Pat Harris

This space is for G. Pat Harris’ personal thoughts, ideas, and concepts relating to music, the bass, the music industry, and the bigger picture.

1/30/12
It’s been a long time since my last “thought.” That’s not to say I haven’t had any thoughts, it’s just that I haven’t made the time to sit down and type at the computer. Thus, nearly two months have passed since my last update. There are many things I could write about. A lot happens in two months.

Back in December, I went up to Michigan to visit with family. It was one of the best vacations I’ve had in a good long while– with the exception of getting the rare opportunity to sit in an Oklahoma State Trooper’s car on the way up, but that’s another story all together. What was so enjoyable about Michigan, was that it’s wasn’t terribly cold, and I actually got to spend time up there without feeling the need to rush around. I was in the north country for almost a month. In that time, I was able to visit with family, friends, play a few shows, and help out some younger musicians. It was a very fulfilling month.

One thing became abundantly clear, and I think it was only clear because I had the time to stop, think, and the whole experience wasn’t just a crazy whirlwind. I miss the folks up there. My family. My friends. The whole lot of them. On the other side of that coin, Austin feels so much like home to me. Every time I drive back, I am happy to be living in Austin. That stretch of road between Dallas and Austin is the absolute worst homestretch ever, but in the course of 24 hours in the car you go from using your heat to unrolling the windows, to turning on the AC in January, and I can’t help but think, “It’s good to be home.”

No matter where you are from or where you go, there is always going to be a place where your roots are, and to me, that is (obviously) Michigan. I know, I’m getting a bit nostalgic. That’s the way it is. It was a totally different kind of musical satisfaction getting to perform with the guys that I “grew up” with while we all attended Central Michigan University. Those are some strong bonds, and time doesn’t even phase them. I was so impressed that some of the best musicians I know were in a small college in the middle of nowhere Michigan at the same time as myself. As we all developed and grew together, we all “get” where each other is coming from. I think it had been about five years since we had played a note together, but as soon as rehearsal began, it was immediately apparent that these are still some of the best players around, and they can hold their own with any “name” musicians out there.

When I look back, and at the time I was going through school, by the end I was so looking forward to getting out of Michigan and moving onto the next step. Now, five years later, it has taken that time to truly appreciate what was there. That’s the way life is.

12/8/11
Austin is a weird town, but not in the “Keep Austin Weird” bumper sticker kind of way. Lately, I’ve had the same conversation with numerous musicians, artists, creative-types, and it’s interestingly been the same story each time. How do you cultivate an audience that wants to see You? The conversation will usually go something like this:

What are you up to this weekend?
Well, I’m playing with That One Group at That Place. What about you?
Oh, I’m playing with My Own Project at This Club.
Really? How many people can that room hold?
It can get about 150 in there comfortably.
That’s great! How many do you expect?
I have absolutely no idea. You?
Could be full, could be empty. Have a great gig.
You too.

I find it interesting that in a town that is so full of art and culture, there is no real barometer for how many patrons are going to attend a given performance until the doors open that night. There are no correlations. You can have lots of press and media attention and maybe the place will be full, and maybe it won’t. You can have very little press and the place could still be full, or maybe it’s empty. Even social networking gives a false sense of positive results. Just because 112 friends click the “join” button, they are in no way obligated to actually attend the show. How do you cultivate an audience that wants to see You?

There are different venues in town that have a built in audience. This can be a blessing or a curse, and often times, it’s a little of both at the same time. These venues have given me a false sense of accomplishment. It’s “as if” people have come to see me for what I am doing, but in reality, they would be there no matter who is on stage. One prime example of an Austin venue with a very built-in audience is the Elephant Room. It is THE (only) jazz club in town. If you want to hear jazz in Austin, that is where you go, and shoot, many of the people who go to the Elephant Room don’t even listen to what’s happening on stage. It’s because jazz is hip, man. Toward that end: To all of my musician friends, I feel the truth is that hoards of patrons do not flock to restaurants to hear jazz. We are the happy and accidental atmosphere for a good meal that otherwise would have been accompanied by canned muzak. There it is. How do you cultivate an audience that wants to see You?

I love Austin. I can’t really think of any other city that I would like to come home to. There is such a wealth of culture, restaurants, movies, artists, performances, exhibits… Austin is saturated. On any given weekend, there are hundreds of things to do, and hundreds of places to spend your hard earned dollars in addition to all of the music that is happening around town. There are advertisements for This, That, and The Other everywhere: radio, posters, tv commercials, facebook invitations, little cards I find tucked under a windshield wiper. It’s easy to just become immune to all of it. I definitely took the small town vibe I had in Michigan for granted. When there’s only four things happening on a weekend in December, chances are, if people want to get out of the house, they’ll come to see you. How do you cultivate an audience that wants to see You? In a town like Austin, there are no rules, there are no correlations, there is just the hustle and the drive to “make it” because it’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s a side of success that isn’t measured in dollars, it’s measured in butts in seats, and those butts have a whole lot of options when they decide where to park on a weekend.

11/24/11
Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I find it hard to believe that it’s already been a year since the big trip to Maine/New England. Last year at this time, I was up in Bangor, ME at Anna and Ben’s house. I was doing my best to stay warm despite the cold and dampness that ravages that part of the country. I woke up, coffee was already made, I had a rehearsal planned for the day, and then an excellent meal planned with some great people to follow. It’s weird, but as a musician, I don’t really get to “hang” with my musician friends. Aside from talking and hanging on breaks during a gig, it seems like I live in a bubble and our lives rarely intersect if we don’t have instruments in our hands.

Here I sit. A year later in Austin, TX. It’s definitely warmer down here than up in Maine. I do miss the cold on days like today, though. I love the feeling of going somewhere, knowing there’s going to be good company to share, and everybody stays warm indoors while the weather outside tries to get in.

Last year, we went up to Maine with Wayne Salzmann and Carter Arrington. It would be hard to find to guys that have the complete package of personality, professionalism, and performance ability. They are some of the best I know. In just a year, it’s crazy how things have taken off for them, and I wish them nothing but the best continued success. I’ve said it before, but if anybody is going to “make it,” it’s only a matter of time before these guys hit the big time. Wayne got the call from Eric Johnson (yes, *the* Eric Johnson) and is now Eric’s drummer. Amazing. Carter has been touring with Malford Milligan and has just a ton of high quality local work as well. Anna was able to sell her house in Maine, and moved to Austin in January 2011.

Since Anna’s move, it’s been a bit crazy. By necessity, I’ve been having to turn down other work to really make a go of the project with Anna. We put out a CD. That’s a big deal. No, it’s not on a major label. No, we do not have a big fat distribution deal. No, you probably can’t hear it on the radio if you’re not in Austin. It’s still a big deal. Not only did we make a CD, we made it the way we wanted to. Everything was done in-house. I take a great deal of pride in knowing that we busted our butts to finance this thing. It was about a year where I didn’t get paid because everything went into the making of “Traveling By Moonlight.” I believe in this project, and I’m proud of our album. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with that. You’d think it would be easy, but it’s not. It was hard to come to terms because if you’re not satisfied with something, it gives you an “out” if somebody else doesn’t like it. If you believe in something and it still gets a bad review, or negative response, it’s pretty crushing. That’s part of the game, but it’s what has to be done if you’re doing to do something on your own merit. Anything with artistic value needs to be done for the sake of the art first. I’m just happy that the response has been so positive. While we didn’t set out to have any radio hits or make it huge, one thing I really try to do is make sure to have a connection with listeners through my music. If it can’t connect with listeners, I haven’t done my job as an artist.

10/27/11
My bass is currently in the shop due to a cold front that swept through town. As Humpty Dumpty gets glued back together, here I sit during my usual practice time in the afternoon. I figured I may as well take this opportunity to give some feedback on a new “toy” I’ve been using for about a month now.

As some of you may or may not know, I recently joined the Austin Piazzolla Quintet. As the name suggests, we play a whole lot of music by Astor Piazzolla. This was and is a great way to get my arco (bow) chops back into shape. It’s also a great reality check for intonation since the majority of the bass parts are doubled in the left hand of the piano. If I’m out of tune, there is absolutely nowhere to hide. Due to the nature and setup of my bass, I play with an amplifier on 99.9% of my gigs, which in turn means that what the audience hears is an amplified reproduction of my bass and very little of the instrument itself.

In order to amplify my bass, I use a pickup which is mounted in the bridge. This is nothing new, and if you want to know what the tone of a pickup on a bass sounds like, take a listen to some Ron Carter or Eddie Gomez recordings from the 1970s. It’s got a certain sound, but it’s not “my” sound. One issue that is inherent with my pickup is that when I switch from pizz (finger style) to arco (playing with the bow), there is a dramatic volume difference. This is a result of the strings vibrating in one direction when played with the fingers and then vibrating in a different direction when played under the bow. Acoustically, the difference can be subtle, but through an amplifier, the differences are (pun intended) amplified. What I’m left with is a very usable pizz sound, and then an arco sound that takes everything over like Godzilla destroying some village. The options I’m left with are A.) Miss a few measures of the music as I reach down to turn my amp down, or B.) Play with such a light arco touch that the instrument barely speaks and the quality of tone suffers.

Prior to playing with the Austin Piazzolla Quintet, I had my “arco gigs” and my “pizz gigs,” so I could typically just set my amp up to sound optimal for one of those settings and call it a day. APQ threw a wrench in my operation. Thankfully, I decided to get a Red Eye Preamp/DI (http://www.fire-eye.com). This has been in my signal chain since I bought it, and it’s probably the absolute BEST preamp I’ve ever heard. What makes it far and away better than everything else? It’s simple, it’s designed for piezo pickups, there is a ton of dynamic headroom (which is particularly important for bass), the EQ is totally flat, it doesn’t color the tone of the instrument, it’s clean, it doesn’t introduce any distortion, there is an apparent “tightening” of the low end on my bass, it’s tiny and portably, it’s made locally in Austin, and it’s guaranteed for life. There is a boost switch with an independent gain control. On APQ (or any other gigs), I can set my arco volume, and then use the boost switch to raise the level of my pizz playing to keep the dynamics even between the two. Problem solved, and one of the best gear investments I’ve made in a long time. A huge thank you to Daren for making such a great product that actually allows musicians to do something musical with the acoustic instruments we have.

