Overall I think I found my final project very unorganised but I managed it, the presentation of it was very crude from point of view there is only so much I wish I could’ve done to improve it. When I performed with Jack and Taylor I felt that went great but I’ve learnt what you put in is what you get out of it. I definitely see that we worked hard to some degree, my small slap part in goodbye angels went well and I held it together in their set. I felt though out of both the performances I featured in this was my most stable one, I supported the other well. I didn’t want to over complicate things on bass as jacks project Idea was to show his progression over the two years he had been at college.
My solo performance, in my opinion I felt like I was barely holding myself together I literally felt like I was being held together by a thread; that was nerves. I they way I tried to convey my ideas on stage, I felt it was enough to show that the bass an amazing instrument alone. I didn’t think I wowed everyone with my mistakes and what not, they say that you only notice your mistakes but I had made mine very noticeable but besides that I showed what I had learned over the years at college, the skills I have gained and the ability to get on stage without messing up too hard.
In the video I could barely speak I come across as a foreigner with my words. still I mumbled my point.
I felt that the other media for my projects failed, I found it hard to record solo bass even with a backing track, I feel like I’m too much of a perfectionist and not everything goes to plan in real life than on paper. I feel like that is a lesson learnt.
I feel like I still stuck from my initial idea from the beginning of the however I didn’t see it at a gig for music entertainment, not trying to sound pretentious as I feel like I was finely tuned for performance. It was rather a demonstration of skill which I know others were doing in form of performance, I felt like I had to justify for each piece I was doing that helped me feel comfortable. Overall I think that my project is just satisfactory and everything could have used a bit of extra effort.
For the first week I feel that this was a large step for me to do and I am not very confident in doing solo performances given that I haven’t barely performed much in college let alone solo. I find that if I do this it’ll be a gradual step to something big, I also find it easier to work on my own, playing bass is a bit unfortunate especially in my case because I feel undermined for playing instrument seen as entry level which i don’t think, I feel like on my course I have a different taste to most, not being contrarian but I don’t want others to play something that isn’t there style. I have no problem with it though.
Final Performance
The day of the final performance I was so nervous I felt like I was going to have a breakdown, I didn’t feel prepared at all I kept on getting anxiety if I messed up or made a fool of myself, all I wanted to do was play and that was it. I was mainly scared because everyone had a set of songs to play in a band and mine was more of a demonstration which I felt would’ve ruined the flow of the night with me barging in coming on with my Bass however I kept on reassuring myself that it would also add variety.
When we were setting up around 3pm I kept on getting nervous, as I already came in late and missed most of the rehearsal session where I had to briefly go over jacks set instead of having a healthy play through. A part of me didn’t want to play as I felt like that because I missed the last session I let the others down, but the most of me didn’t want to let it get to me as I felt comfortable with everything that jack was doing.
I was completely unsure of myself for my set though it was mainly the idea of playing infant of others which I couldn’t bare to think. I felt like was I going through the 5 stages of grief. I had keep on drinking water through out the day and eat food rich in phosphorus which was a suggestion by my tutor.
I gave myself some time to go over everything before the set, the main concern for playing was doing my second piece which was completely underprepared I was going to play with Richard (my tutor) for the first time without rehearsing. I had only briefly shown him ideas. I was confident in my parts that I had written it was just I knew I wasn’t going to get specific parts over eye contact. I told everyone that I was worried, as it drew closer to my time I couldn’t bare to watch anyone else until I was told not to worry, I just had to have a kick start of confidence and be told that I can do it which I received from various people. I was advised to sit down on stage and be comfortable.
As I got on I did my intro piece i intended to do which was half improvised, I just had to keep on reassuring myself. I was comfortable with this piece as it is one of the skills I practised a lot, I remember how other professional bassists would play and I used my pauses to build tension to think of the next thing to do, I was doing well I was popping harmonics all over the place. I think that doing an intro was a good idea so I could subtly ease myself what I was getting myself into, I reckon if I didn’t do it and go straight into something super quick I would’ve messed up. As I got into the second part with Richard I felt I was ready, I still kept on doing this thing where I kept on repeating myself over and over again sometimes but I was able to over come that and move to other ideas. However it was not perfect it was a giant leap of improvement for myself.
