians, there are plenty of etude books. I own a couple. The well-known Simandl method books have accompanying etude books. I also have some duet books which I bought when my daughter was playing cello, the books are for two students or the teacher and student playing together. You can work through any of these books on bass guitar.

While not etudes, there's plenty of sight reading material out there for various non-classical bass styles.

For jazz, that's what fake books were created for There's plenty of them out there...Real Books, Omnibooks, etc. Open them up, start reading. There are a number of books with transcriptions of both walking lines and solos from recordings by famous bassists like Ron Carter and Paul Chambers...I know of one book devoted to Paul Chambers bowed solos!

Carol Kaye's Electric Bass Lines Volume 4 is full transcriptions of songs she recorded including "Good Vibrations" and Joe Cocker's version of "Feeling Alright". There are some full transcriptions in a few of the other volumes as well.

There are R&B books like "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", "What Duck Done", etc. which have full transcriptions.

I even have a book on playing bluegrass bass that included a full transcription of a solo on "Grandfather's Clock" (which uses harmonics in the melody).

 

[Matthijs]

Try to associate practicing how to read and write with practicing music. Everyone learned how to read and write mostly the same way using the same rules. And still, everyone here can write emotional and expressive posts, often with obvious individual styles of writing. Think on this because your answer lies there.

I'm a self tought hack on bass, but I do know a thing or two on learning and teaching. What you're claiming about everyone learning reading and writing in the same way is simply not true. We all learn in very different ways. Even if the teaching systems would be uniform (but they are not, there are lot's of differences between schoolsystems and countries), the way we make use of that system differs vastly. Some children hardly use the system and learn by watching and imitating their surroundings, some really need pre-detemined excercises. Even if they are sitting in the same classroom. That's not nescessarily a distinction in talent or intelligence, it is mainly a learning strategy, which in itself does not predict the final level skill. The best working teaching systems are able to cater to those individual strategies. A lot of schools, including music schools, are limited in that ability. They still work because of the skill of individual teachers to adapt to the indiviual and because people hardly ever stop learning, even if you're not helping them.

You are right in that learning music is not fundamentaly different from learning anything else. What that tells us is: there is no single teaching method that will be the best method for everyone. A good teacher will have more than one tool in his toolbox. Some of us (like me) prefer to find our teachers on the stage or work environment besides us, some do best when they teach themselves from books or the internet, some need a teacher they can relate to, some need a strong hand and rigid training schedule. Some might need a metronome from time to time, some don't . All of us need to get thrown out of our comfort zone from time to time.

 

[brianrost]

You then go to Berklee to study bass. Although I'm not sure why because no-one can teach it according to you.

Berklee has required classes in harmony (you can download scans of the workbooks online). Like any college, they offer a wide curriculum that covers subjects like composition, arranging, recording technology, music history, music education (yes some people go to college to become music teachers) and more. Students don't just sit in classes and blow bebop all day long.

 

[Quinn Roberts]

What is the best way to go about getting the theory ingrained in the mind and body as you describe. I have studied some theory but I am sure not enough. Other than more classroom study and trying to understand theory while playing a tune or just listening and following the chart, how do I get to the “ingrained “ and ready to use without the great deal of mental processing part. I feel like I understand parts and pieces but the “ingraining” that I so desire is not there yet. Can you point me to a learning path?

Get the Bb real book and start looking for the correlations in structure, melodies, and progressions in the songs!

 

[J_Bass]

For classical musicians, there are plenty of etude books. I own a couple. The well-known Simandl method books have accompanying etude books. I also have some duet books which I bought when my daughter was playing cello, the books are for two students or the teacher and student playing together. You can work through any of these books on bass guitar.

While not etudes, there's plenty of sight reading material out there for various non-classical bass styles.

For jazz, that's what fake books were created for There's plenty of them out there...Real Books, Omnibooks, etc. Open them up, start reading. There are a number of books with transcriptions of both walking lines and solos from recordings by famous bassists like Ron Carter and Paul Chambers...I know of one book devoted to Paul Chambers bowed solos!

Carol Kaye's Electric Bass Lines Volume 4 is full transcriptions of songs she recorded including "Good Vibrations" and Joe Cocker's version of "Feeling Alright". There are some full transcriptions in a few of the other volumes as well.