10/19/11
I’m writing in order to procrastinate my practicing for the day. Looking for a quick way to drain a bank account? Record an album. Looking for a way to keep funds from going into your bank account? Promote and market an album. How do you get patrons to shows and to purchase your music? There is no reliable answer to that question. I know people that have all of the financial backing and resources to “make things happen,” and they struggle. I know people who have been living out of the back seat of their car and they fall into success. It’s random and unpredictable.

It’s a lot like fishing, I suppose. Person X can have the latest technology, lures, boat, and this would seemingly put them ahead of the pack. Person Y has a stick and some string, and there is no way of knowing which one will be successful in their endeavor.

The longer I live, I see that most of us get to where we’re going by being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes we take a direct path, and sometimes we zig and zag all over to finally arrive at our current destination. There is certainly more at play than just being in the right place at the right time, though. Not only do you have to be in the right place at the right time, you have to deliver the right goods. Maybe we’re all slightly crazy? We spend our lives working on “our thing” so that at some random moment we are called upon to produce results and then we hopefully produce the right results for that specific moment in time. That moment could lead to other moments, or that moment could be an end in and of itself. Even if we are in the right place at the right time delivering the right goods, that is still no indication that we will be able to continue on the current trajectory. No wonder so many people are content to just exist.

9/22/11
Volume, perceived volume, and the bass are obviously of great interest to me. With today’s sound amplification equipment, and audiences that can be totally indifferent to the fact there is a band playing, bassists and band leaders have gotten in the habit of turning up the volume to be heard. For me, there is a certain level of volume/comfort for me when on a gig, and it’s all about the way the instrument feels which puts me in my comfort zone. When my bass feels good, I know I am at an appropriate volume. If I turn up too loud, there is a bunch of low end saturation that occurs on stage, it makes my bass feel tubby, and I feel like it starts to fight back. I no longer have the agility or dexterity on it that I like to have.

My own rule of thumb is that if I can clearly hear myself on stage, I am playing too loud. I don’t think many other musicians understand this concept. In most instances, my amp is not a stage monitor. I am using it to put my sound out into the room. Bass sound waves take a long time to develop. My lowest note (low E) is 41Hz. That not only takes a lot of power to accurately be reproduced, it also takes a lot of space. It may sound soft on stage, but somebody that is 20 feet out in front is getting blasted with bass as the sound wave develops. Thus, if we’re all on a small stage, the bass is going to sound quiet to all of the musicians.

Another concept that musicians don’t seem to understand is volume, perceived volume, and low end. With the advent of dedicated bass amps and pickup systems, the bass can be amplified to pretty extreme volumes. Many leaders confuse volume with low end. They want to “feel” the bass instead of hear it. However, when you boost the lows, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a good sound. Again, somebody 20 feet in front is going to hear tons of bass while there is only a slight bass increase on the stage. Plus, additional low end tends to wash out the mix on stage. All we start to hear is the rumble and it’s very hard to hold a musical conversation or play with sensitivity. It’s rare that you will hear a jazz group where the bass is thumping. Think of all of those classic records, and even more modern recordings by Dave Holland. There is a significant cut in the “boom frequencies” between 60 and 100 Hz. To truly hear the bass, you’ve got to have the midrange of the instrument present. That’s where all of the “wood” is. Too many lows will wash out the mids, and then we’re left with a sound that contains the rumble of the low end, and only the extreme high end finger noise. That may be somebody’s ideal tone, but it’s not mine.

Within a jazz context, and even in acoustic music in general, my thoughts are that the bass should be present enough so that you’ll miss it if it’s not there, but not so loud as to draw attention to itself. The bass should not have to compete with the drums for volume, rather, the drums should be able to overtake the bass when the music calls for it. Listen to some classic records, when the band is hitting it hard, the bass disappears into the mix, but when things cool off, it’s right there holding down the fort. This suggests that the bass is essentially at one relative volume the entire time and the band as a whole creates the dynamic rises and falls.

9/10/11
It’s SO hard being so close to the end of a project to then have to go back and make fixes because you know that 40 years from now, you’re going to regret it if you don’t make those tiny fixes right now. I spent a great deal of time at Terra Nova Mastering here in Austin and I was working with mastering engineer, Nick Landis. First, let me just say that Nick is as professional as they come. He was extremely easy to work with and talk to, and was just as eager as I was to get things sounding the way they need to. I’ll save the actual story of the mastering process for another time. However, while we were in the studio, Nick made an observation about the material. As we were listening to one of the songs recording back into the computer from analog tape, he pointed out that, “There sure are a lot of biblical references,” throughout the album. That got me thinking.

I think I fall into the “Raised Catholic and got out as soon as I could” camp. I don’t mean that as a slight to the millions who believe in the Big J.C. as their savior. It was simply my experience that there was just too much immediately observable hypocrisy for me to buy stock in it. If it works for you, I am happy for you. That being said (written), whether you take the Bible to be historical fact, fiction, or somewhere in between, those authors knew how to tell a story. Whether they were the originators, or retold something that had been aurally passed down for generations, or maybe they even stole somebody else’s story, changed a few names and called it their own. Whatever the case may be, they knew how to grab and keep attention. The use of metaphor and symbolism in the Bible is truly fantastic, and the imagery is very vivid. In addition to that, biblical accounts have many similarities and parallels with pretty much every other culture. You don’t need to know Noah to know that a few thousand years ago, there was a flood that wiped the slate clean.

I don’t think I’m going to win any modern Christian Music Awards. So why bring in these sacred elements into secular songs? I’m a big fan of borrowing from the best. The issues of 2,000 years ago are still issues today. No matter where in the world you are from, you are familiar with these archetypes and any references in song are immediately personable and relatable. Life is dualistic. There is dark and light. We all still have our demons to face. There are still struggles between “good” and “evil.” We all have to take the good with the bad. “You can’t think about running through Heaven, until you crawl on your knees through Hell.”

8/4/11
I spent the last week of July mixing, and by mixing I mean sitting in a studio while mix-master Keith Gary reads my mind and does wonders to songs that Anna and I have tracked. We still have a few tweaks to do, especially on the “bigger” tunes, but it came together very quickly. Mitch Watkins was kind enough to let us do all of the mixing at his studio even though he was getting ready to go on tour with Lyle Lovett.

I’m very proud of the way the album is going to sound. It is not going to be “studio perfect,” but that was never the goal. My favorite albums are totally flawed in some way or another, but the music always speaks for itself. My goal was to make an album that was “perfectly flawed,” or put more simply, “human.” It’s very important to me that this music sound like it was played by people and not totally processed in a box, time aligned, auto-tuned, etc. For a project that has taken the better part of a year and a half to make, it still has a very “live” sound to it, and I really believe that listeners will enjoy what they hear. I’ll write more on this when I get a moment. Right now, Calliope (my dog) is giving me the, “Let’s go for a walk,” look. It’s a good idea. It’s supposed to get up to 107 degrees today.

7/8/11
It has been a pretty amazing month thus far. I’ve been extremely fortunate to be working a lot this summer with gigs, recording projects, and teaching. In the past, my summers have been pretty mellow. I don’t know if this is true, but my feelings are that jazz is cold weather genre of music. Perhaps it’s just me. I had the good fortune of getting to record and work out at the Blue Rock Recording studio and artist ranch two weeks ago. Words really fail when trying to describe the beauty of this place. The space and energy allow creativity to just flow. I was doing a session with Javier Chaparro, who not only is a world class violinist, but he is an amazing song writer. He writes music that goes straight to the soul. I don’t speak Spanish, and even without knowing what the lyrics are, I get a sense that there is something very powerful at work. Rounding out the ensemble, Mitch Watkins was playing a variety of acoustic guitars and Paul Glasse was playing mandolin. Getting to play alongside of Mitch and Paul is one of the great joys I get in music making. They are on a whole different level, and their musical communication is telepathic. It’s a leading example of how 30 years of playing together creates a sound that is greater than the sum (of its already incredible) parts. Laura Mordecai was playing percussion, and as a bassist, it was really nice to lay back into some beautiful and understated grooves.

I could gush on and on about how I instantly felt at home in the room I was recording. I set my bass down, and looked at the shelves which were filled floor to ceiling with books, compact discs and a large collection of records. The first thing that caught my eye was a Tom Waits recording, and as I looked up and to the left I saw a row of books that consisted of Cormac McCarthy novels. It’s good company to keep. Speaking of good company, I got to meet engineer/studio-jedi, Keith Gary. What a great guy with a huge set of ears. I’m always a little skeptical when I get into a studio with my upright bass. There isn’t a whole lot of grey area when it comes to reproducing the sound of a double bass. It’s either there, or it isn’t even close. I was elated on the first playback with how Keith was able to not only get the sound of the bass, but he was able to capture “my” sound as well. I love it.

As the sessions went on, I had been very conscious of my note choices and how much musical space I fill. Those that know me already know that I am not a fan of flashy bass playing, particularly if it doesn’t compliment the music. The rule that served me well while playing Javier’s music was that I get one moment per song to make it known that I was there, and then get out of the way. There were a few moments where I was asked to play something busier. I remember my instructions were, “… Sexy boy… sexy… sexy boy…” Obviously, Javier wanted something that wasn’t so midwestern and white. I’m anxious to hear the final mixes of the sessions. It was incredibly gratifying to sit in the control room with some of the heaviest players I’ve ever been around, and to get the nod or smile of approval when there is something melodic in the bass that stands out to them. Although, I think any melodic material from the bass that catches the ear was likely shamelessly stolen from Eberhard Weber.

While I’m on the subject of recording, I think it’s safe to say that Anna and I have finished tracking our album. It’s very exciting. I’m going to do most of the mixing at home. I have this thing where I can hear exactly how the music needs to sound, and to put it in words is both difficult and likely frustrating for others, so I use the sound in my head as a reference and tweak the tracks until they sound like what I’ve already been “hearing.” We’re still deciding on a name for this collection of twelve songs, but we’re going to get it mastered out in L.A, and we hope to have a big release in November. The most stressful part of putting something out there for the world is attaching your name to it.

