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164 results for “technique”

Bass Lessons

Becoming a Great Band

What does it take be become a “great” band? Believe it or not the collective skill of a group is not determined solely by the skills of its individual members. There is a level of ensemble technique that really elevates a band to be beyond average and gets the group noticed. As with all things there is no short-cut and...

Bass Lessons

Crafting your Core Sound

As an upright player you have to make many moving parts work together in order to get the tone you want. Both hands play different roles in crafting your tone, but the real voice of our instrument comes from the bow. If you are new to the upright and haven’t taken the time to really find and fine tune your...

Efficient 20 Minute Practice
Bass Lessons

Efficient 20 Minute Practice

How often do you hear people claim that it’s not how much your practice but how efficiently you practice? There are always claims that practicing 15-30 minutes every day versus a 3 hour session every Saturday will have a more positive impact on your playing ability – but how do you make the most of those 15-30 minutes? In this...

Lesson: Basic Line Construction Types
Bass Lessons

Lesson: Basic Line Construction Types

After doing last week’s column, I’ve been thinking more about approaches to creating lines connecting ii and V chords. I’d like to revisit the subject and delve into some basic line construction types. Each particular technique constitutes parts that become interchangeable and apply to a wide range of bass line situations. Throughout these exercises we’ll be going back and forth...

A Lesson on Live Looping for Bass
Bass Lessons

A Lesson on Live Looping for Bass

Guest contributor Russ Sargeant shares this live looping lesson with us, on bass using Mobius software and the Behringer FCB1010. Introduction Solo musicians have a new powerful weapon in their arsenal, or rather access to technological advancements on an established idea. Live Looping has been around since the days of the tape delay machine. One of the most famous advocates...

Bass Lessons

Lesson: Accents, Dynamics and Balance

We’ve probably heard the word “dynamic” used to describe the work of musicians from time to time. It’s a compliment. Dynamic equals ‘interesting.’Changes in energy and intensity communicate feeling and add contrast to performance, and can add a sense of momentum and “swing.” Music without dynamics is dull; it sounds mechanical; without the injection of human energy, it might as...

Building Dexterity on the Bass
Bass Lessons

Building Dexterity on the Bass

While it is always important to have a strong theoretical backing and intellectual depth to your music there are times where you just need to focus on your chops. You can have the coolest idea ever, but if you don’t have the dexterity and agility to move freely and quickly around the fingerboard you won’t get anywhere. These drills are...

Bass Lessons

Lesson: Fingering strategies for the upright bass

The upright bass is a physically challenging instrument. I’m not trying to say we’re tougher than our treble-ended friends, but when was the last time you saw a violinist shift three feet at a time? The size of the upright bass means we have to be very efficient in how we approach playing music, especially if you are going to...

Bass Lessons

To click or not to click? Or, what’s in a metronome?

All musicians benefit from practice with a metronome, yet many, if not most, musicians tend to avoid it some or all the time. The metronome can feel like a scolding tyrant reminding us of our incompetence, or maybe we want to get through our work quickly without the discipline of methodical practice, or maybe we believe that the metronome is...

Bass Lessons

Lesson: Stance on the Upright Bass

In this week’s lesson, Jon takes us through some key fundamentals in upright bass playing. Balance Balance is the key. It takes many pounds of pressure to hold a string against the fingerboard with enough firmness to get a good fundamental tone; this force needs to have a counterweight applied against it. The objective is to get maximum weight into...

Bass Lessons

Thinking in Minor: Alterations

In the previous lesson I talked about using melodic minor arpeggios to change the sound of an underlying chord structure. This lesson will take that concept a step further and focus on identifying functioning and static dominant seventh chords and how to apply the melodic minor scale in various ways to control multiple degrees of tension. This will also lend...

Lesson: Thinking in Minor
Bass Lessons

Lesson: Thinking in Minor

The minor keys offer a diverse sonic palette for you to use in improvisation. The darker quality of the tonal sequence gives you a cool sound and the minor keys are very versatile over different chord changes. This lesson will focus on some basic applications of minor keys in different scenarios so you can start to use these keys effectively....