There are R&B books like "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", "What Duck Done", etc. which have full transcriptions.

I even have a book on playing bluegrass bass that included a full transcription of a solo on "Grandfather's Clock" (which uses harmonics in the melody).

Wow, thank you for all the examples! I am surely going to look at your examples, very helpful, thanks again!

 

[Lownotes75]

This site is so much richer for having you back Jeff - I agree with you but enjoy the sensible debate from all points of view!

 

[Quinn Roberts]

Funny how this perfect rebuttal is conveniently ignored.

I kinda responded, but didn't quote him as I was more generalizing to the thread itself.

 

[brianrost]

Get the Bb real book and start looking for the correlations in structure, melodies, and progressions in the songs!

I suggest you get the one in C

The Bb and Eb versions are for horn players.

 

[jchrisk1]

Is this a continuation of the other thread JB started? I only ask because, it appears as though only a few people have actually answered the thread topic question. Instead, we continue to argue, because to be honest, it's hurtful to find out we've been doing things wrong. So, we go into self defense mode. Trying to justify that slightly bending at the knees, leaning back as far as we can, bass pointed to the sky while sliding a note down the neck, is music education. It's not. Neither is grooving or locking in with a drummer. You want to learn how to do that? Take music lessons and learn how to count and subdivide rhythms. Then, you can groove to anything. Or, as most of us call it, doing our jobs.

 

[Gerben]

1. Learning is different than Playing!

2. There are only two ways to learn; a. being self taught and all that goes with it, and b. learning musical content based in harmony, melody, and rhythm.

1: Totally agree. Sometimes a lesson goes by even without playing more than, lets say, 20 notes. Or so.
2: Isn't there a third option? I, for instance, played for around 40 years in a band, taught myself playing bass. Two years ago I decided that I knew too little, and took lessons. And I really, really regret the fact that I didn't do that forty years ago.
So, option three: hybrid? Being self taught and taking lessons? ;-)

 

[Andy Daventry]

Jeff Berlin says:

I feel that since practically everything is taught and learned out of time, bass would best be learned this way as well if one decided to seek out a teacher or a school (this explains why I dislike metronomes; they don't give you a chance to think about what you are learning.

I feel that being taught the bass is best done as a narrow and specific academic experience. I feel that nearly all other learning suggestions, while sounding nice, haven't produced positive results for most bass players. I feel that any lesson or lecture that mentions Groove, Feel, Communication, Spirit, Heart, Locking with drummers, Playing to the Audience, "Whatever you play is OK," or "You can learn from everything" are examples where you are being taught things that don't require paying a teacher to learn. These are not the most important aspects in how you should be taught.

Whatever his credentials as a bass player and an inspiring teacher - and I would not presume to comment on that - what he has written above is quite simply wrong.

First, it assumes that teaching and learning are identical, with the teacher holding one end of the stick and the learner the other. It assume that what the learner has to learn and what the teacher has to teach are the same thing. Knowledge passed from the teacher to the student and assimilated whole.

Second, if you think about it, it means that practice is redundant. Or, at the very least, that the teacher has no part in the student's practice. The teacher's job is to tell the student what to do, and the student first understands and then goes off and does it. Does the teacher have no role in monitoring, and constructively criticising the student's performance?

The starting point in any teaching is where the student is, not the next unit in the book. If the next lesson does not address what the student needs, then there is little point in doing it. A good teacher's primary responsibility is to audit the state of a student's knowledge and ability and help the student understand what getting better means, and what the next step is. You can not divorce performance from this process.

There are teachers who say "This is the way to do it, and if you don't understand, then you have to work harder or accept you don't have it in you to master this discipline properly". These teachers are focused on what is to be learned, and not on how the student learns. I do not believe that anyone can be a teacher of anything if they don't accept that teaching - ALL teaching - involves listening to your student, understanding them and giving them feedback.

Or is it (and I think this IS the case!) that Jeff Berlin is conflating two separate issues. The idea that "anything goes" is of course nonsense, and he's right to say so. You can't learn from everything. Of course not. You need to know the theory of what you're doing, because if you don't, you'll never understand a discipline to a sufficient degree to be able to do what you want to do in it. More than that, you'll never realise how much there is in the world and how much you actually can achieve. You must learn the theory from the word go. Yes, yes, yes. You don't learn anything from playing the same bassline 2000 times and doing nothing else (sorry Ramones fans!).