6/16/11
Well, it’s been a while since it’s happened, but I officially got thrown under the bus on a gig on Tuesday night. I suppose I was due. In the past, these situations would freak me out to the point of not being able to get through the gig. I would make mistakes left and right and the feeling of uselessness and helplessness would then linger for days afterwards. This would often domino effet into my other gigs, to where one bad night would throw off my game the next night. I’m happy to report that those days are behind me. I’ve come to the realization that Pat Harris the Musician and Pat Harris the Person are two different beings, with the Musician making up only small part of the Person. Nobody goes into their job, no matter how much they enjoy it, and performs their tasks flawlessly day in and day out. It doesn’t happen like that. As a musician, I can’t expect to go to a gig and have it be the most profound thing I’ve ever done. It doesn’t happen like that. Sometimes you just have to punch in and then realize that you’re in a “wait-out-the-clock” situation. However, in the worst situations imaginable, I still need to do everything in my power to make the experience musical. I still have to do my very best to keep good time, play in tune, have a good attitude, and support the other musicians on stage. Sometimes you get lucky and somebody on the bandstand will help you out, other times you are your own island. It’s all okay.

Each “bad” gig is a lesson in what not to do. You’ve got to learn these lessons some way. Sometimes the music is just “off,” and that’s alright, too. Sometimes there is a clear person who is getting in the way of the music, and sometimes the music just isn’t there… and sometimes the lackluster performances that we as musicians perceive in the moment turn out to be some of the best stuff when we listen back to it.

Getting back to getting “Bussed” on Tuesday night, part of what helps me get through these tough moments is a meditation/chant that I’ve come up with. I only need to use it when things get particularly brutal. I can handle quite a bit direct verbal abuse, but what really grinds my gears is that passive aggressive announcement to the audience that band leaders have perfected. It goes something like this:

Leader: (to the band) We’regoingtoplaythatonesong,howdoesitgo?HmmHmmBaBaBaBaaaaHmmmBaaaBeDoBeDo.Pickakey.
Me: What song?
Pianist: “I Thought about You,” in F.
Leader: (quickly starts counting off the tune)
Me: Hold on, I haven’t played that tune in ages and need to read it.
Leader: (into the mic) Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry for the delay. The bass player has to read this next tune. (Turns to me) You ready yet?
Me: (I smile and nod)

The smiling and nodding is a key component to the meditation, because while I am doing that, I am saying, “This is not my life. This is just a job and it’s only four hours long.” If the that doesn’t get me through, my plan B is, “**** you, you ******* *******. If I wasn’t terrified of what you would do to me in your drunken state, I would send this gig to Hell faster than you can slur out the next tune, because I’m the bassist, and that’s the kind of power I have,” to myself. Sometimes I only need to meditate on first phrase one time, other times it takes a few repeats, but it really does wonders to calm my nerves. No matter what the situation, you still have to be as musical as possible. Sometimes you’re a hero, and sometimes you’re just waiting until 1:30am. It’s all part of the job.

5/5/11
I played in a really fantastic recording session yesterday and we were able to get some really amazing basic tracks for the CD that I’m recording with Anna. We were very lucky to be able to record at George’s studio. As far as studios go, I can’t think of a place in Austin that better than George’s, and it comes with George as the engineer. I’m always impressed with the sounds that we’re able to capture. He’s one of the only guys that knows how to make an acoustic guitar sound like an acoustic guitar once it’s recorded.

We put four tracks down for the upcoming CD (release date TBA) and they included “Before the Rain,” “New Day,” “Lost at Sea,” and “The Overgrown Graveyard.” If you’ve caught any of our live duo performances of these tunes, I’m pretty sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the studio renditions. We were fortunate to get two of my favorite Austin musicians, Wayne and Carter on drums and guitar for the session. There are some players that are tentative and reactive, but what I love most about Carter and Wayne, is that they are very authoritative players. They could be sight-reading a piece of music and they instantly make it their own. As a songwriter, it’s very rewarding to hear your work interpreted differently than you had imagined it by highly capable musicians. At the same time, they are so well-rounded that they can hear a tune once and “get” how the vibe of the particular song should be. We still have some overdubs to do, but the goal is to start mixing all of this craziness by June.

4/15/11
The Jam Session
There are times when I get invited to various jam sessions around town. I never go to them. My reason is definitely not because I am “too good,” or “better” or anything else that would indicate my superiority over the other musicians in attendance. Far from it. I don’t go to jam sessions, because I absolutely do not enjoy jam sessions. The music is never the focus despite being called a “Jam Session.” Since 2009 I’ve been playing every single Wednesday afternoon with Rich, Masumi and Alex (when he’s not in Amsterdam). We play because we enjoy playing together and the music that results is rewarding. Rich cranks out song after song and we read the material down. I’m envious of his creative output. I’m positive I’ve grown musically at least as much, if not more, from playing new music with the same group of players each week than I did when I was getting my Master’s degree. I do the same with other players in town. If I’m going to jam, I want music for music’s sake to be the inspiration and reason for playing. Everything else is the icing on the cake. My main point of contention is that people go to jam sessions for every reason under the sun *except* to make music. If I want to jam, I’ll call people that I want to jam with. I do not need a weekly night to go out and play for twenty minutes. I suspect that my point of view is also biased being a bass player. As part of the rhythm section, we often get stuck punching the clock at a jam session while someone (usually a sax player) takes an obscene number of choruses in a solo that has nothing to do with anything other than taking an obscene number of choruses because they can. The lone exception is the few players that may not be as musically advanced as the “pros” who attend. Often times, a jam session is the only time that they get to play in public. I salute these people and really respect them for having the courage to essentially learn and grow in public. It’s not something I was/am willing to do. I wish there were more jams that catered to these people. I think it would be a really positive and nurturing environment.

I’m a category kind of guy, and I’ve broken it down into the different archetypes of jam-goers that I’ve seen in the past:

Some folks go for the hang. It’s a social gathering. They are cool with waiting around until the early morning hours to play a tune that they wouldn’t ever choose if given the option. They’ll shell out some hefty cash for beer or other beverages, and it’s a nice night for them to be out. They get on stage slightly buzzed, or completely blitzed, do their thing and go back to the hang.

Others go to jam sessions to stretch their playing ability with the mentality of, “I’ve been working on this for the past week, so I’m going to force-feed it to everyone on stage… Context be damned!” Sax players are the most egregious offenders of this. It usually starts out something like this: “Hey, let’s play a blues. People’s key of F, let’s go. 1… 2… 1, 2, 3, 4.” Maybe we get lucky and they play a head, maybe we bypass that formality and it’s right into soloing. At a jam session, somehow, a sax solo is like a wolf howl that draws other wolves to it. There is a wounded, nearly dead, or dead animal (the tune) and pretty soon the wolves (sax players) are circling. What started out as 2 horns on stage quickly turns into 5 or 6. Then a wolf in sheep’s clothing shows up (sax player who has managed to get a flute). Each one takes a turn at ravaging the carcass in their own special way. It is only by the grace of God that we get out of this situation in some kind of timely manner. Once they finish soloing/blowing individually, we think it’s time for the head out… no. It’s time to trade with the drummer who has been patiently keeping time for the last thirty minutes. I feel bad for the drummers in moments like these. They just had to keep time through the musical equivalent of listening to 6 different versions of some radical talk show host. If it were me, I’d respond with something like, “Look, I’ve been here for the last thirty minutes. You said a lot. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’ve got nothing to say, nor do I care to hold any kind of conversation with you. Can we please just wrap this up?”

Others musicians will go to a jam just long enough to make it known that they are “in the scene.” These players have usually just moved to town, and they use the jam as a network tool. I can respect this. Once others know that this particular person is the new cat on the block, they stop going to the jam. These players are the perfect example of “use the system, or the system uses you.” Every once and a while, gigs get slow, so it’s back to the jam to reaffirm that you are still in town. Sometimes players will go on tour. This is the local scene equivalent of falling into a black hole. They suddenly vanish. They come back from the road and use the jam to get the word out that they are back in town and ready to resume their local gigs. Often times, there is some overlap between this category and the first: those that attend the jam for social reasons.

Some folks go with the thought that they are going to try to impress whomever is in charge. They are going to play something that they *think* the Boss Man would like to hear. Boss Man has the power to get them gigs if they play what they *think* he wants to hear. They will compromise all artistic integrity, lay down, and spread their musical butt cheeks in hopes that they may some day be able to grace the stage under their own name. However, they know that even if they get to do their own gig, there will be strings attached. You see, Boss Man has been Boss Man for a very long time. He has friends, and he needs to make sure his friends are taken care of. His friends, while not your enemies, are not your first choice for friends, but to get the gig, you’ve got to make nice. “Here’s the deal, Sport. I’m going to put you in the game tomorrow. I know, I know…Thank me later. We’re going to name the team after you for this game. I know you’re a pitcher and that’s your comfort zone, but, you see, we’ve already got a pitcher. I know he’s not the best, but he’ll likely kill us all if I pull him. If you want to play, the only spot I’ve got right now is right field… and you have to wear a tutu. We need to get butts in seats. It’s not really about the game at all. Butts + seats = payday. Naturally, I’ll take a small fee for taking the gamble on putting you in right field. If things go well, we might be able to drop the tutu. But hey, it’s your team. It’ll be fun.” In your heart, you know it’s going to take a lot of hours in the tutu to be able to finally pitch.

In none of these instances does the music come first. It’s always just sort of there. For some people it works, but for me, it doesn’t set right. To each their own.

4/8/11
I’m not sure where March went. That month was a total blur. Fortunately, the “blur” is a result of a very busy schedule, not the other life distractions that musicians often get into. South by Southwest came and went, as did thousands of musicians and music industry people. I know that some local inhabitants think that SXSW is the opening of the seventh seal and the sign of the end of days, but I enjoy all of the festivities. I like being swamped with gigs. I like that the traffic is so bad that I have to ride the bus with my gear. For three days, I enjoy it. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it if it were this way all year long. In the shows that I performed in this year, I noticed a very common trend: There was very little mingling going on among musicians in different groups. Heck, when bands were done, they bolted from the venue as fast as they could. I thought this was weird.

