How much is enough?

[Bilbo]

I had an interesting discussion with a musician friend last night after doing two gigs with him in three days.

The first gig was a 'pop' gig on electric bass, a function full of generally run-of-the-mill pop standards; Alfie, Son Of Preacher Man etc. The second was a Jazz gig on double bass playing charted arrangements of standards. The discussion related to the fact that, as most of my gigs are now on double bass, I commented that I had found my electric chops were more than a little rusty on the earlier gig and that I felt that I needed to get them back up to scratch. THe problem is that I only seem to be playing about 4 gigs a year on electric and, as those are pop gigs, the question was 'how much technique is enough'? I am not going to be doing Victor Wooten stuff or even 'Rhythm Stick'; it's all a lot more 'functional' than that. My friend suggested that, as I was doing so few electric gigs, it didn't matter that much. We got talking about the concept of a musicans 'fantasy life' versus their 'real life'. I have spent decades playing music and, thoughout that time, have invested a lot of time and effort in developing my technique. I listen to the best players and try to emulate the best qualities of each. Whilst I generally fail in the absolute sense, this is more a case of 'if you reach for the moon, you may get to the stars' (or whatever the saying is) and that, whilst I cannot quite cut Jaco, I can play most of the more difficult stuff within reason and, with proper rehearsal, can usually nail the rest. The problem is that I never will.

I 'real life', I live in an East Anglian seaside town with a population of a few thousand. The quality of local Jazz is defined pretty much by me in that I put the main gigs on around here and no-on else is doing anything in which I am likely to be (or even want to be) involved. There are a couple of guys working locally who are cool players but they are certainly no better than I am. The other (non-bass playing) musicians are just doing their thing and mostly use double bass players like me; no better and no worse. All of them require functional bass players and never write/arrange anything that requires Neils Henning Orsted Pederson quality playing, just the usual quarter notes with the occasional written part in arranged sections. We came to the concusion that, as we live in the sticks, we are never going to get called to dep on a Weather Report gig or the replace Matt Garrison with Herbie Hancock, nor are we likely to get Miguel Zenon turning up with a set of charts that massively catch us out. These 'fantasy gigs' are for London players, New York players, people whose lives have taken them to the large population centres where these tough gigs are born. For the kinds of gigs I do, I probably had the requisite technique when I was about 20.

Knowledge of music, knowing what works in making good music, is much more important than chops. (For the record, last night's gig was a real pleasure).

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1431334942' post='2770005']
Knowledge of music, knowing what works in making good music, is much more important than chops.
[/quote]

Yup.

[visog]

I love your examples of 'Pop' (a term not used by anyone under 20 since 1983) are both from the '60s. Late '60s mind so you're not too out of date.

I think your question is less about technique and more about being unfulfilled in a remote musical location and age (not you, I'm referring to our shared musical environment in 2015 - moribund, sparse and at times, hostile). I suspect even the modern 'super' players you mention struggle to earn an income and rely on equipment endorsements and hence their conspicuous demonstrative styles.

[Bilbo]

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1431606469' post='2773087']
I love your examples of 'Pop' (a term not used by anyone under 20 since 1983) are both from the '60s. Late '60s mind so you're not too out of date.

[/quote]

Gigs I do also include Good Times, Valerie, Mercy, a couple of Jesse J tunes, Maroon 5, Happy - it's all in there. My point was that most of it was playable by me when I was two or three years in .

[Truckstop]

Most music just isn't very hard at all.

[Bilbo]

I wouldn't say most music, just most popular music!!

[Truckstop]

But even complex, lengthy and structurally interesting music is learnable. It doesn't require extra knowledge or experience to learn 'hard' music. It's all just notes on a fretboard at the end of the day and, like you, I learnt a lot in the first few years of my playing life and have barely improved (in a physical sense) since.

[Truckstop]

I do see your point though, Mr. Baggins, and I don't want to detract from that. I've just gone off on my own train of thought.

Many apologies

[Guest bassman7755]

I've always been blessed with great hand-eye coordination so technique is the easy bit for me, the measure of a musician though is the ability to play the right notes at the right time and I probably suck at that compared to a genuinely great player. Bilbo - I suspect your "right" notes are very good indeed, and getting more "right" all the time, isn't that whats it really all about ?.

[Bilbo]

Your point is valid, though. In the 80s and 90s, after studying for years and successfully learning things like Jeff Berlin's stuff on Joe Frazier, his intro to Bruford's Five G, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Teen Town, Achool Days, Stu Hamm's Country etc, I always operated on the belief that everything was learnable given enough time and attention. I still believe that is the case broadly speaking but, over the years, I have met and played (one gig mostly) with some astonishing musicians and I really got a sense that there is a whoie 'nother level that cannot be reached by rote learning but which requires 'insight' as well as 'knowledge' and 'motor skills'. The problem, as I see it, is that, in order to develop this additional insight and to move up to that level, you need total immersion in the genres in question; Jazz in my case but I have no doubt that the same applies to other genres like classical etc. My three hours playing a week isn't going to get me there,

[SubsonicSimpleton]

I think there is a big difference between being a bassist and being a genuinely well rounded musician who happens to play bass.

Aquiring physical ability is fairly straightforward, there are plenty of learning resources which can be used in tandem with a metronome/drum machine and a bit of discipline. Developing the many other skills that are involved in composing/arranging/transcribing/skilled listening/improvisation/reading etc is IMHO much more difficult.

