Zen and the Art of Playing Bass

My Big Band music class starts up again tomorrow.  This morning I began practicing the songs (on my string bass) that I learned in the last session.  I noticed how much easier it is to read notes this time around.  What once was torture is now an achievable task.  You do something many times over and it becomes easier to do.  Funny how that works.  I am not "there" yet, but I am further down the road.

Before I started this class, my two string basses sat in their stands, untouched, gathering dust.  No more.  Now they both get handled a lot, played, tuned, adjusted and repaired.   I am forever tweaking the setup of each one, always seeking the best playability (the "action") and sound possible.  I even ordered a well known book to teach me better how to do that:  Chuck Traeger's book, Setup And Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound: A Manual for Players, Makers, And Repairers.

Mastering an instrument is similar to learning a new language.  It requires immersion, study, practice, contemplation and great patience.  Zen might help too, except that it is difficult to play bass while holding the full lotus position.  

Stick with it long enough and you may come up with something like "The Abe Train" (see video below).  The Abe Train is a jazz quartet of young musicians in their twenties.  They are from the San Francisco Bay Area and damn good.  The bass player really grooves.  Use headphones so you can hear every note of their rendition of "Autumn Leaves."

Listen to My String Bass!

This is an experiment. I played a riff on my string bass and recorded it. I am attempting to find a way to post it on my blog. I found this site that allows free uploads of files and a way to link to the file.

Click on the link below and enjoy the twangy, bouncy sound of my Calin Wultur Panormo string bass.



Kewl!  It worked.

Diana Krall Sings "Temptation"

I love the bass in this song.

The Bass is MINE

I was able to acquire the Calin Wultur Panormo today.  I can't believe this fine double bass is standing here in my music room.  The setup is great -- very easy to press down the strings; the nut and the bridge are set perfectly.  (By the "nut" I am not referring to the new owner.)

The tone and volume are unbelievable!   My laminate bass sounds tinny in comparison to the rich warm tones that bounce out of the Calin Wultur. 

Okay, finally I have a serious double bass, one worthy of professional performances.  Now I need to find a group to play it with.  That will be my next goal.

The Calin Wultur is the first bass on the left in the photo.  

My music supplier told me that he sold his Hans Kroeger bass and also bought a Calin Wultur Panormo, the very same bass.

My Desired Double Bass: A Slim Chance for Getting It

My most coveted goodie in the whole world is a Calin Wultur Panormo fully carved bass.  This bass is made in Romania and has an unusually rich tone and a lush voice.   It is loud for an acoustic instrument and sounds unusually good.  It's an orchestra quality bass; you could play it in the Philharmonic Orchestra and not be a bit embarrassed.

It generally costs $4,000 but is comparable to basses that costs $10,000.  My supplier told me that he would sell one to me for only $2,900.  That's one heck of a bargain.  That's the actual bass on the left.

My dealer is hurting for cash as are all small businesses these days.  My wife has consented to going with me to look at the bass on Sunday.  It will be a hardship for us to buy the bass right now, but it may be my only chance to buy one this year.   At that price, I suspect he will sell the bass in the next couple of weeks if I don't snag it.

Tomorrow I am going to be analyzing my income and expenses in an attempt to figure a way.  Wish me luck!

UPDATE:  I got the bass!

Groovin' on the Upright Bass

I reported some time back that I am learning to play the upright bass (see picture of an upright bass). I am amazed and pleased to see a lot of progress in my mastery of this instrument.

I love many music styles, including rock, bluegrass, country & western and rhythm & blues. However, the genre I am looking to learn is jazz. Jazz gives maximum opportunity to improvise, but improvisation isn't as easy as it sounds -- where just play any darn thing that pops into your head. Being able to improvise requires a sound knowledge of scales and chords. What you are playing must resonate harmoniously with the key and chords of the song you are performing. You can't just play anything. It has to fit.

I have been practicing scales (do re mi fa so la ti do) in every key, for both major, minor and dominant 7th scales, as well as arpeggios (chords, which involve only select notes in the scale). If you want to learn bass, you have to practice your scales a million times each, until you could jump out of an airplane at 5,000 feet and rip through all of them before your parachute opens. Well, to be honest I am not going to test my knowledge this way.

Practicing scales allows you to exercise your fingers, using the right fingers at the right time for maximum reach, dexterity and tonal quality. It also greatly trains your ear and creates something called muscle memory -- you know where on the finger board to press without thinking about it; it's instantaneous.

Playing scales is only part of your ear training, however. You need to listen often to the music you want to learn. I play jazz CDs in my car going to and from work, with the bass speaker turned up and the treble speaker turned down so I can clearly hear every pop, twang and hum of the bass. I want to hear these bass lines in my head when the music is turned off and now I can.

So after doing all this for awhile, when you hear a jazz tune and are familiar with jazz chord patterns, like minor blues patterns, you know what to play instantly.

I'm using some CDs created for training jazz muscians. They are produced by a guy named Jamey Aebersold. Each CD comes with a book of the music so you can follow the chord patterns. This week I played the Minor Blues in II-V7-I pattern, took my bass out of the stand and...played the music almost perfectly on the first try. I was truly amazed. So regular practice actually works! Who would have guessed?

So to sum it all up, to play an instrument you must (1) learn what the music is supposed to sound like and (2) learn to make those sounds! Simple. Well, not really, you have to be willing to work and be patient.

I've also taught myself to read notes in the bass clef and that comes in handy when learning patterns and tunes from a book. Dang, I be a musician, Bro!

Paul McCartney on Bill Black's String Bass

I love string bass (electric bass too) and I have been a fan of Paul McCartney since 1964. I have been an Elvis fan since 1957. In the early days of his career, Elvis had a great guitar player named Scotty Moore and a string bass player named Bill Black. The electric bass guitar was not widely used yet (Fender introduced the Precision Bass in 1951), so Bill Black used the old-fashioned acoustic, stand-up bass (still preferred for jazz and orchestras).

Paul McCartney somehow came into possession of Bill Black's old bass and demonstrates it in this video.