Since starting my project with Anna Mitchell, my views on the “hang time” associated with gigs had changed considerably. I was once eager to be the first one packed up after a gig, but now I find myself wanting to stick around and chat… with anyone and everyone. I’m realizing that this music industry has very little to do with playing music. If you CAN play, that’s great. However, the game is definitely to know as many people as possible from varied walks of life. It doesn’t matter how good of an instrumentalist you are if nobody knows that you exist. It also doesn’t matter how good of a musician you are if you’re a jerk, or can’t have a conversation about anything other than music.

2/21/11
Auto-tune. Like money, this is one of the world’s great evils. The main issue I have with it, is not the fact that many of today’s singers completely rely on it, or rather, do not know it is applied in post-production and they think they really sound “that good.” The issue that I have is that it totally and completely de-humanizes the voice. The human voice is the oldest and arguably the most powerful instrument there is. Using excessive auto-tuning in the studio takes the last bit of “person” out of the music. Much of today’s commercial music is made in a computer or somehow sequenced. Since you can sample and then trigger anything with anything, many of the pop musicians today never play to live studio tracks. The voice is the one element that could add a bit of “realness” or humanity to something that is totally canned and “perfect.” If you want to know what a perfectly in-tune vocal sound is, listen to anything that Allison Krauss sings.

I also think it’s unfair to listeners or aspiring singers who cannot hear this kind of vocal processing happening. They will never be able to sound like the singers they wish to emulate. It’s one thing to deliberately use auto-tune as a vocal effect as is sometimes heard (Remember “Do You Believe in Life After Love” by Cher?), but I’m inclined to believe that in most other instances, it’s meant to be masked or at least not obvious. I understand that there are instances in the studio when a slight digital pitch nudge saves more time (and thus money) rather than another take, but to slather auto-tune on a song like a five year old puts syrup on pancakes is pretty bad. I’m always amazed at Tom Waits’ ability to sing in tune. You may love or hate his voice, but it’s very pure in its own sense. He may be singing through a paper bag dipped in gas through an overdriven harmonica microphone– and he still nails each and every pitch.

2/8/11
It’s easy to be critical. It’s easy to be critical of others, and it’s easy to be critical of ourselves. As a musician, it’s especially easy to be critical. As a musician, it’s especially easy to be critical of other musicians. I was going to write a post about how after many listenings, I am disappointed with the latest Iron and Wine album titled “Kiss Each Other Clean.” I was going to go on about how the songs themselves are fantastic, but the attention deficit disorder production of them totally obscures their beauty. Texture changes and orchestration change seemingly every eight measures and I feel like I need some adderall just to be able to focus on what the song is actually about. I was going to write about that, until my ideas spun in another direction.

So much of the artistic experience comes down to what we as an audience “bring to the table.” We can appreciate art (more specifically music) on many different levels, and it really all comes down to the individual experience. We can hypothesize until the end of days about “intent,” or “honesty,” or how “this” or “that” are crucial to “fully appreciate” something, but at the end of the day, it’s all very personal and very individual. For example, I don’t think it’s possible for two people to have the same experience with a certain song. They can articulate why they may appreciate it, and they may use the same terms, but the experience itself is still very individual. On the other end of the spectrum, two people can have vastly different reasons for appreciating the same thing. Person A may be a musician or scholar and know exactly how and why the music works. Person B may have no idea into the theory or history of the music, and they like it solely for the way the sound hits their ears. Same music. Different positive experiences.

What about negative experiences? It’s not hard to condemn what we think is bad art or music. It is hard to try and find a reason to appreciate something when our natural inclination is to dislike it. When I was in Maine back in November, we went to a restaurant after a gig. We passed a band setting up, and when we sat down, someone said, “Man, I bet anything that this group is a jamband.” They had drums, percussion, keys, guitar and bass. Within four beats, it was confirmed that this group was infact going for the “jamband” sound: A kind of Latin-esque one measure vamp with static harmony, exclusive use of the dorian or mixolydian mode for a melody, and the songs have sections that are autonomous to themselves with little to do with the initial theme. This is a good or not so good thing depending on your preferences. At this moment, it would be easy to talk down about a band like this. As “trained” musicians, we heard numerous “offenses” that we would never have the audacity to publicly commit. We’ve all seen this situation play out in many different ways. If it wasn’t the Jamband from New England, it’s the female singer/songwriter playing before your set at a club, with her out of tune guitar, out of tune vocals, and a sense of time that makes us wonder if she’s been practicing on the moon. We’ve all been privy to these situations.

What we easily overlook is that these people are putting themselves out there. That takes guts. To perform for an audience takes guts. Period. You can be the best or… not the best, but to play your own material for the public takes courage, and that’s respectable. No, the music may not be something I would actively seek out in the future, but that’s just because of my own personal experience. I CAN appreciate that these people are trying to follow their hearts, and that they are having fun. There are times when I’d rather watch a “bad” band having fun and enjoying themselves than a “great” band simply going through the motions. If music or art brings people together for a common goal, I think it’s serving a very important purpose and the level of skill doesn’t really matter. If the Bar Band brings out 30 friends to have a good time playing classic rock and drinking cheap beer, and everyone is enjoying themselves, then everyone wins. It’s not about being educated at all. I think all musicians could benefit from more open-mindedness to the musical world around us. We can acknowledge that something may not be our cup of tea without the need to berate it or put ourselves above it.

1/11/11
I was working on a song last week which was tentatively going to be titled “Politicians.” It had a pretty great Randy Newman-esque thing going on with the lyrics, and some quality sarcasm about how I believe our elected officials are incapable of actually accomplishing anything by working together… and then the events in Tuscon, AZ happened. Eerily, a similar thing happened a few years ago. I had just finished a song called “Time for a Flood,” which dealt with the fact that this world was due for a “reset” because things were getting out of hand, and then Katrina hit. Every generation has their own horrific event in which they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when something awful happens and takes over every news/media outlet. There is always something or someone that comes along to fill a niche of sorts.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of anyone that is offering a thought process like John Lennon or Bob Marley did. It’s as if once these two figures left the world, their respective niches were filled in with concrete and forgotten about. They weren’t the only musicians offering peace as an alternative, but they definitely had the biggest voices when it came to being listened to and heard. When is somebody with huge appeal going to stand up for what is truly right? I think what we as a country need is somebody to say, “Okay, let all of these other people believe what they want to believe. Let them tear each other down, let them point fingers, let them call each other names. WE can rise above it by not engaging in it. WE can appreciate each other because WE are all human and WE have to work together.” We need somebody other than a politician to say this, because politicians have their own niches to fill as well.

This is something that goes beyond religion. I don’t think it matters what set of beliefs you ascribe to, any higher power worth worshiping is not going to cast you down for advocating and practicing peace and understanding.

“What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?” – Nick Lowe

1/1/11
A very happy new year to all! I’m still a in a bit of a daze after driving back to Austin from Michigan. That trip is a long haul. I’m taking it easy until Monday and then I’ll get back into my usual practice/writing routine. I had a great time up in Michigan for the holidays. It’s always fun to see family and catch up with friends from my CMU days. I think the high point was playing a gig with Anna Mae Mitchell the Monday after Christmas. It was such a positive experience. Many members of my family were in attendance as well as friends and some folks that I’ve never met before, but hope to see again. It was really wonderful to be able to show the family “what I do” because they know I’m a musician, but most never have seen me perform. One of the difficulties of being a working musician is explaining to people why you would choose a career path that offers zero security. There isn’t an easy answer to that question other than, “I believe so strongly in this, that to do something else would cause me to live an a state of inauthenticity.”

12/3/10
I’m not a fan of using absolutes such as “never.” “Never” do this, or “never” do that always seems to highlight more exceptions to the rule rather than enforce the point you’re trying to make. It’s like saying, “never end a musical phrase on the root.” There are countless instances where “never” or “always” add more confusion rather than clarity to a concept. However, I think it’s safe to assume that when on stage and playing a gig, one should “never” ask the audience, “How does it sound out there?” or, “Can you hear everything alright?”

Most casual listeners do not know the sound/mix that the band is striving for. Think of most of the music we hear today. It’s usually in some sort of lossy MP3 format through a set of in-ear headphones that only reproduce a very limited sonic frequency. If someone routinely listens to music through a laptop, there’s no way they are going to hear anything below 150HZ, which means that they aren’t even able to get most, if not all, of the bass frequencies. Asking, “How does it sound out there” to an audience who doesn’t know the particular band’s sound is only going to open a large can of worms.

Asking this question turns the common listener into a specialist without any qualification. They are not dumb by any means, but most don’t truly know how a band is supposed to sound. There are even some musicians that have no idea how a band is supposed to sound. Putting the question out there will likely guarantee some kind of awkwardness. I was playing a gig, the question was asked, and all of a sudden a woman from the back of the room yells, “Turn the bass down! It’s too loud!” That’s a good way to have a good vibe in a room killed really quickly. Asking this question sometimes even brings people onto the stage to adjust your gear while you’re playing, and that is never… ever, a good thing to do.

I’ve found the best way to remedy any sound issues when the band has to set the levels is to have someone you know and trust in the audience. This person is a friend, has been to numerous shows, and also knows the sound that the band is striving for because in reality, the sound we hear as a band typically isn’t the same sound that the audience is hearing. This person can come up to the stage to discreetly tell the band about any modifications that may be needed.

Another question that should be avoided is something along the lines of, “How did you like that song?” This is not a good question no matter how good the song may be. This sort of questioning turns a normal gig of original material into a “yell out requests” night. This gets particularly hard if you’ve already played a tune that somebody has requested, they were there for it, and they just didn’t bother to listen to it the first time.

Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s best to refrain from asking the audience any questions at all. You can still engage a crowd without soliciting anything more than applause. If you really want to know how they feel, you can hand out a survey for them to complete and mail back to you after the gig.