The Stevie Wonder piece I did I felt like it went alright and start I was able to come in really well, I played the notes expressively like intended and also how victor Wooten did; the way he plays it. But this I started to let my anxiousness get the best of me. I thought it was going great until I had a small mistake of ruining the intricate rhythm I kept on stopping only for a second and carried on.
The final piece of music I was going to perform I thought went well. This was my best piece in my opinion. The one where I did lots of finger tapping. all was well too until I thought I should try going to the next part. I just froze when I messed up and said I’m sorry out of confusion, I carried on and overcame the awkwardness and ended on a good note.
Throughout my final performance I explained my aims of this project, the words didn’t come out as planned and I came off as I was foreign and not english. But I just accepted that I am an awkward person, I felt at heart I was just being myself. Talking on stage is as hard as playing for me.
Overall I got it done overall, I can see now that what you put in is what you get out. If I was too improve on my mistakes I would truly become better. In hindsight I should go to college more but I’ve learned a lot about performance.
Ci Fe Music. (2018). Final Gig 4. [Online Video]. 22 May 2018. Available from: https://youtu.be/yzpPKP_7SGU. [Accessed: 20 July 2018].
Ci Fe Music. (2018). Final Gig 1. [Online Video]. 22 May 2018. Available from: https://youtu.be/yzpPKP_7SGU. [Accessed: 20 July 2018].
Davdave Oldschool. (2015). The All Star Bass Series – Bass As a Solo Instrument. [Online Video]. 4 April 1999. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIxnqAC8TJQ. [Accessed: 9 May 2018].
AccoladeVideo. (2012). Victor Wooten – Isn’t She Lovely. [Online Video]. 26 April 2012. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eynnYLXW3Fo. [Accessed: 18 April 2018].
This first week I was set to follow the plan as simple as it is which I find that it was for the beginning, then I realized it was going to get a bit out of hand, with people now being in, like myself, it can really mess up schedule but I was able to get the following done like said in the original plan apart from my solo performance rehearsal where I didn’t really find much time to myself practicing with the others.
WEEK 2
This week I was still following the plan of rehearsals and blogs and all, which is something we have to do any week so I’ll practice no matter what when I am in college, but not all the rooms will be free and not every room is suitable for our set up, sometimes there are no bass amps available and we have to wait a while which isn’t a problem but it just puts strain on our practice with out limited time. When do try to practice outside of our lesson time it trickier because of the other lessons going on because the other groups will get the priority.
week 3
Our recording studio session time was really confusing for my group, the two guys that were meant to come in didn’t come in which is kind of hard on us and because of that the repercussions we suffered were just time delays, having to push the dates which kind of wasted time for us and others, we managed to get some recording down but wasting half the lesson waiting for some guys was just a bit dis heartening. I got my drum track down in the end but only had a few minutes to get it done. My group got there stuff done too as well in the allotted time but we had to discuss what we were going to do in that time and plan what needs to be done first, so we chose the biggest word load which was jacks set for myself I didn’t need much done so we left it to the last part of the lesson, we weighed it out why it was more important; I didn’t need a backing track for the first recording since mine was original stuff.
week 4
Things are getting behind a bit and the limited time of resources are worrying for me as I am a really slow practical worker when it comes to studio; I’m a perfectionist. Rehearsals are going good and we’ve caught up with what we are doing.
Week 5
In Unit 12 I said that we should have the set polished and ready to be rehearsed on a regular basis, I’m behind on that one but we are nearly there. When written, in theory, planning can be perfect but there is so many things you have to take account for in the real world. Like things that get in your way in life can up hold what you are doing. For my solo performance, I have barely acted up on that so what I have done is taken time to practice at home when I have the change also my blog too which I have been neglecting it quite often, its easy to forget because you think it is fine all in your head when you know what you have to do but then suddenly you’ve gone so far ahead that you’ve left it behind thinking its OK because you know you can do it anywhere.
Week 6
The set list is nearly done, all we have to do is practice with Richard but we are nearly done, our studio partners have been scarce but we have made that up for doing loads of rehearsal.
week 7
We had have the set list done and everything is all ready to go and set for performance there is like said, there was not many differences in this weeks schedule.
week 8
The final studio recording time and everything got done for jacks work however I didn’t get my completely done there are still bit here there to do. The planning for that day was to finish the rest of jacks work since it was near completion it would be better to get that done. Instead of everything else.
for the first week I’ve been trying to have been trying to learn it for ages and I struggled with the technique called double thumbing; the skill accompanies the slapping of the bass, letting you play upstroke and downstrokes whilst being able to slap and pop the strings. Previously I was switching between strumming the guitar with my fingers and then slapping which was really tricky and ruined the groove of the piece I was learning. This allows you to do many things whilst doing slap bass such as triplets which sounds really impressive.
I’m still trying to practise this technique but I can’t manage it which mean I can’t do the song which is quite fast paced, I can do it really slowly and I try exercises which helps me get the trick down but I might have to pull out a piece.
My Strongest area in playing bass currently is playing it like a guitar, Ironically, I should play the guitar but I think that is gives a unique sound. My main skill in this is picking strings in a different pattern like Bossa Nova style guitar. A style I adapted from watching loads of YouTube videos on famous bassist’s like Nathan East and Abraham Laboriel. It’s very hard to come up with these rhythms on my own so I usually watch a reference video or copy the original video I learned from my self.
This Technique aids me in the piece I will be performing called Isn’t she lovely by Stevie Wonder, for this week I’ll exclusively learn the rhythm; it contains a lot of dead notes giving it a sense of groove, I make the unheard notes heard using my bass as a percussion instrument as well as a melodic and harmonic one too.
Unlike traditional bass playing of just picking the bass (walking bass line) Im using the back of my nail to give a smooth sound opposed to playing with my fingertips it can give a sense of control and velocity it is a small difference and it is something I do personally and developed from playing naturally over the years. This just helps me accent the notes on my instrument.
Other techniques I have developed and started to focus on my instrument are harmonics which a way of getting a really resonant note out of the bass at a higher frequency than playing the fretboard, combining play the frets and harmonic helps me play chords on the bass which sound really heavenly. I took this from watching loads of Jaco Pastorius videos. Taking main inspiration from Portrait of Tracy.
Using this technique is really subtle so I have made use of it for an introduction because of the soft way it sounds, it is easy on the ears and not in your face like most of the other stuff I’ll be playing.
30.4.18
This week I have elaborated on my techniques and successfully integrated them into a piece mostly. I have made a major improvement on isn’t she lovely by Stevie wonder, now I can get the main rhythm down the next step is to just manage the chord switches. At most I have three fingers at a time on the fretboard and maybe sometimes four. I can easily get this done by just carrying on practising and different speeds gradually getting to a speed I want to or I am comfortable with.
I have decided that I will try a new technique that I am very new to which is finger tapping, I have become infatuated with. It’s hard to get used to since I am not doing the conventional taping I am using my guitar like a steel guitar whilst playing a chord with my left hand, it gives this really good portamento sound, very wishy-washy noise but it helps blend the chords together.
I have a written a piece where I do the tapping, my only problem is chord switching some chords I want play are extended so can have all of my fingers on my bass at once then using the right had to extend the chords playing 9th and 11th. But I feel like I am trying too hard to make myself sound a bit complicated.
7.5.18
I’ve gotten a hold of playing the Stevie wonder piece now, I’m seeing what I can do to enhance it, by playing small fills in-between the chords but I become out of time which is aggravating, I keep on complicating things because I want to keep on going up the next level for myself.
Other skills I am developing aren’t just mainly techniques for the Bass guitar but also things such as being punctual and communication, which I am terrible at but it’s something I’m getting to grips with; I am doing solo but some others are relying on me too so I always let Jack and/or Taylor where I am even if it’s me not coming it or when I am coming it, it still helps my communication skills. It’s very important that I come in and I feel like that im letting that slip so next week I need to come in more often to use my practise time
I’m doing a song for Jack’s Set where I have this solo part which is quite brief but it’s the bridge at the end of this song by Red Hot Chili Peppers called Goodbye Angels, Which I find easy but
There is many problems for myself to do with performance that I need to alleviate such as getting on stage and not being shocked stiff from getting anxious if I mess up, I find it very hard to play at the beginning, if I start making mistakes I keep on doing them which is not good for myself. I have to ease in and gain more confidence and I have a way of doing this where I play in front of just a handful of people when I can, I’ll play my Bass in the classroom when I can with people in it, they usually won’t be listening but still helps my confidence and getting used to others. Another way for me is to play in front of my peers in rehearsal asking for their opinions on this piece that I wrote or this piece that I am doing for the final performance which helps me a lot. If I keep on doing this till the end I’ll be able to do it but at the moment it’s just trying not to stutter on my instrument, If I mess up i just keep on repeating the same Idea over and over again like a broken record until my mind can find reassurance.
Other problems I have come across are not communicating properly. I feel as sometimes jack doesn’t get things across to me or I don’t really see like he is all enthusiastic when I play with him. In our rehearsals together we briefly go over his set, I don’t feel like he has a sense of direction other than following the song. Sometimes he messes up too I don’t blame him it happens in rehearsals but I feel as if there is no gradual improvement but I think that can be me being out the loop sometimes. I require jack to tell me if I am doing something wrong as well but I feel like he may be too anxious to tell me, I completely understand if I am doing something wrong and I’ll take his feedback I just feel like I am not getting that. I think I should discuss these things with him so he can elaborate and further his set. Communication is key in this and I think it is not there at this current moment.
Something I need to do as well is really pull my weight with coming and actually attending the rehearsals as it’s impacting others such as Jack and Taylor this is probably the root of all problems, if I come in I feel as I do more practises I’ll get a real feel when I play with jack, it’s hard to keep up with him as his internal timing can sometimes go off; fair enough we have no drummer but I expect him to develop that skill for himself too. I don’t want to completely slate him, he is an excellent guitarist and I think he has a good way of utilising his pedal board to get individual sounding tones, sometimes he can replicate the exact tone from the song on his guitar.
Like I mentioned with not having anyone to drum for us all the time, I have to improve my own timing and develop a sense of rhythm for myself as I am doing a solo set along with playing with Jack it’s just us too. The ways of overcoming this could be just playing to a metronome or the songs itself but because we don’t always have the equipment at the time we play out instruments acoustically over Jack’s phone and then we play the song without it and so on in a pattern.
This part of the blog is my research, I have been on the web mostly looking at videos on bass soloists and important figures who pioneered different bass techniques.
Whilst looking through other videos on YouTube as well I came across a piece called flip flop by victor wooten which had inspired me to write song similar to that as well. What influenced me was the way chords were struck between playing a melody on the instrument alone and very high paced playing. So I started experimenting what I could do on my instrument and developed the frameworks to something I will perform and record.
Before the start of the 2nd week I was able to practice a few things at home and watch some videos on solo bass playing; this video opened my mine up to how I want to portray the idea of playing the bass and the way it is shown to non bass players. The video features many prolific bassists one in particular was Nathan East. As East had played he explains how he likes to compete against guitar and saxophone in terms of melody, he incorporated harmony which really gave me insight on how to add expression to an instrument.
I’ve also have been analyzing Jaco Pastorious and the way he plays, I never understood the big deal about him but I’ve now realized it was his performances that really captivated people. His playing is really malleable and he can easily harmonize when chords are played but I feel like his improv skills are amazing the way he thinks outside the box has helped me see useful ways to achieve different sounds and how to convey my instrument with subtle expressions. One of his most famous tracks “Portrait of Tracy” every time he plays it the way he builds up into the main harmony slowly with tension
Watching this video showed me another way of playing, as I sift through loads of videos on youtube about other Bass players I have discovered some amazing people which has totally changed my mind on playing Bass, I now can see it in many ways. it has also helped me to see that you can use any instrument any way. This has made me think that it’s not all that bad and my set isn’t as weak as I thought. I know I can play like these guys. Not as great but like them.
The purpose of my project is to show what the bass guitar can do and that it’s more malleable than it seems. The Bass is known to be the instrument for people who find guitar too hard, or a simpler alternative to becoming a musician and a looked down on instrument. These statements may be true to some but I want to show that the bass can be utilized on its own for solo performance like any other instrument.
Also to combat getting anxious on stage is good is a key aim for myself too
I am basing my project around many great bass players, amazing techniques and other wring harmony and melody for the bass instead of just using the tool to accompany others.
The initial idea came from my skill of doing slap bass as I picked it up it made me feel like I can now make the bass a lead instrument, going on to finger tapping and then writing chord progressions together. I want to get my playing style out there. Many great artists have influenced me but the biggest one is Victor Wooten his way of playing Bass is impressive.
In this session we did umbrella by Rihanna is was quite straightforward to learn for me although it took a while to get the groove when playing with the drums
Session Musician – 05/11/17
Today we learnt a handful of tricky songs, one that was quite a challenge for the group was Riverboat song because of its time signature, to some it was hard going to different parts as the songs we have listened most of our lives have most likely been 4/4 and they we hear things are naturally in 4/4 most of the time. So it was hard to get into time signature at first, playing alone would be easier but when it’s all together you don’t know who’s having a hard time or not. Around the 1:19 there is an abrupt stop because of the pre-chorus change which caught loads of people out. I think that if someone struggles with something they shouldn’t be afraid to tell anyone else because it’ll help us how to approach it as a team which is a valuable to team building skills.
Playing Pretty Vacant was quite easy, when we do punk I find that we do it quite well as we have listened to a lot of punk and practised it before in the year before, it is meant to sound bad so making mistakes make the piece pretty flawless. I find that this piece went good because it was simple and easy to follow. I find that this is an example of a good session.
Session Musician – 20/02/18
Today we had three new songs to learn today, I had not listened or learned any at home beforehand which however I trust my hearing skills and find it quite it easy to learn by hearing more than reading tablature or sheet music. The songs we had to do today were Sweet O child of mine by Guns ‘N’ Roses, Mr. Brightside by The Killers and Animal by the rag ‘n’ bone man. The first song we had to play I found quite simple I figured out the bass line when we had a chance to listen to the song, I find listening allows me to get a sense of rhythm which you wont get on most tab. This is a good skill to learn since it could be used to build up practise for session musician. I feel that I can develop this further by just listening to degrees of the scale at home in my free time to differentiate tones apart the purpose of this would allow me to identify parts of songs easier.
This song was mainly built up on major arpeggios and root notes which are something I could recognise easily. The rest of the song was mainly root notes but I gave it a few extra fills in between such as going to a perfect 5th or 4th which has a very consonant sound , for a rock song this will complement power chords and/or bar chords. My instrument doesn’t play a big roll apart from adding weight to the main riffs and solos, it’s like a base for the guitar to play over so I just wanted to compliment it not over do which I did for most of the time.
I find songs in the rock genre easy as it is a common style of music that most people have listened too ,when we had to change it to reggae style our band really had to think about what we were going to do so we sat down and discussed what elements reggae music has also how we could change the song a bit but not changing it. This exercise helps us with team thinking but also recognising what elements we have been taught over time by learning reggae songs too. The big changes we had to make in piece was the rhythm, we gave it a shuffle to give that wavy dance feel that reggae has. Notes that were sustained became palm muted; played by rhythm section guitar and for the harmony the chords were played on upstrokes. The bass plays a crucial part in reggae so what I did was play the arpeggios to create bouncy back and forth kind of feel.
When we had change Mr. Brightside
In the session I felt like I did over complicate it a lot, as you can see I try to play loads of fills in most of the songs, next time I should consider that less can be more, to consider the elements of the genre rather than trying not to be technical as that what makes a good bassist. Also what I should’ve done is learn or listen to the songs in advance, in a real world scenario if I was called up to do a last minute gig a day before, not listening to the songs and go in without having learning a bit it would be very noticeable. In this session you’ll see I sometimes get lost at times which wouldn’t be professional.
Session Musician – 27/02/18
I was not able to today’s session however I had time over the week for a bit of self study; in this time I listened to a lot of reggae because last week I received a comment from a peer saying that I was over complicating the groove of the beat. I got carried away whilst playing really getting into I didn’t take offence to this comment so I took the diplomatic approach by listening to the feedback. With this given feedback I listened to the reggae analysing what part the bass plays for reggae, learning that it is quite simple I found out that less is more in this genre. I’ll be able to take constructive comments in a professional manner, if I was doing a session with others for a gig on last minute notice they’d most likely just want me to play the way that the audience would remember the song; since not everyone is a bass aficionado like me I need to put myself in an audience perspective.
Session Musician – 06/03/18
For this session we had to learn 5 songs in a small amount of time. This was a tricky task since of the time limit there was many quarrels between a few of us over getting the main riff’s right for most of the pieces. I think that are problem solving and teamwork is getting better, no one takes being corrected wrong it’s more of a debate that we all take part in to help each other improve ourselves.
Session Musician – 13/03/18
This I think is one of the best rehearsals we’ve done since everyone pretty much knew the song. I never had played the song before but I easily picked it up being shown by my classmates; I had a couple of minutes only to learn it. I the only qualm with learning the trooper was the intro (since January I have been listening by ear and playing by what I hear instead of tabs/sheet music) but it wasn’t a big deal as the communication between our group is pretty good so I was shown the bass line with in seconds.
I feel that my listening skills have further developed rhythmically, I’ve been paying attention to different note values whilst playing, earlier in the sessions my listening skills were exclusively exempt to only hearing the pitch value rather than me paying attention to it rhythmically as my skill wasn’t that fast enough to identify the certain grooves/rhythms within the short time we have to learn these songs. I always have tabs to resort too but my aim is to become a session musician because that would be really unprofessional if I turned up to a session with no clue how the song goes.
My struggle with this track
Session Musician – 20/03/18
For this session me Taylor and Jack I found this session very hard to get on, I found the pacing of it too boring and simple so I didn’t really find a way to work around it that well, you can see in this video that I get confused about what rhythm I should follow, I didn’t know what to follow, jacks guitar playing or The Drums. I find Jack’s playing slacks a bit and he does make subtle mistakes like if he forgets something I understand it happens but he doesn’t carry on the flow of the song there is always an abrupt stop. The last song I played was can’t stop which I found easy to get on with, it’s more fast paced and we’ve practised it before in other sessions however I keep on slipping out, which is normally not me when I play but I think it could be Jack again, he plays the end of the chorus too early which throws me off. I don’t have a problem with Jack but this is something I can’t keep on doing as it affects my playing a lot. I should speak to him and ask him to rehearse the song more next time which would solve the problem. I also noticed that his tone was too sharp for the piece until we got to the bridge then it sounded good. Towards the end of can’t stop I was getting into the Slap part really well and locking in to the groove.
I find playing with a smaller amount of people easier to find what mistakes I’m making because there is less sound. I think its good when we practise in smaller groups so we can aim to make the pieces better just with limited instruments, which I think is a great exercises for bands as it utilises the only tools you have. If we carried on playing in smaller groups from then on we would have found better ways to fill out the pieces too.
I think that next time I should speak to jack about his pacing and tone when it comes to playing different songs as it is hard to adapt and overcome his mistakes. ]
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