Well, it is you against musical incapability. Welcome to my world! All I can say is, do your best! I know that you are!
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Jeff Berlin discussing music education part 3
- Thread starter john turner
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Well, it is you against musical incapability. Welcome to my world! All I can say is, do your best! I know that you are!
Jeff - if only you knew how good the Indian food is here in my town. In fact I'll have some for you tonight!
Seriously, any plans for a school here? I'm guessing the answer is no but a lad can wish, can't he?
The offer of a place to stay is genuine if that persuades you at all!!!??? And as for the wiki - do it!
Seriously, any plans for a school here? I'm guessing the answer is no but a lad can wish, can't he?
The offer of a place to stay is genuine if that persuades you at all!!!??? And as for the wiki - do it!
It isn't a failure on your part! They just don't want to work to learn music even at a 6th grade level of effort. Not that it matters, but when I was 11 years old, I was already playing the Mendelsohn Violin Concerto. Kids in Japan are advanced in music via the Suzuki method. The Venezuelan Youth Orchestra is one of the most revered young people's symphony orchestras in the world and the orchestra memebers are all ghetto kids with a musical dream.
Give these young musicians what they need, not what they want. If they won't take what you have to offer, then tell them that you are no longer their teacher. The word will get out that there is a serious guy teaching around town and soon, only the serious students will be knocking on your door.
Thanks! The good students take care of themselves. I try to get a feel if the student needs to wait 6th grade is old enough though, needs motivation, though no phoney "you sound great!" when it's not, or a kick in the proverbial butt.
It is also OK for a student to decide music is not for them. If it's not, we have not failed, nor the student, if everyone tried
a life's lesson was learned. It's getting a handle on laziness that's tough, if the student hates playing though, they should give it up.
Probably all of us here loved the sound of the instruments we play, the feel of it in our hands etc,for some it's not that way.
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Yep. I've been competing for 20 years, playing bass for 30. Email me if you're interested. I'm doing a contest in Arkansas two days before your classes start. I'll just keep going down to Clearwater after the contest if you like the idea.
hevbrewer at mokancomm.net
Squirtle
Your idea intrigues me. I would love to do this, but I don't have a smoker. I was thinking to get one toward the summer, but right now, I'm not home much, I tour a lot, and I haven't gone out to buy me a smoker yet.
What name do you cook under. I've seen all kinds of plays on words with "pig" and "oink" somewhere in the title. Curious to know yours.
A buddy and I (both good eaters) used to work together and when my brother saw us walking down the hall together he would shout, "Here comes the Pork Patrol".
So we've been cooking at the American Royal BBQ under that name for 20 years. I'm sitting here finishing up a brisket sandwich and trying to transcribe Ray Brown playing a french song called "Au Privave". Sounds like something they pour over snails maybe. There's four chords at the end of each verse, I think you guys call it a "turnaround". It's Eb C7b9 F-7 Bb7. I've wrote down the notes Ray played over these four chords for all nine verses. I'm just learning this stuff but I think it's
I VI ii V. The cool part is he didn't repeat the same notes, each line is different. After reading the good info here on this forum I've been doing a few hours reading, a few hours with modes and chord structure and a few hours of playing songs each day. Now I'm adding transcribing since I can read a little bit ( I'm retired so I've got plenty of time) Anything else I need to cover for this beginner?
So we've been cooking at the American Royal BBQ under that name for 20 years. I'm sitting here finishing up a brisket sandwich and trying to transcribe Ray Brown playing a french song called "Au Privave". Sounds like something they pour over snails maybe. There's four chords at the end of each verse, I think you guys call it a "turnaround". It's Eb C7b9 F-7 Bb7. I've wrote down the notes Ray played over these four chords for all nine verses. I'm just learning this stuff but I think it's
I VI ii V. The cool part is he didn't repeat the same notes, each line is different. After reading the good info here on this forum I've been doing a few hours reading, a few hours with modes and chord structure and a few hours of playing songs each day. Now I'm adding transcribing since I can read a little bit ( I'm retired so I've got plenty of time) Anything else I need to cover for this beginner?
- Apr 1, 2000
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- Endorsing Artist: Roscoe Guitars, DR Strings, Aguilar Amplification
Great job - it's even more important to understand how those chords are functioning. That C7b9 is actually functioning as a V of ii, which is why it's not minor. If it were a strictly diatonic progression, it would be a Cmin7. By borrowing from F harmonic minor, the pull to the ii chord is stronger.
- Apr 1, 2000
- 17,410
- 9,869
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Roscoe Guitars, DR Strings, Aguilar Amplification
Well, my Japanese isn't very good. I might have said something about your mother without meaning to....
