Taking a lesson with a musical hero?

[cosmicevan]

Curious how many folks have taken lessons with a pro or musical hero and what you got from it?

I've got a private lesson with Billy Martin (illyB) from Medeski Martin & Wood next week. Couldn't be more excited as he is my #2 musical hero (#1 being Trey from Phish - yeah, my top musical heros are not bassists ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). I'm taking the lesson w a keyboardist friend who is a real obsessive fan so I'm hoping he doesn't dominate the multi-hour lesson.

Trying to stay focused on being fully open minded and all about listening going into it. We've been debating if we wanted to have some rehearsed grooves in our back pocket. At this point there is little time left before the event, but we are getting together a few times this week to get more comfy with each other.

If you've done one of these, was it worth it? Either way, I'm excited for the experience, but it is pricey.

 

[Drucifer]

I had a year or so of lessons with Mark White, the bass player for the Spin Doctors, he's a phenomenal bass player.

 

[cosmicevan]

I had a year or so of lessons with Mark White, the bass player for the Spin Doctors, he's a phenomenal bass player.

If you went for a full year, then it was obviously worth it? Do you feel you got anything special from him that you couldn't have gotten elsewhere?

 

[Spin Doctor]

I had a year or so of lessons with Mark White, the bass player for the Spin Doctors, he's a phenomenal bass player.

I used to really dig the Spin Doctors... Bet you can't tell...

 

[Drucifer]

If you went for a full year, then it was obviously worth it? Do you feel you got anything special from him that you couldn't have gotten elsewhere?

Each teacher has their strengths, and I did get a lot from lessons from Mark. I changed from a fixed to floating plucking hand and my right hand became much more efficient, and overall my speed increased. I'm not a slap guy but I learned a bunch about that. I stopped lessons with Mark when I moved out of state, and when I came back to [large metropolitan area in Texas] I wanted to be more jazz theory focused, so I'm now taking lessons with Andrew Pouska.

 

[Drucifer]

I had a year or so of lessons with Mark White, the bass player for the Spin Doctors, he's a phenomenal bass player.

Mark was on TB as BIGBOTTOMBASS but he may not be active anymore.

 

[GastonD]

I once had a lesson with Jeff Berlin and it was excellent. He gave me enough material to work for a long time, and I still work at it, as the matter of fact. I went for some of his instructional material afterwards, with new insights and understanding from that lesson.
If I remember correctly, somebody here on TB was supposed to start lessons with Doug Wimbish, I was really curious about how it would turn out, but the member kinda disappeared after that.

 

[cosmicevan]

Lesson is tomorrow. Really looking forward to a warm up jam and getting to play with my rhythm hero!

 

[IamGroot]

I had a semester of private jazz instruction recently with the great saxophonist Woody Witt. I got a very clear vision about what is important in music that i will be working on for a long time.
Woody doesnt play any bass, but he can hear a bass or chord line and dissect it immediately . He could also listen to my playing and offer a lot of valuable insight. He also had a few top notch drummers as students. Wished i had taken private lessons from him a decade ago.

 

[cosmicevan]

In the car now on my way home from the lesson. Ill write up more about the experience when I have digested the day. Needless to say the experience was WELL worth the time and money and my buddy and I are already talking about doing it again.

Having this opportunity to jam w a musical hero for hours and hang and talk music and creativity was priceless!!!