And it's also the case that you can't formulate, present and inculcate rules for "heart", "spirit" and "groove".

But that doesn't mean that these issues are outside a teacher's remit. You can listen to your students and tell them that you think they lack heart, spirit and groove. You can draw their attention to it, make them look in the right direction and give them tips. You can open their eyes and help them see. The student's performance is their product, and helping them develop it is the teacher's responsibility.

 

[Quinn Roberts]

I redacted your quote above; then numbered the content that I have responded to.

1. I do accept you are trying to inspire people. But you can only inspire people to a level of knowledge that is limited by their intellect, the quality of their memory, and their motivation. As one approaches this intellectual plateau, it becomes difficult to comprehend increasingly difficult concepts. Many people are not capable of approaching your level of knowledge mastery. You need to accept that you have exceptional talent in some areas of intellect that are beyond what most people are capable of, and factor that into the way you try to motivate others. It's not one size fits all. Everyone has different abilities and experiences, and you have to remain humble and tie into individual needs if you want to inspire.

Have you studied any of the motivation theories? If you truly want to inspire people that might be a good subject to delve into.

2. Basically I agree that goals do not change the nature of what can be learned. But goals do matter because people can't learn and retain music theory in its entirety in an instant. You can't look at theory from a macro level because we can only learn a bit at a time, and memory is finite and ephemeral. As result, we have to prioritize which new material to learn and continually review concepts we have previously mastered. We use goals to determine what to study and when. Additionally theory is often foundational, meaning we build more complex ideas off of basic ideas. Therefore goals are used to determine an appropriate order of study and review.

3. I learned to read using phonics and many people today use a system called whole language. Over my lifetime many words have come and gone from common usage, and punctuation rules, which vary by style guide, have changed significantly.

I do see some parallels here to learning music theory. Like the written and spoken language, theory is infinitely complex, changing, and taught with a variety of methods. The minimum one should hope for is to develop a solid foundation that allows one to cover a wide range of popular styles. Luckily many styles share common rules, but when we are presented with an unfamiliar style, we may need to learn new rules or exceptions to rules. People with a love of theory may continually rebuild and expand their knowledge of theory for the duration of their life, but how is theory applied to performance?

Much of what we do while performing is intuitive and instinctual rather than academic. Much like we don't think about grammar or spelling rules when speaking or writing, we don't play music based upon our direct intellectual knowledge of theory. Rather, we simply play what sounds right based upon our role in the context of what we hear, where we are in the musical form, and where the form is heading. So, in essence the role of technique is to translate the symbols we use to visualize and communicate theory into the notes we form with our instruments.

For a thought experiment, think about how difficult it is to apply theory to an instrument you have not learned. How do you approach this situation differently from performing on an instrument you have mastered.

Personally I feel a lot of what is being stated needs to be taken with a grain of sand here. On top of that, and I don't want to sound rude or disrespectful, but this concept that Mr. Berlin is some sort of God that posses knowledge that is far beyond anyone's mortal reasoning here is just simply ASININE! If one doesn't understand what he is stating, maybe that's a good sign they should be learning more music theory. Mr. Berlin, if anything, is just the example of someone who has succeeded in the learning of music and is trying to spread his knowledge. Whether or not anyone agrees with him isn't necessarily important, it's the fact that he IS taking the time out of his day, and that he is indeed in some ways "stooping to our levels" to teach us. Because he chooses to and is willing to. Not once have I heard him state that it's his way or the highway when learning. He even states that whether or not one decides to use this information he's bestowed upon us is completely up to them. I've been seeing a high use of definitive statements in these threads, when talks of education should solely be discussed through shared opinions (IMHO). Take what you like, leave the rest.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

How would you explain how we all learned from common sources and yet ended up as individuals in our writing abilities?

I very much like what I think is the thought behind this analogy.
I like it because I feel the world is flooded with "music" that is industrialized - outnumbering music made for other purposes than fast and riskless financial profit.
Yet, there are musicians with other primary objectives.
Hence, before discussing about music or even learning music, why not first agree on what kind of music the discussion shall be about - in order to not talk at cross-purposes?