The beauty of understanding it is now you'll be able to imply that very same thing when you want to - the power of the bass!
Well there's something new to me there. I always knew that V of a minor had a slightly spanish flavour e.g the typical sequence of Fm Eb Db C and I always liked the sound of including the b9 when improvising but it never occured to me that it was a b9 chord. Thanks for that.
Walking bass lines are fantastic bits of academics to work on because they start, then resolve, and if the lines are actually good walking lines, they represent the chord of the moment at the same time.
But, be careful with the sources that you regard walking lines by. Many written lines are simply badly written. Even transcribing lines sometimes, especially from the bass players from the 1960's on up, can occasionally be strangely organized walking lines, because people in the 60's were experiementing with tonanity.
- Dec 13, 1999
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- Chuck Sher publishes my book, WALKING BASSICS:The Fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing.
Jeff - I think you unknowingly made your own point! Berklee's on-line courses are all $1,000+ 12 week courses full of the exact curiculum you advise we stay away from. They have a Rock Bass course analyzing Rush lines, a Slap Bass course, a Bass Performance course with lessons on working with a metronome and analyzing Jimi Hendrix lines.
Now, the other poster was refering to their theory courses so I may have dragged off topic a bit and in fairness to Berklee I haven't taken any of their courses so they may be fine, but on paper many of their courses don't look to be of "the right stuff".
See how hard it is for us guys trying to improve when a legendary school like Berklee doesn't seen to offer the right stuff and most of the avenues we look to for help are on the other bandwagon. Tough stuff brother Jeff!!! Keep preachin' it!!!
I never meant for the Berklee links to be definitive. They were just the best example I could find on the net, from a presumed credible source to ask Jeff a question without typing a book. I thought if Jeff approved the content of the lists or offered an alternative view it may help some guys here on TB with some of the questions regarding what & when from whom. Hence preventing young bass players from getting sucked into “Learn scales with a metronome, be clueless as to why, then slap, tap and pop-em because this is how Victor Wooten did it and you got it kid. That's $50 bucks, thank you. See ya next week. Method” that most think is the right way.
I'm quite sure tonality was the byproduct of what they were really experimenting with. LOL!
Rick - I think you did great and wasn't trying to be offensive in the least with my reply. I just thought it was a good example of how we, as eager hungry bassist on a quest for the good stuff, have quite a hard time actually finding the elusive good stuff, since many of the major sources we look to are catering to what the masses want ($$$) other than maybe what they need.
I've mentioned Jeff's Chord Tone System book several times here. Truth be known, Jeff probably shouldn't re-publish it. Now, I think it's a great book - I have one of the original copies, but it probably wouldn't sell worth a hoot, because the market for it would probably be about the size of the people on this forum topic. Maybe the good stuff is hard to find because the sect looking for the good stuff is so small that there isn't a lot of $$$$ for the marketing companies to provide it??? Thoughts??
All the best guys!
None taken I was just clarifying to all.
Regarding $$$$: I feel lucky that at the beginning of my music education it didn't cost me anything. For me back in the early 80's, in 5th thru 8th grade, before I ever chose to pick up an instrument, I was taught music theory in a slow, methodical, chronological order. The summer before 9th grade I chose to play bass. At this point I still had two more years of music class, twice a week . I also had three study halls a week for the next four years. I was allowed to take my bass to school for the study halls and spend that time in either the music class or band room with a teacher or with the instructors. My last two years of school music was an elective. I chose Jazz Band which came with even more instruction time.
With this said, in hind sight I realize, I didn't have to suffer through the pit falls of being self taught with the flavor of the month bass & guitar rags or that of private music education conducted as a business. I didn't need a list of what to learn & when, nor did I have to find a credible instructor. It was given to me. Over the years since then, as public schools jettison music programs, my question became where do these beginners start and how do they know if they are getting taught “ GOOD STUFF” and in a proper order or not.
You're lucky, particularly with the time you were in school, that was the beginning of cutbacks wasn't it? We had some really basic stuff in school twice a week in the late 60's and 70's but that stuff stuck!. Since my private lessons were written, I'd work out one chord and transpose the rest as I had breaks in my day, bus stops etc, then get home and do those on guitar.
The shame nowadays is that every minute has a TV, there are TV's in the back seats of cars, and lots of other distractions, these used to be minutes one could take time to do something. If something takes an hour to write out, just a few 5 or ten minute breaks where you wouldn't be doing anything anyway gets the job done. The trick is to always have your manuscript paper and a pencil with you.
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