Columns - Page 48

Of all the great moments in bass history, one of my favorites is the short and sweet solo on the Paul Simon tune, “You Can Call Me Al.” If you’re unfamiliar with this musical snippet (or the entirety of the Graceland record), it’s high time to give it a listen. With a career as diverse as his musical heritage, Bakithi...

Q: I’ve been playing electric bass for about five years, and I’m currently attending the third year in a Music Conservatory. When I play music while other musicians observe me (not the members of the band), I become quite uncomfortable. I feel judged, and my heart starts pounding, especially if it’s someone I respect like a teacher or a skilled...

Over the years, I’ve received questions from aspiring bassists, and many of those questions have turned into the Lowdown columns you read here. I’d love to do more of this. Please send me questions you’d like to see me cover in future Lowdown columns. You can send them to [email protected] or post them in the comments below. I look forward...

Q: I would like to ask about voicing/phrases on bass when it comes to chord progressions. How should I step into the next chord when I’m phrasing the actual one? Should I try walking lines? Are there any standard licks that can bring the feel of translating to a next chord? Or they are all built on the same concept...

Time to throw a little rock and roll into the series! This column features Jack Bruce, the classically influenced singing bass player from across the pond. So who is Jack Bruce? Widely known for his work with Cream, Bruce has had an amazing career both as a band member and solo artist. Hailing from Glasgow, Scotland, Bruce grew up in...

Q: Do you think you could run through / give some examples of how to make use of rhythm books like Modern Reading Text In 4/4, and theory books like Jazz Theory by Mark Levine or Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slominsky? A: Nice selection of books! Generally speaking, my approach is to combine any rhythm exercises...

When playing at slow speeds we can concentrate on our physical movements for every single note we play. However, this becomes impractical at high rates of speed. When playing at high speed it helps to group notes, and motions, together into a single action. The number of notes we can combine will depend on the requirements of the specific passage,...

Q: I’m a 16 year old bassist from England, and I’ve been playing for around three years. Ive been told I am very good for my age but I struggle with my confidence sometimes. One day I want to be as good as yourself or people like Janek Gwizdala, Marcus Miller or Victor Victor Wooten, but I think I put...

While the first bassist featured in our Bass Players You Should Know series was Southern soul master Duck Dunn, this one takes us above the Mason Dixon line to the industrial city of Detroit. Commonly recognized for his work at Motown’s Hitsville Studio A, Bob Babbitt’s career as a session player took him to a wide range of places, including...

Q: What should one be thinking when soloing? Do you simply hum the melody in your head or do you think of the solfege/scale degree at the same time? I try to sing the solfeggi, but when it comes to some scalar sequences or faster phrases, I feel like my head might explode. But if I stop singing the solfeggi,...

Rhythm is both mental and physical. Mental The mental aspect of rhythm is the intellectual understanding of how musical time is organized. For any given piece, passage, or note, this includes things such as: Understanding how many beats are in the measure. How each beat is subdivided. Is it by two, three, five, seven? Perhaps they alternate subdivisions? How long...

Q: As you may know, many bassists who play Urban Gospel music will detune their basses to a low B? or lower to achieve that extra low range. About a year ago, I decided to give detuning a try and detuned my 5-string bass to B?. It was strange at first, because I had to get used to the half-step...