A Practice Routine That Seems to Work

In the past month I have finally hit on a practice routine that works for me.  (I play bass and my chosen genre is jazz and jazz standards.)

I study each song in our set list by reference to the chords on the sheet music.  I go through the chords, experimenting on the best way to play major 7ths, minor 7ths, dominant 7ths, and minor 7ths flat 5s.  At band practice on Sunday I figured out how to play a 6 chord, like C6.  It has a unique and pleasant sound.

Each chord in a song doesn't stand alone and can't be taken separately -- the chord that follows is also very important.  You want to move from one chord to the next in a smooth, melodic transition -- this is called the bass line.  A walking bass line is a smooth transition from one chord (or arpeggio) to the next.

Before this approach can be effective, you need to know a bit of music theory.  You need to know scale tones, chord tones and intervals.  You need to know your finger board thoroughly. But how do you get this knowledge?

Most bass courses emphasize practicing scales and arpeggios, and this practice is important; but a little of it goes a long way.  Too much of it is boring and may even be discouraging.  I find that learning the elements of music is best achieved when the elements are being applied in a practical way:  you want to play a certain jazz standard.  So you play that standard over and over, trying different ways to play the arpeggios, different places on the neck where you can access the notes in the chord.  In the process of learning the song, you are also learning your instrument and training your ear.

How do you become a jazz musician?  One professional jazz man said you do it by learning tunes.

Jamming With Jazz Musicians (Audios)

After two years of practice with my adult education band, I realized that I was not progressing as fast or as well as I would like.  My band leader told me I needed to jam with other musicians to fill out my scope of learning.  I searched Craig's List for other jazz musicians for this purpose.  I saw a few ads looking for jazz bassists, but did not feel ready to put my self out there.  Another year went by and now I do feel I have the chops to start playing in jazz jams.  Sooner or later you need to climb out of your comfort zone rut and take some chances.

A couple of weeks ago I jammed with four other musicians who aspire to play jazz.  None of us are experts, but we all want to play jazz.  So we met in the the keyboardist's garage and went at it.  The results were encouraging.  The songs recorded below are the first time we had ever played together and we are essentially playing cold.  Have a listen.

Have a listen:

Autumn Leaves

Black Orpheus

Bag's Groove

Cats Swing Band, Full Recital, 11/13/2015

We had a recital for our jazz/swing band last night.  You can listen to the entire recital at the link below.

My bass playing, IMHO, has improved greatly since I joined this band.  I have turned a corner.  I am not where I want to be just yet, but I am happy with my progress.

If you want to be a successful bass player:

• Learn music theory
• Learn bass techniques
• Learn SONGS.  The more songs you learn, the easier it is to learn new ones.  

Here's the link:

http://yourlisten.com/Stogiebass/catsrecital11132015

Learning Double Bass: Attack On All Fronts!

Lately I am obsessed with learning to play jazz on a double bass (also called string bass, stand-up bass or acoustic bass).  I give not a scatological expression for anything else.  I get on these kicks, where I want to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can.  So I listen to jazz music, paying particular attention to the bass, I read articles on how to play jazz bass, I play exercises, I read musical scores, and I play along to backing tracks.  Lately I have even used a free musical notation program to write my own bass lines from the chord sequence of a song, e.g. "Blue Monk."

Today I finally understand what a 1-6-2-5 chord progression is.  There are many different chord progressions, all described by equally strange numeric references.  The 1-6-2-5 is used in "rhythm changes" jazz tunes, such as "I Got Rhythm."

In other words, when it comes to double bass, I am attacking on all fronts simultaneously.

Ultimately, after digesting a ton of music theory, you have to actually sound good.  So lately I have emphasized playing to backing tracks or the recordings of actual songs.  I don't want to just ad lib, I want to play the chord sequences in clever but accurate ways.  Sounding great on bass is the one overriding goal.  All the rest of it, i.e. the theory, just supports that goal.

I am in my second semester of Beginning Big Band class.  The band leader is a gigging jazz trombonist who really knows jazz and swing, and he is leaning on me to improve (he seems to like me, though).  He is always telling the brass section to "Listen to the bass!  Listen to the bass!"  The bass lays down the rhythm and chord changes that keeps the rest of the band on track.  If I screw up, the whole band can get lost, especially the soloists.  That's a lot of pressure on me not to screw up (i.e. losing my place in the song's bar sequence).

I have learned so much since beginning this class, but there is so much more to learn.