11/30/10
Maine Tour
I’m sitting on an airplane which is flying back to Austin at the moment. What a whirlwind it has been for the past 11 days.  I just finished what I consider to be a very successful tour with singer/guitarist Anna Mae Mitchell. We played a mix of clubs, schools and produced a few of our own shows as well. I learned SO much while planning, performing and traveling. My personal motto going into this adventure was: “If we don’t loose, we win.” Basically, this means that if we don’t loose a ton of money, and we can get some seats filled, our new business venture is a success. We definitely couldn’t have done it without the help from Anna’s husband, Ben. He was our “yes man” from day one and a real whiz when it comes to logistics.

It’s a long haul to get from Austin to Bangor. I flew into Boston, and from there we drove another solid 4 hours north into Maine. Thankfully, Continental Airlines has a very nice instrument policy, and I was able to carry my NS Bass with me on the plane. I am happy to report that my bass did not sustain any injuries while traveling.

The whole idea to tour the east coast came about in July 2010 and it took four months of solid work to bring everything together. This consisted of nearly daily emails to each other as well as businesses, venues, musicians, etc. etc. Having just arrived back into town last night, I’m sort of wandering around my condo in a kind of “what now?” daze. We’ve been talking about a big outing through the midwest for the Fall of 2011. In no particular order, here are a few of the things I learned putting this whole thing together:

A. A good attitude goes a long way.
B. “Please,” “Thank you,” and a handshake can work small miracles.
C. Go with the flow.
D. Surround yourself with others who can go with the flow.
E. Smile
F. Inquiring as to how somebody else is doing makes them highly likely to want to help you.
G. If you are going to hire professionals, go out of your way to treat them like professionals.
H. Great musicians are cool. Cool people are cool. Great musicians that are cool people are the best of both worlds.
I. Set realistic goals. Don’t be afraid to re-evaluate these goals.
J. I am a big fan of sending out “Thank You” cards to anybody that has helped us in any capacity.
K. Do everything in your power to get the word out about your shows. This eliminates any “what-if” questions when you play to a small audience.
L. If you are charging an admission to a show, you owe it to everyone in that room to put on the best performance that you can. I feel this is even more important if the audience is small.
M. Answer all media questions very clearly. If people are paying to see a show, they generally want to know what they are in for.
N. There are some people that you will never be able to please, and this is okay. Do your best.
O. Ignoring hecklers is probably the best defense and the most professional way to go.
P. Always be professional.
Q. Continue to always be professional.
R. Sometimes the stars just don’t line up. Sometimes everything lines up.
S. Do everything within your power to make life easy for others.

I was extremely fortunate to meet some great people while up in the Northeast. One particular person that I had the pleasure of meeting was Bob. Bob came to our theater show on Saturday night and sat by himself in the very front row just off to my left. When we came on stage, I thought for a brief moment that James Lipton was in attendance because in the dark, Bob has similar facial features. From the downbeat of our set, Bob was on our team. He would crack a smile, nod his head, and tap his feet or fingers on his knee. To me, this is what writing and performing music is all about. It’s about connecting with other people. It’s about sharing stories and putting yourself out there, not so that I can be judged, so that I can find common ground with a perfect stranger. If I can get one person in the audience to be on “my side,” I’ll play for them the entire night. There was one song in particular that we played, and I could see Bob wiping tears out of his eyes at the end of it. That is what music is about. Right there.

After the concert, we would go meet and greet with the audience and I noticed that Bob was still sitting in his seat long after most of the crowd had started filing out. After a while, he stood up and came back to Anna and me. Bob had a great handshake, and gave a very heartfelt “Thank you.” He had heard us on the radio, lived two hours north of Bangor, and drove down through the snow alone because his wife wasn’t feeling well and stayed home. He was/is a very gracious man, and it made me feel extremely fortunate to be able to share that moment.

11/12/10
We’re almost half of the way through November. I’ve been gearing up for the venture to the great (and cold) northeast part of the country. A week from today I’ll be in Maine shedding about 25 new songs with Anna Mae Mitchell to prepare for our duo and full band shows. Putting these gigs together has been a great learning experience. The plans for the shows began last July, and I’m amazed at the huge number of details we’ve had to work with, and how relatively smooth everything has gone thus far. At times, I’ve been getting very overwhelmed and almost debilitatingly stressed about elements that are not at all in my control (like making sure I can gate-check my bass instead of having to have it checked with all of the other baggage, and letting whatever Neanderthal is on duty throw it into the bottom of a plane). The “What-If” questions keep entering my mind, but at the end of the day, I truly think that we are doing everything that we can do to make these shows successful. I can see why many artists want to instantly throw money at a management team. Playing the gig is only about 5% of what actually goes into planning and preparing for the gig.

Musically, I’m also a bit on edge. I’ll be exclusively playing my new NS electric-upright bass, singing, and I’ve been teaching myself harmonica since September. The NS bass has a learning curve that I’m still figuring out. It’s a beautiful instrument, but there are almost too many options with it. Anna will be handling the majority of the vocals but I’ll sing lead on a few as well as quite a bit of harmony. The harmonica is a beast unto itself. Trying to play it while playing a bass line is far for challenging than I initially thought. I don’t want or need to sound like Howard Levy, but I certainly do need to sound more proficient than Bob Dylan :)

All of these concerns aside, I’m very excited because once the first notes get played, all of the worries melt away. I don’t mean to boast, but I’m very proud of the material we’re going to be performing, Anna is one of the most consistent musicians I know, and the band can deliver the goods in their sleep.

10/9/10
“Ideally, the point of music is community, not the player. Musicians are simply channels to link the audience to the music and to each other.” – Trey Anastaio.

10/5/10
Knowing many words and phrases does not make you a poet.
It just means you know many words and phrases. I was having a conversation last week with some fellow musicians and we were all making our very subjective opinions known. As the conversation went on, a particular musician was referenced. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. While this musician does not “do it” for me, we all agreed that this musician clearly has chops and facility on the instrument. This musician knows the melodies to countless jazz tunes in any key, and can (and sometimes does) solo for days. As I stated: Knowing many words and phrases does not make you a poet. Connecting with others through written and aural word makes you a poet. Has there ever been a poem that “reads” better when you silently read it to yourself opposed to reading it out loud? I would argue not.

In my very subjective opinion, part of being a musician means that a “musician” should and does play appropriately for the band, venue, and most of all, for the music. Being a “technician” is not the same as being a “musician.” I absolutely cannot stand it when somebody thinks chops and facility are more important than the music. Context is important, and good musicians know how to play within a context. I call musicians because I want them to do “their thing,” but at the same time they always make “their thing” subordinate to the musical context first and foremost. If we’re having a very quiet, pretty and introverted musical conversation, nobody is going to start playing “musical expletives” over and over from out of nowhere. Being a musician requires more than chops, facility, or technical ability. Being a musician requires communication skills and an openness to the musical world around you. When you get on a stage and start pushing your individual agenda, rather than building upon what you already have to work with, you might as well be a politician. Knowing every jazz tune does not make you a musician. It means you know every jazz tune. I’m glad you know countless songs, now go practice your communication skills and learn to play nicely with others :)

9/20/10
It’s a pretty mellow Monday in Austin. I get a bit of a breather. Fortunately, September has been a very busy month. There are many different projects in various stages. I purchased some CDs for the first time in a long, long time. It had to be done. I was able to get my arco chops back in working order this past weekend when a last-minute call came from the group Austin Piazzolla. It’s a quintet that plays almost exclusively the music of (surprise!) Astor Piazzolla mixed in with a few originals in that same style. It’s a great group made of great people.

I’ve also been busy making, editing, and re-editing a bunch of charts for groups that I play in. There is definitely an art to using notation software. Some people make fantastic charts, and some people make charts that make the music harder than it actually is. A few things that work really well for me, in no particular order, except for #1:
1. Make the music on the page easy to read. If somebody were to look at the sheet music for the first time, could they understand how the tune is supposed to go?
2. If you want an intro, an outro, a tag, a coda, a false ending, or the entire band to yell something disgraceful, make sure to include that in the chart. Be a champion and take the 10 extra minutes to notate these things.
3. Don’t mix accidentals and enharmonics. If we’re in the key of A, there should not be any Gb-7 chords functioning as a vi chord. F#-7 good. Gb#-7 bad. If a given chord is C#7, don’t notate it as being Db,F,Ab,Cb. Toward this end, use sharps for ascending lines and flats for descending lines.
4. Use phrase structure as a way to organize the page. Most songs have 4 or 8 measure phrases. It’s really awesome to look at a piece of music that has a visual representation of the phrase structure. If you write using 4 measure phrases, don’t have 3 measure in one system, 6 measures in the next, etc. Nobody likes to play out of those Broadway song books for this reason. If you’re a vocalist, ditch those books and make usable charts. This is why everyone groans when a vocalist wants to sing at a jam session. It’s not because you’re a vocalist, it’s because 9/10 times vocalists bring terrible charts (if any at all). For those that think about your fellow instrumentalists, thank you. Straighten those other vocalists out and tell them to stop giving you a bad name.
4. If your song requires more than 3 pages of music per instrument, you’ve broken Rule #1. If you insist on having charts that are more than 3 pages of music, you can redeem yourself by having logical page turns, and a roadmap that doesn’t require going back 2 pages and then quickly flipping 3 pages to get to the coda. Be a champion, use some common sense, and be kind to the folks who are kind enough to play your music in the first place. You know what else is cool? Tape. Tape your stupid-long charts together BEFORE giving them out to other musicians.
5. Simplify.
6. Proofread. Better yet, print out the music and play through it. Errors often present themselves when you are looking at an actual page of music and not a computer screen.

8/13/10
Friday the 13th.
My jazz chops, or what I think are my jazz chops have been taking a pretty big hit lately. I have not been the diligent practicing bass player I once was. I came to the realization that I am not going to be *the* next best thing to hit the bass playing scene, and that is fine with me. Practicing was starting to feel like a chore. Not only that, but it was starting to get very intimidating. There is SO much to learn. It would take many lifetimes of dedicated study, and that’s just in the jazz category. The same can be said about classical bass playing.

My goal is to be a total musician, and for most of the summer, I’ve been following my muse pretty exclusively. I busy myself each day with music, but each day brings something new. Sometimes I practice bass. Sometimes practice jazz, sometimes classical. Sometimes I just play long tones. Sometimes, I strum a guitar for hours on end and repeat a phrase that resonates with me. I bought a harmonica, and trying to play in a capacity that is better than Bob Dylan and strum a guitar has kept me pretty busy.

I’ve really been getting back into songwriting this summer. I’ve been writing new songs and refining old ones. If I were to make a contribution to the world of music, I think this is the place where it will happen. This may be because songwriting/composition is the one part of my musical being that hasn’t gone through any sort of academic training. I write how I want to write. I believe in it, and it is something that I try to keep just for myself. I can spend hours scrutinizing a single line, or verse, or phrase. Writing lyrics is a skill unto itself, and I have incredible respect for any wordsmith out there. I’ve found that I am very fond of alliteration.

There are times when the music just pours out and I can’t even get it written down or recorded fast enough. There are also times when it feels like I am trying to squeeze water out of a rock. It’s different every time. Some songs write themselves in five minutes. Sometimes I have one idea that gets tossed around for months before coming up with something that will fit with it. Sometimes lyrics or a single line jumps out, as if from a place that I’ve always known, but I just happened to get a different glimpse of it on a particular day. Sometimes I have music, but no ideas for lyrics at all, so I’ll just write bogus scratch lyrics that have some syllable sounds I want to use.

The interesting thing that I have found, is that no matter what I’m working on, it all compliments itself. If I haven’t really sat down to practice for a few days, I get the motivation back from having done something else, and when I pick up the bass, it’s because I really want to play it, not out of this dread that if I don’t play every day my chops are going to disappear from the face of the earth. I find that playing chords on fixed pitch instruments really helps my intonation on bass as well. It’s all good.

7/30/10
Music is great. It’s amazing that if you’re open to it, it all compliments itself.

6/28/10
Sound and space. After exclusively playing electric bass for two weeks on the road, I was really surprised at how long it took me to reacquaint myself with the sound and space that the upright bass occupies in a band.

To my ears, and the way I “feel” it, the electric bass has a very precise and direct sound. I play it with a very light touch and let the amp do the vast majority of the work getting my sound out into a room. This being the case, I have quite a bit of headroom to work with. That dynamic headroom allows me to put my Phil Lesh hat on and own the mix with some huge low bomb notes if needed. As much as I enjoy the bass stylings of Mr. Lesh, my main objective when playing the electric bass is to lock it down with the kick drum and do my best to achieve that fat composite sound that a tight kick and bass can get. I’m not a fan of having a big/boomy sound. I much more prefer to have a nice clean and defined sound, and then be able to make the walls vibrate as an effect rather than having that be normal operating procedure. The less notes I have to play, the better. I love to hear the space between notes in a groove, and deciding how long a certain note should be. The kick drum doesn’t have any sustain, so sometimes it’s hip to cut off the notes pretty immediately, and sometimes it’s more appropriate to let them ring. It depends on the tune. Ideally, in most rock situations, it is the kick drum that is moving the air, and I am “adding a pitch” to it with the bass guitar.

The upright bass is a completely different beast. It has a character and fills a space unto itself. It has a more robust sound, and is more diffused. If the bass guitar is like a laser, the upright is a very dense fog. I absolutely hate having a boomy sounding amplified upright bass. There’s definitely a law of diminishing return when amplifying an upright, and I’ve certainly spent countless hours working to find my amplified tone and sound. To retain that “uprighty-ness” the bass can’t be bumping. I mean, it can, but that’s not how I like to sound if I can help it. The defining characteristic of the upright’s sound is in the midrange, not the lows. This is why (in my experience) my favorite jazz recordings sound terrible in the car. The crossover in most car speaker systems accommodates the highs and lows of a mix, but that key midrange where the upright bass resides is absent. There is that inherent “Smiley Face of Doom” EQ present with the speaker configuration. How well can you ever hear an upright bass on a recording the car? I love to hear that snappy string noise on recordings as a low E rattles against the fingerboard. I like to that sharp attack on a walking bass line. I like that the upright sort of “vanishes” when a band really gets cookin’ in a live setting. It’s still there, but the drums and soloist overtake the mix. It makes for a great dynamic contrast when it’s time for a bass solo. The upright fills the low end for most jazz gigs rather than the kick drum. As such, I don’t think it needs to actually have tons of low end in the signal. To my ears, too much low end makes the instrument sound fake or artificial. I keep my amp completely flat when amplifying my upright. The key to a good amplified tone, is a good acoustic tone. My personal preference for my sound is to have an earthy, warm, singing, vocal like tone/sound. What does that even mean? Singing and vocal-like probably aren’t the first two adjectives that come to mind when somebody thinks of a double bass. I like to be able use vibrato and sustain notes. I would like for an audience to know that I’m actually playing pitches not just “bmph bmph bmph.” I like to be able to play soft with the same ease that I play loud. That’s just the way I hear it. It’s been my experience that I can only have my amplified volume up “so far” before my sound starts to go away and low end saturation on the stage physically makes it difficult to play the instrument. It’s like you have to wrestle out each note from the bass because the low end is clashing with the note that came previously.

All of this said, I finally started to “hear” the upright again this past weekend and the space that it occupies. I went from playing a bass guitar, which has a very direct and directional sound, to the upright which has a much more diffused and organic sound… to my ears. It’s a skill unto itself to learn how to listen to yourself in a band setting. We need to be able to hone our ears to hear our own instruments. It’s a tough thing to do, especially since the sonic frequencies overlap so much with guitar, piano and tenor sax.

6/22/10
I’ve slowly been getting back to “reality.” I returned to Austin a few days ago after a two week tour with singer/guitarist/songwriter, Brandon McHose. Touring life is about the furthest thing from reality I can think of. Life exists in a vacuum. Time melts away at an alarming speed. It’s 8pm before you’ve really done anything on a particular day, and there is a lot of playing the “hurry up and wait” game. While on the road, I wrote down any thoughts that presented themselves in one or two sentences, and I’m trying slowly but surely to compile them into a large entry for the site. The tour itself far exceeded any expectations that I had before going into it. Brandon is a true professional and a great band leader. The band itself was really happening, and I also found a new appreciation for the electric bass. At the end of they day, it doesn’t really matter how many chops you have as a bass player. If you can’t lock it down with a kick drum, nothing else really matters. I loved being able to be a groove machine for two weeks.

5/25/10
I’ve been totally busy, and loving it. There are many different irons in the fire. The Trio gave an increasingly rare performance at the Elephant Room last week, and it’s always such a pleasure to be able to play with Peter and Steve. We had a really nice first set that we just eased into. Nothing is ever rushed with these guys, and the music really comes first. Anna was in town and sat in on the second set with us. She always amazes me with her musicianship, which goes far beyond just being a singer. A large part of last week was spent really refining some original songs that Anna and I recorded at George’s studio on May 22. We’ll be going back to record more this summer and likely the fall as well. The one thing we do not want to do is be rushed. I want to make sure we have absolutely what we want before we make any plans for a release, so I anticipate this to be a slow and steady, but ultimately very rewarding project.

4/9/10
I’ve been out of school for almost one year. I think I’ve finally gotten over the system shock of this. The “real world” was a bit of a slap in the face at first; one of the good kind of slaps to the face, though. The kind of slap that lets you know that there isn’t very much time to waste and you need to get your act together. In my short time in this “real world,” I’ve stumbled upon a few truths, or at the very least things/ideas/concepts that occur pretty consistently enough to bet in favor of them. Being out of school does not mean I’m any less busy, or that life is easier. While in school I told friends/family that things will mellow out once I’m out. I made a lair out of myself. Time goes by even faster. I’m pretty certain that the time spent on earth speeds up in a relative proportion your current age. By the time I’m 50, time will pass twice as fast as it does for me right now even though there are still 24 hours in a day. I haven’t figured the math out, but I’m pretty certain that’s how it goes. Life can be as hard as you want it to be. Business, politics, and friendship favorites are never going to be avoided. Somebody will always get something over you/me because they had an in, and you/me both had the requisite skills to do the same job. That’s human nature. We all do this, and most of the time by necessity. While it’s easy to get frustrated at being passed over, there will be opportunities that I get where somebody else will miss the boat. Time and place are very important. Delivering the goods at the right time and in the right place is extremely important. Being a good person, sociable, professional, and dependable have gotten me farther than my playing ability. Sometimes, there isn’t really an explanation… or at least an explanation somebody is willing to give you to your face. This has to just be accepted and then move on. If time is spent asking “what if,” time is not being spent on being proactive. My self-worth cannot not be equated with how many gigs I have in a particular month. The best I can do needs to be good enough for me. That is a good reason to practice every day. If I’m better today than I was yesterday, that is musical success. There are no free rides. Money is the root of all evil. Listening to a lot of different music is good. Listening solely to jazz is not so good. Making time to experience life outside of music is a must. In the great scheme of things, nobody really cares if I can play 1,000 ideas over a ii-V-I progression. Sometimes you need to just play. If people are listening only to hear my mistakes, they likely have more issues than I do. Every now and again, it’s okay to be too loud. Nobody consistently has great days without an off-day or two at their job. Find people and musicians who love you, love them back, and then slap them in the face when they need it. They should do the same in return.

