Some musical skills are best learned alone - technique, scales and
arpeggios, the layout of your fingerboard and so on. Bass Musician
Magazine offers some great lessons to help you with slapping, tapping,
left hand gymnastics, etc; and we all need to put our time in to get
ourselves ready to perform physically.
Then there are all the other skills that can only be acquired in the
context of playing with other musicians, namely: listening, dynamics,
groove, accompanying a singer or soloist; in other words, all of the
intangible aspects usually referred to as "ensemble". Great word, that
- it signifies "all the parts of a thing considered together", which is
about the best definition of a musical group I've come across.
So, its simple: musicians get together and play. We go to music school,
join or create a group, jam informally with our friends or rehearse
with various professional ensembles. But what can we do when there
aren't any other like-minded peers available for any of these
activities? And, how can a lesser experienced player get ready to play
with other people on their own and at their own pace?
We can opt for the next best thing: play along or backing tracks. Every
jazz musician I know has used Jamey Aebersold's infamous play along
recordings. I've still got LP and cassette (!) versions of some of the
first albums I used to figure out what a 12 bar blues or an "I Got
Rhythm" form is.
For most of my career I've been helping my students get comfortable
with playing in an ensemble by developing the specific skills necessary
to become accompanists and soloists. It is crucial that bass players
know how to play various grooves (including walking), interpret chord
changes, internalize song forms, etc. A few years ago I became aware of
the fact that if you're not in school, or are a little bit past your
20's, or don't live in a larger urban area it can be very challenging
to find appropriate people to play with.
So I went on the hunt for good backing tracks. I bought a ton of
book/CD sets and unearthed some of the recordings I'd used as a young
player. I became quite frustrated, because the material I found,
including the Aebersold recordings, was lacking in so many ways. The
tracks were either poorly played or recorded, they were only available
in limited keys and tempos and many of them didn't have a way to "turn
off" the bass track so a student could really hear and feel what it
might be like to be the bass player in that particular setting.
After much consideration, I bit the bullet and started creating my own
sets of play along tracks, which I now sell at PlayJazzNow.com. Since
this is not an infomercial, I won't go into the details, but you can
check out the site if you're interested. There's all kinds of cool
stuff there (and not just for us bassists, either!).
I've been invited to write a regular column on using play along tracks
to improve your skills, and that is exactly what I'll start zeroing in
on next time. Meanwhile you can view these videos to see how I explain
some elementary walking techniques:
