MostlyBass.com

Do you underuse or overuse your tuner?

Most younger players underuse theirs and never develop a solid pitch center.

Most experience players overuse theirs and neglect their pitch independence. Instead of playing scales with your tuner, try this:

Play the first note of a scale
sing the 3rd while playing the 1st degree
play the 3rd
sing the 2nd while playing the 3rd
play the 2nd
sing the 4th while playing the 2nd
etc. etc.

Other ways to improve intonation:
Use a drone pitch -i.e. play a G scale with a constant G playing

Use a recorder for instant feedback on your intonation.

Sing Sing Sing!

Lately I’ve been reading The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I’m working on a simple, yet effective practice checklist. Here’s the first draft:

…with the Tascam, GarageBand, and Amadeus Pro all used as tools.

What style / kind / brand  of the following do you generally recommend to students:

• Upright Bass:
• Bow:
• Electric Bass:
• Amp:

Looking for a great way to capture your music ideas? Check out the Moleskine music notebook!

I’m a huge fan of Moleskine notebooks. They’re sturdy and use high quality paper. Check out their music notebooks:

http://www.moleskineus.com/musicbook.html

http://www.moleskineus.com/moleskine-books.html

More details at his website.

This evening I taught a lesson to student preparing for an audition.

I wanted to be able to hand him a ‘dry run’ DVD of his playing for him to evaluate  before we film the actual audition.

So I had my digital video recorder setup. First we taped his scales and excerpts. While he warmed up on the etude I imported the from files from the SD card in iMovie on my MacBook Pro. We then filmed his excerpt, etude and concerto. While the computer imported those files I used my four-track to play the accompaniment to his concerto through a setup of monitor speakers so we could work on rhythm.

We continued to work with the accompaniment while I burned a DVD of the lesson recordings and was able to hand him the DVD at the end of the lesson!

Ahhh – solid use of technology as a real tool rather than just for its own sake.

Toodledo.com is an easy to use, web-based to-do list. Keeping track of all your tasks will help you avoid disorganization, stay motivated and be more productive. Check it out.

I’m looking to use my skills in the field of personal coaching.

As a music teacher, much of my job is basically personally coaching. During a rehearsal, I organize, analyze and review data. Then I decide what to do with that data, if anything.

In rehearsals, lessons, meetings, and throughout the day knowing what to discard, what to keep, what to pursue, what to modify and what to leave alone are skills I have honed over my years as an educator.

These are skills that can be applied to any area of life.

If you feel your life is out of control or your time management abilities could use some sharpening, I can help!

If emotions are at the core of learning, why do music educators and ensemble directors consistently ignore the student’s emotions? Nearsightedness and for their own emotions.  Or perhaps we should be thinking about future emotions.
It is easier to look a month or two down the road. It is easier to view own your road rather than putting yourself in the students place ten years from now. And of course it feels good to win. Bringing home the gold ‘proves’ that you’re a great teacher. Or does it?
Is it really about how ‘good’ your ensemble is? Is it about how many gold medals you win? How many competitions you attend? Those are events to experience and targets to shoot for but not the end goal. It’s about the students and their experience. It’s about them having a positive experience. It’s about them walking away with positive emotions.

Think about the kid in the back of the section. He’s a mediocre player. Not always in tune and sometimes comes in at the wrong time. Do you cut him or put soap on his bow so he can’t make a sound? Of course not. But down the road, what is really going to matter? Not the fact that the group received a lower rating because of him. No, what will matter is that he participated. When he looks back, the fact that he was in the group will make the difference and in turn affect  how he interacts with people, groups, and situations.

What do you remember about your school music experience? I don’t remember what score I received at contests but I can tell you how teachers treated me and what kind of experience I had.
I remember my baseball coach not putting me in the game because…well because I sucked at baseball! It was a freshman league and all he cared about was winning. Does it really matter? How do you think I feel about that experience and how does that affect me now? Will your students want to attend a musical event as an adult or will it cause negative emotions to reverberate with them?

For a great beginner electric method for young students check out:

Bass 101: A Contemporary Approach to Bass Playing

by Ron Manus & L.C. Harnsberger

I’ve been using it with a 5th grader and it’s perfect!

For a more advanced method book, try Chuck Rainey’s series of “The Complete Electric Bass Player“.

I have a student working on fiddle songs from the Fiddler’s Philharmonic book. The book includes practice tracks and recoding but I wanted to have a background accompaniment track without the melody. I figure I could create one by recording myself playing bass and guitar. Time for the Tascam!

I first recorded a track of the CD accompaniment. I cloned the track to have a backup. I then edited out the beginning where it announces the track name but left in the count in.

Then I recorded myself playing guitar along with the original accompaniment and then overdubbed a bass line. I didn’t want the original but I did want the count in. So I cut out everything on the original except the count in.

Everything sounded good so I mixdown a master and recorded it to a computer with Amadeus Pro, saved it as an MP3 and emailed the file to my student.

All of this in 20 minutes!!!!

Here’s a band me and some colleagues put together for our middle school’s talent show.

My new electric bass – it’s awesome!! Lightweight, sounds fantastic, perfect action and playability.

I’ve now have my Tascam 4-track recorder for 3 weeks and worked with it quite a bit. Most people think of a 4-track as just a means for a garage band or songwriter to lay down ideas or a demo.

I have found it to be an amazing practice tool. It allows you to play along with a built-in metronome and play it back with or without the click track. This is an amazing way to open  your ears to rhythmic issues.

You can also load your own .wav files onto the SD card and record yourself along with it on a second track. Again, what a great practice tool!!! Upon playback, your ears immediately open up and you hear your playing in a whole new light. Musiciality, pitch, and rhythm take one real meaning when you can hearself as an outside listener.

It is also great fun to record yourself playing different parts of a song and for writing your own music and playing the different tracks.

My only real gripe is the lack of a backlit screen – it is a little difficult to see. Tascam’s DP-008 has this. The DP-008 is the 8-track model which is really nice and adds several features but battery life and portability suffer slightly. The DP-004 is really small. I don’t even notice it in my briefcase when I take it to work.

Why are jazz and classical genres having problems?
Why does iTunes excel?
Why do jam bands do well?
Why are recordings difficult to sell?

Why are orchestras such as Prairie Ensemble, Elgin Symphony, and Rockford Symphony doing well?

We need to break out of the tradition of a stuffy classical attitude. Successful ensembles such as the Prairie Ensemble of Champaign-Urbana currently do this.

Some Ideas…

Are classical concerts too long, too boring and too expensive?

Perhaps we need to retrain our audiences – like weight lifting start with small easy workouts then build up length and weight…Perhaps have a musical weightlifting series.

Try shorter, less expensive concerts

Involve the audience

Have a fun theme

Eliminate pretentiousness

Have a ‘dress down’ concert for the audience or encourage it in general

This was a $200 carbon fiber bow that was used in a middle school. It was never abused, always loosened, and given the appropriate care. It played and sounded well until it’s demise. It lasted a few years.