4/2/10
Sitting in. I was on a gig recently at the local jazz club with a very fun and talented group of individuals (Alex, Rich, Bruce, Masumi) and I was a little shocked by the lack of taste one of the musicians that was sitting in with us had. I thought (until recently) that the rules of “sitting in” on a gig were pretty easily understood by all in the jazz scene. Not true. It’s apparently very easy to forget that Thursday at this club is not the same as Monday at the same club. In my own perfect world, these would be the rules I would abide by, and I would hope others would show the same professional kindness.
1. This is my golden rule. Don’t ask to sit in. Don’t do it. You can think it, you can wonder, but don’t ask. This puts the band/band leader in a very awkward situation. If the band/leader wants you to sit in, they’ll ask you. It’s really that easy… and please, pretty please, don’t show up to somebody else’s gig, pull your horn out, and sit off to the side of the stage with it. Again, it presents an unwanted situation. If you can’t go to the club to enjoy someone else’s music without playing yourself, maybe you need to find a new place to hang.
2. If you do get invited, or muscle your way onto the stage, don’t stay all night. One tune. That’s all you get, unless after that one tune, the leader asks what else you’d like to play. Then you get to stay for another. Don’t wear out your welcome. If the band/leader really wanted to hear you all night, they would have called you for the gig in the first place and not the current _______(insert other wankable instrument here) player.
3. If you are invited up to the stage to play, at least have an idea of a tune you’d like to play. This would likely be a jazz standard. Perhaps a blues? Rhythm changes? A Cole Porter tune? You know, something that swings and has a good melody. It’s not a good idea to call a ballad immediately after the band has already played a ballad. Calling obscure tunes that Miles/Wayne/Joe Henderson wrote in the mid 1960’s doesn’t really do it for me either. I love me some “Nefertiti” or “Stuff,” but they’re not the best tunes to spring on an unsuspecting rhythm section.
4. If the band is doing original material that has never been played before, chances are, they’ve worked on it ahead of time and don’t need you sightread it or add your own solo to it.
5. Sitting in requires no other obligations from you other than playing your instrument and not ruining the vibe of the band who has the gig. DO NOT mess with the sound, the sound board, mic placement, etc. Sitting in does not turn you into an audio technician.
6. You are a guest musician. You are not a vampire. We should not confuse the two. If you are invited on stage, it is for that immediate period of time and that’s it. Play your tune and get out of the way. You do not get to come and go through the evening as you see fit. “Oh, I know this ballad, I’m going to play two and a half choruses after the third soloist.” Or, “What’s this tune? I sort of know it well enough. I’m going to try out my extended techniques that I only shed on the bandstand in front of this audience.” This is especially important if the band is doing original material. See #4. You don’t need to take a sonic crap on a tune you’ve never heard/seen before, and then insist on spreading your aural feces all over the band and listeners.

3/5/10
I’m a simple man, or at least I try to be. To maintain a level of simpleness to my professional life, I have devised what I refer to as the “Gig Triangle.” As we know from grade school, a triangle has three points. In order for me to say “yes” to a gig, at least one of the points on the triangle has to be met. If two points are met, all the better, and if all three points are met, not only do we get a triangle, but we also get a very happy bassist. This all assumes that I’m getting a call to begin with, and that the particular date and time in question is available. Unlike some working musicians who may prefer to see their triangle as isosceles or even scalene, my triangle is an equilateral. No hypotenuse for this guy. To be perfectly honest, though, my first question if and when I get called is not, “how much?” I’m wondering first and foremost who the drummer is going to be, and if there isn’t a drummer, who is going to be playing the chordal instrument? Thankfully, I get to work with some of the best musicians in town. They make my job easy. It’s not until I have to actually “work” that I realize how thankful I am to have them on gigs. In no particular order, the points are:

1. Is this gig going to be creatively/artistically satisfying? If the answer is “Yes,” it’s a no-brainer. I’ve found that these gigs are more often than not the free gigs. However, I know some very fine musicians that are able to land a good paying gig that is fun to play at the same time. Even if the gig itself only wants background jazz, to be able to play background jazz with good musicians that can still be creative at a low volume is a huge bonus.

2. Does the gig pay well? Reality check. We all have to eat, and we all have bills to pay. If the gig pays well and I get called, I’m doing it. I am constantly amazed at how many people want live music, but at the same time, don’t really want live music. “We want you to go in this corner, play softer than our in-house stereo, don’t call attention to yourself, and we’ll pay you handsomely.” Cool by me. I am a master of interior wallpaper jazz. Sometimes a gig pays well, and it should because it’s grinding work for whatever reason. Maybe the leader is having an off-day? Maybe the drummer secretly resents everyone on stage. This is where bass playing can turn into work, but hey, I’m getting paid to do what I enjoy. Even if it’s work, it’s still valuable playing time that I am fortunate enough to be paid for. Thankfully, many of the “background music” gigs are fun. It’s fun to just play tasty music. Many of the well paid gigs turn into artistically satisfying gigs. Bonus.

3. Does the gig offer good exposure or is it for a good cause? What goes around comes around. This should have been Newton’s First Law. If you want to recieve, you have to give. Musicians in Austin get a lot handed to them. We’re very lucky people. As such, I really try to jump in on any kind of charity gig I can. Many of the best musicians in town feel the same way. What starts as a free gig, turns into an evening of fun with some of the best folks in town.

If not even one of these point are met, it’s either somebody playing a practical joke, or someone from Craigslist has somehow obtained my number and wants me to join their up and coming Texas-Country-Grind-Death-Hard-Funk-Core with progressive rock and jazz leanings band, with major label support, summer and fall tours in the works, they think that I will leave my girlfriend and dog, and be totally 100% committed to their project which will be going straight to the top as soon as they finish writing songs for their first CD which is due out in a month. Kudos to them for recognizing that I am reliable, have good transportation, own my own gear, and don’t have any substance problems. Gig Triangle.

2/15/10
Singers and vocalists do deserve equal pay for gigs/performances. I’ve done what I believe to be a fair amount of gigs with jazz vocalists. They are all different, and they all have a different aesthetic they are going for. I enjoy the jazz singer gigs because I get to perform tunes you normally wouldn’t play on an instrumental gig (like “When the Moon Turns Green”), and some of the more common standards get played in different keys to accommodate the singer’s individual vocal range. Cool and cool. Now, with all due respect, a vocalist/singer is only going to be as good as her backing musicians. What gets to me on these gigs are those slightly jaded musicians that grumble quietly that all the vocalist does is sing. On a typical gig, the format for every song is: The vocalist sings the 32 measure song, solos/band filling time on a four hour gig, the vocalist sings the 32 measure song again, and done. Every now and again there may be an extended piano introduction with a rubato verse before the chorus kicks in. On an 8 minute tune, which is pretty long by restaurant standards, a vocalist is maybe singing for a minute or two of the total time. The band meanwhile plays the entire time, and breaking it down even further, the bassist is playing on every beat of every measure. To stray from the topic, that means I play about 4 quarter notes per measure (not counting any glitz/glam I toss in there). The typical song is 32 measures long, and 32 measures are equal to one chorus. Let’s say it takes 1 minute to get through the chorus and the tune is 8 minutes long, which means we’re going through the chorus 8 times. 4 notes per measure x 32 measures = 128 notes per chorus. 128 notes per chorus x 8 choruses = 1,024 notes per song, and that is not counting the obligatory one chorus bass solo before the vocals return.

To get back on topic, the band is doing the majority of the work on these vocal jazz gigs. Or are they? What backing musicians don’t realize is that any vocalist that wants to have a happy band has to go through the process of making their own charts/arrangements. Many of the vocalists I know aren’t the most musically inclined, they’re just naturally talented, and that’s fine by me. However, as a non-musically literate singer, it has to complicate the process of making charts and trying to explain in non-musical terms how they want an arrangement to go to the rest of the band. They often have to pay a pianist or other instrumentalist to make charts for them to use on gigs, or to translate what they say in prose to make it useful to other musicians who have never played a specific tune before. Not only that, but the singer is the one pounding the pavement for gigs. It’s very hard work just trying to get work. As a sideman, I am thankful there are jazz vocalists that call me, because they are the ones handling all of the logistics. They get to fight with the management to get us more money, to get us 3 breaks and to get free food for all of us. I just have to show up, play about 1,024 notes per song, and get paid. The vocalist is the one that has to get all “dolled up” for a gig and be the personable member of the band for the audience. I can show up wearing black and I really don’t have to say a word to anybody if I don’t want to. It is also the vocalist that makes it sound like the band is the “best” band that the world will ever hear. I take quite a bit of pleasure in hearing one of the many complimentary adjectives come before my name when it is announced to the crowd who will no doubt immediately forget it as soon as they hear it. However, the audience always remembers the singer’s name, and if the singer continues to call me to play on gigs, it’s a good situation all the way around.

2/3/10
My double bass (aka: upright bass, acoustic bass, standup bass, contrabass, bass fiddle, bull fiddle, gut bucket) is currently undergoing some major repairs, and I’ve been crawling the walls trying to busy myself. Most of my days consist of having a bass in my hands for various stretches of time. The top/front of the bass is too weak to support the many pounds of pressure being forced upon it by the strings when they are at their proper playing tension. This is a result of the bass being made of different pieces/cuts of wood and each piece is affected differently by the weather. For the past 7 years, my bass has lived pretty harmoniously in a nice climate controlled university building. Once it came home to the condo, it’s been one thing after another. The weather in Texas has been particularly wild since May 2009. One day, it’s totally dry and sunny, then it rains for three days in a row, then it gets cold so the heat comes on, but it’s Texas, so the heat doesn’t stay on very long and it gets hot again, so the AC comes on. No wonder this huge, hollow, wooden instrument is having some issues.

I had the pleasure of getting to perform last night with Anna Mae who is in town from Maine. We first met and played together while we were both at Central Michigan University, and it’s been a really nice treat to be able to perform with her again. It’s the most fun I’ve had on a gig in a while, and I am lucky enough to play some pretty fun gigs. This gig is different, though. I realize that I am most happy when I have a project/group that I can really call “my own.” Musically, I love it all, but there’s something about playing really good songs really well that totally gets me going. It’s not about being hip or seeing how far you can stretch, it’s about serving a song that can lyrically and musically stand on its own with just a voice and a guitar. The challenge is not getting in the way of the song, but rather, to compliment it. It also doesn’t hurt to have one of the best vocalists I’ve ever heard singing songs that I wrote. The lineup was rounded out by some of the best musicians in Austin (Aaron, Graeme, Darrell), and the way everything just fit together so easily is a sign for me that this needs to continue. I just need to pull a page out of Tom Petty’s playbook and convince them to quit school or their jobs in favor the band.