A dependent musician has different needs and things to learn than an independent musician.
Even among street musicians there are different aims and thusly needs; one aims to attract attention with his technical skills - another one might want to reach the hearts of (some) listeners with a melody.

Spoiler: Two examples

based on my own experience - without any good or bad connotation:

A (dependently employed) pop musician hardly can afford to take risks and needs to stick to well-established patterns or schemes; he depends on thoroughly learning theory, namely: why existing music was successful and what rules could be derived from that music in order to make new music which would at least "work;" meaning: music that would not dare but please people - attracting attention for "music" that actually might be nothing new. So, the focus isn't on creativity but on a successful exploitation of what has worked, in the past. And theory would be the tool of choice whether one wants or not. Similar to a safety engineer who needs to stick to old but proven-in-use technologies, and cannot afford risking peoples lives just for the sake of his selfish need for creativity. There may be creativity - but within safe boundaries. Until he becomes more independent and can afford taking more risks - the musician, not the engineer

Whereas an independent musician can focus on what works for himself; listening rather to his heart than to a lector, a book or a teacher. Life can be his teacher. His primary objective might not be making money but his inner urge to voice his feelings and impressions with music. He can afford to scare people. Theory can be one of his tools - yet, the tool for him would be his heart and soul. Until he needs money

Theory aside, me thinks that either musician has specific needs, and thus might need different approaches. And to add another point: There's more possibilities out there than teacher, book, school, and youtube - there are people, bands, events that can teach as well; things that neither teacher nor book might teach.

That is what I think to read between @JeffBerlin 's lines, I may be wrong, though

 

[Matthijs]

1: Totally agree. Sometimes a lesson goes by even without playing more than, lets say, 20 notes. Or so.
2: Isn't there a third option? I, for instance, played for around 40 years in a band, taught myself playing bass. Two years ago I decided that I knew too little, and took lessons. And I really, really regret the fact that I didn't do that forty years ago.
So, option three: hybrid? Being self taught and taking lessons? ;-)

And a fourth and fifth and ...

And you can mix them all up.

 

[Quinn Roberts]

P.S. I still don't understand what my dear TB colleagues are emotionally-discussing about.

I still don't understand why many TB members are so adamant to argue with one of the greatest Bass players in the world.
(Is it some kind of form of ...?).

I don't like Death Metal music but I would not go to the Musical Metallurgy forum and start arguing with its members.
But so many TB members are doing the same while engaging in "heated" quarrels with one of the Great Bass Guitar player in the world.


Instead of getting so much knowledge from Jeff Berlin about SOOOOO many things, we are just engaging in some "strange" debates that teaches us NOTHING.
What is this argument about?

You want to learn on your own - LEARN OWN YOUR OWN!
You don't want to to hire a teacher - DON'T HIRE A TEACHER!
You want to subscribe to Scott's youtube channel - Pay the money and subscribe!
And so on...

I am a big supporter of learning Music - Music Theory, Solfeggio, Harmony, Composition, Arrangement, Musical Analysis, etc...
I would highly recommend for any bass player to learn the piano.
I'm a big supporter of learning from Classical Music compositions/pieces.

Thank you!

 

[Quinn Roberts]

I suggest you get the one in C

The Bb and Eb versions are for horn players.

C is treble cleff though? Were musicians here not bass players remember!! Lol

Edit: Will leave this for others to laugh at me. Meant to say Bass Real Book!

Edit of edit: I still think Eb real book would work just fine after second-second guessing myself. Just think of that treble cleff as a bass cleff.

 

[baileyboy]

I took 4 and a 1/2 years of lessons from a bass pro... he was quite cerebral and liked to discuss theory and such. I learn best by application. Other than learning good technique, which is what the first 6 months of lessons gave me, the rest was mostly useless to me.

 

[bass12]

C is treble cleff though? Were musicians here not bass players remember!! Lol

No, bass is a "C" instrument. When you see a "C" written in bass clef it is a "C" that will sound when you play the corresponding note on your bass (an octave lower, mind you). That won't be the case if you read from a Bb book while playing bass.