2/1/10
Part of being a musician is paying your dues. I realize this, but I wonder how some guys get gigs to begin with. Not only this, but how do these people manage to convince other musicians to play with them? The answer: Money. Everyone has to eat and pay the bills. I don’t profess to be a jazz bassist. I am a bassist that plays jazz. I cannot afford to be solely a jazz bassist, and it’s not something that I strive to be. There are some guys that can, and my hat goes off to them. Part of being a working jazz bassist is knowing a lot of tunes, being able to transpose on the fly, and being musically supportive. There are very few gigs that I have to do a rehearsal for. The gig is the rehearsal (or baptism by fire). I’ve had the opportunities to work with some great band leaders and some pretty out of control ones as well. The good leaders all have something in common: They are good guys to begin with. They are sociable, personable, knowledgeable, articulate, talented, and they know how to perform appropriately for the gig. There is a different approach to a club date, a restaurant gig, and a theater performance. A good leader wants a happy band, and knows, “If the band ain’t happen’, he ain’t happenin’.”
A good leader is not out to musically crucify the rest of the band. Music is a team sport, and there is no individual winner in a band. One guy really knowing a tune while the rest of the band struggles does not equal a good performance. The best leaders I have worked for understand that performance is a group effort and they want everyone to be comfortable on stage. If somebody doesn’t know a tune, they will either explain it quickly, or we just won’t do it.
Indication a gig could be headed south:
1. After a tune ends, the leader approaches the mic and states, “We’re now going to play _____,” but doesn’t realize that it’s an obscure tune that only he knows and he doesn’t have a chart for it.
2. “Do you know ____ tune? No? That’s okay, just follow me…. but I do my own version of the Joe Henderson chord changes.”
3. “Just try to keep up and follow me.” As a bassist, this usually means struggling through the first chorus while the leader, who often isn’t a chordal instrument, plays the melody. Unless it’s a bebop melody, most tunes do not have melodies that clearly outline the harmony. Harmony can be deduced based on common practice, but there’s no way to truly know unless the piano player knows the tune and is feeling kind to the bassist.
4. “You’ll hear it.” Again, the leader is likely a horn player or vocalist that typically will blanket through the chord changes instead of playing something to clearly outline the given harmony.
5. “Well… it’s complicated.” This is my favorite. Roughly translated, this means, “I don’t actually know the chords or what is going on. I’m just doing what I do, and it works. I can’t explain it to you, so I’m going to make you feel dumb.”
Thank goodness the folks in Austin are good people.

1/11/10
I was in a recording session with Bruce, Peter and Steve yesterday playing some very challenging music that Bruce had composed. In sessions/situations like this, I feel very fortunate and humble at the same time. I am very fortunate to be invited to be able to play with musicians that are as incredibly talented as these three guys are.
I really enjoy getting to play Bruce’s music. The approach to it is radically different from how I normally get to approach music, and it does not contain melodies or harmonies that would come naturally to me if I were writing. In performance, practice, composition/construction it reminds me of Hindemith. This music is hard! It’s also very intelligent. On the first reading, none of it makes much sense to me. I find myself thinking, “Who writes like this… and why? It’s hard for the sake of being hard, and that’s it.” I learned a while ago to curb these kinds of immediate judgements. It takes time to get inside of this music. I have to really think about how to connect the dots as a functional bassist. Soloing through this music requires other demanding skills. “Here’s a complex new language, write me some poetry.”
The more we rehearsed the music, and the more we played it, the more I was able to get beyond the mechanics of it and really start to hear it. Once I’m able to get comfortable with the execution, the music morphs from being hard to being fun. Imagine that! It’s very complex, and I would think most listeners would need more than one hearing to truly hear it and appreciate it. I believe it’s definitely the kind of music that requires active listening.
I think Bruce’s music has a very modern sound to it. Think of those old Brit Lit days in school and having to read Chaucer. It sounds very dated in its Old English (maybe it’s Middle English). Now, think about reading a book with English as a root language, but the syntax, slang, and expressions are brand new, and unlike Tolkien, there isn’t an appendix. I mean this in a totally positive way, too. I’m merely trying to illustrate my own struggles. I would love to get behind this material in a concert setting.

1/8/10
This is the first entry for 2010. December was a pretty mellow month with the exception of the immense amount of driving I did over the holidays. January has been fairly mind-melting thus far. There are some great things going on that I’m very excited for. I am doing a recording session coming up on 1/10 with Bruce Saunders, Peter Stoltzman, and Steve Schwelling. We’re going to record mostly Bruce’s material, which is very enjoyable and very modern. I’m also playing with the Austin Symphony on 1/15-16 in an all Samuel Barber program. That music has been kicking me around quite a bit. The classical mindset is vastly different from jazz. The difference between the two something worth devoting more thought to in another post at a later time. I’m then touring some high schools the following week with the ASO and then playing with NY guitarist Steve Blum when he comes to town on 1/21-23. On 1/29 I will be playing with David Stevens and then I’ve been asked to perform with bassist/composer P. Kellach Waddle on 1/31 as part of his concert series.

12/9/09
The best single piece advice I have received regarding practice was from my first teacher, mentor, and friend, Ed Fedewa. “Practice slowly. If you can’t play something slowly, you can’t play it fast.” The second great words of wisdom were, “Slow bow.”

12/3/09
(Cynicism Alert) This is dedicated to the lost art of comping behind a bass solo. Notice the adjective in that last sentence before “bass solo” is “behind.” Where is the comping? It is behind the bass solo. You could also say the comping is “under” the bass solo. The comping could also be “for” the bass solo.
Let us examine this further. There are many gifted and talented rhythm section players (guitar, piano, drums). In their pursuit of individual domination on their instrument, they forget that they will often have to play in a group context. They occasionally forget that they will not be the featured soloist or sideman at all times during a gig. In the process of learning every substitution under the sun, and how to make chords built on minor seconds sound musical, they forget how to be supportive of other musicians in the band. Sure, for the sax solo, they catch the cross rhythms, and they have some nice interaction with the drummer. They may even toss in a few chord substitutions that go with the solo. Very cool, indeed. Then it’s their turn to shine. They start off their solo, and slowly build it to the next level, and then the next level after that. A piano player may toss in some very thick shout chorus-esque voicings to bring his solo to a close. A guitar player will peak out the solo, peak it again, and then when you expect he will wind it down, he fakes the audience, the band, and maybe even himself out as he did not adequately send off his solo. He is then forced to take one final chorus which pales in comparison to the previous 20. Now, clearly, this is the final guitar chorus. What happens next?
Situation #1: The band resolves to the top of the form, the bass drops out in preparation for the bass solo, and nobody really plays anything at all. Sure, the drummer may splash a bit of cymbal, and there is some light chording (if any at all), but nobody really knows what is going on. What has changed? What nobody realizes, is that while they were burning on their solo, the bass stayed at home, guarded the fort, was laying it down, and was playing in a supportive manner. In this instance, the first chorus is spent by the bass player not really soloing or creating, but trying to get the train back on the tracks.
Situation #2: The bass solo begins without incident. The volume drops, and the bass has the floor. Now, this is where it gets into personal preference. I (the bassist) have spent the last however many minutes doing my best to make you (the soloist, usually guitar or piano) sound like a bad M.F. on your instrument. You and the drummer have had your rhythmic love affair, yet after the first phrase of the bass solo, you have forgotten that you are supposed to be comping for the bass solo and you both get back into it while paying very little attention to the soloist. All of a sudden I am held at musical gunpoint. All trajectory I was trying to establish is gone, and I’m forced to go along for your musical journey. Bass solo devolves into “rhythm section breakdown before the final head.” OR…
Situation 3: The bass solo begins without incident. The volume drops, and the bass has the floor. Although, this time the comping instrument listens too intently. The concept of being supportive turns into “throw every idea the bassist plays back at him.” If I start a cross rhythm, you play it back. If I hang on a motive, you play it back. Seriously?  I believe many comping instruments think this is cool, and that because they can hear what I play, and play it back, we are having a dialogue. Hey! Want to play Shadow? I want you to know, that when you cross rhythms and motives in your solo, I make a very conscious decision NOT to go there. Cross rhythms only sound cool when they are played against the original meter. It’s only now due to the softness of the music that your ears are open enough to hear somebody other than yourself.   This goes on for one, maybe two choruses until the bass player ends his solo in disgust at becoming the guitar player’s personal chew toy. OR…
Situation 4: The bass solo begins without incident. The volume drops, and the bass has the floor. This is where the comping instrument now decides it’s time to try out all of their most angular and disjunct rhythms as well as the nastiest chord voicings they can conjure up. They play nothing but alterations and upper extensions. Here’s a hint: If you play a D major triad over C7, it sounds hip. If you voice D major over my C7 during a solo, it sounds like I’m playing a whole step lower than a should be. Thanks for that. At this point, any cadences are completely up for grabs. You had better have a very clean soul, because I’m going to wish you to Hell many, many times.
How do we avoid these possible situations?
*Play in time. Pretend you like to play chords. Bill Evans is possibly my favorite pianist because his comping for his bassists is so supportive, yet unobtrusive. He often just lays down a simple voicing on the downbeat. You may also want to check out Pat Metheny or John Scofield.
*Play something useful. Just lay it down. Be supportive and musical. Give me a V-I every now and again. Maybe even help accentuate the form of the tune. If I start riffing on three notes that are common to 4 chords, play those chords clearly. That sort of thing only works if the underlying harmony is there. If you can’t play anything useful, just don’t play. I’d rather go unaccompanied.
*Stay out of the way. My highest usable note is roughly the D above middle C on a piano. Think about it. When I solo, I do NOT want to have a conversation with you. You have spent the last 15 minutes musically monologuing to me. It is now time for you to shut up and be tasty for about 64 measures. That is all.
*Don’t even think about playing a walking bass line under a bass solo. Don’t play anything resembling a bass groove. I don’t care what the instrumentation is. Don’t do it. Period. I will silently hate you with a smile on my face.
Keeping these little guides in mind will greatly help everyone’s musical experience. :) I don’t want to sound completely bitter, so I should add that I personally don’t have to encounter these situations very much. I am very appreciative of that.

11/26/09
I am very thankful today. Thankful for my family and friends. Thankful for my health. Thankful that I am able to make a living and pay my bills by playing music. No matter what life may put in front of me, there’s always something to be thankful for.

11/19/09
“Let my inspiration flow…” – Robert Hunter. It’s one of my favorite invocations to a muse or higher power.