Thinking about the best musicians I've had the pleasure to work with, to me their physical technique always seemed to be like the visible tip of a iceberg, backed up with a hefty bulk of other skills and understanding which was informing their playing invisibly from beneath the surface of the water, the worst ones I've played were more like ice cubes, without anything much to back up the physical technique (and I was definately in that place once upon a time myself, and realising it changed my aspiriations substantially).

If you never get the oportunity to play/study with with someone who can truly dispel the dunning-kruger effect mist about your abilities in areas other than your ability to play some flashy licks on your instrument, how on earth are you ever going to realise that it is possible to develope in a broader sense, beneficial to do so and that it can be done through practice and study like any other skill? Without suitable guidance can you reliably conceive what you need to do to make the necessary improvements?

The majority of upper echelon players have usually studied with upper echelon teachers, musicians like Francois Rabbath who manage to get there through self tuition are rare, so maybe making that final step up to the top tier is something that for many requires the advice and inspiration of a mentor who has already got there (as well as a lot of hard work).

[Bilbo]

Massively good post, SS.

[ahpook]

Well, this thread just underlines to me that there are some highly skilled musicians on this forum whose heads work on a plane many, many levels above mine !

Edited May 19, 2015 by ahpook

[Bilbo]

I always try to alert developing bass players (and other young musicians I come in contact with) to the fact that being able to play complex pieces made famous by other hot-shot bassists (or other instrumentalists) does not put you anywhere near being in their league. In my day it was Teen Town, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Jeff Berlin's 'Bach' or 'Dixie', Stanley Clarke's 'SIlly Putty' etc. Nowadays it's Victor Wooten's 'Amazing Grace' or Marcus Miller's slapped version of Teen Town or a two-handed tapping version of the Super Mario Brothers theme etc. The simple act of learing someone else's party pieces is far removed from functioning at the level required to contribute to the art form in a meaningful way. Understanding the music requires considerably more insight than that gained from 'knowing where to put your fingers'.

[visog]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1432023867' post='2777268']
Achool Days
[/quote]

Do you have a cold?

[JTUK]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1432023867' post='2777268']
Your point is valid, though. In the 80s and 90s, after studying for years and successfully learning things like Jeff Berlin's stuff on Joe Frazier, his intro to Bruford's Five G, Donna Lee, Portrait of Tracy, Teen Town, Achool Days, Stu Hamm's Country etc, I always operated on the belief that everything was learnable given enough time and attention. I still believe that is the case broadly speaking but, over the years, I have met and played (one gig mostly) with some astonishing musicians and I really got a sense that there is a whoie 'nother level that cannot be reached by rote learning but which requires 'insight' as well as 'knowledge' and 'motor skills'. The problem, as I see it, is that, in order to develop this additional insight and to move up to that level, you need total immersion in the genres in question; Jazz in my case but I have no doubt that the same applies to other genres like classical etc. My three hours playing a week isn't going to get me there,
[/quote]

I do think the limiter is what you hear and how you hear it rather than not having enough time to put into things..
The more proficient you get, the better the touch feel and nuances of your playing you get, but if you can't 'hear'
something a certain way..the only way you'll come up with that something is to copy it...
Some people have way 'better' ears and that takes them further.
So you can take two people who have both put 10,000 hrs in and their playing could be worlds apart.. IMO

[Guest bassman7755]

Its a bit a nature vs nurture discussion.
Lets do a thought experiment and construct a hypothesis for both:

Nurture hypothesis: [i]The top tier of musicians are those that have diligently and effectively studied and played the most.[/i]

Nature hypothesis: [i]The top tier of musicians are those who are most naturally talented having studied and played sufficiently to exploit their talent.[/i]

Which hypothesis fits the facts ?

[peteb]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1431334942' post='2770005']
We got talking about the concept of a musicans 'fantasy life' versus their 'real life'. I have spent decades playing music and, thoughout that time, have invested a lot of time and effort in developing my technique. I listen to the best players and try to emulate the best qualities of each. Whilst I generally fail in the absolute sense, this is more a case of 'if you reach for the moon, you may get to the stars' (or whatever the saying is) and that, whilst I cannot quite cut Jaco, I can play most of the more difficult stuff within reason and, with proper rehearsal, can usually nail the rest. The problem is that I never will.

In 'real life', I live in an East Anglian seaside town with a population of a few thousand. The quality of local Jazz is defined pretty much by me in that I put the main gigs on around here and no-on else is doing anything in which I am likely to be (or even want to be) involved. There are a couple of guys working locally who are cool players but they are certainly no better than I am. The other (non-bass playing) musicians are just doing their thing and mostly use double bass players like me; no better and no worse. All of them require functional bass players and never write/arrange anything that requires Neils Henning Orsted Pederson quality playing, just the usual quarter notes with the occasional written part in arranged sections. We came to the concusion that, as we live in the sticks, we are never going to get called to dep on a Weather Report gig or the replace Matt Garrison with Herbie Hancock, nor are we likely to get Miguel Zenon turning up with a set of charts that massively catch us out. These 'fantasy gigs' are for London players, New York players, people whose lives have taken them to the large population centres where these tough gigs are born. For the kinds of gigs I do, I probably had the requisite technique when I was about 20.

Knowledge of music, knowing what works in making good music, is much more important than chops. (For the record, last night's gig was a real pleasure).
[/quote]
Or is it that the guys who get the ‘fantasy gigs’ are those who made the commitment and relocated to the big music cities, then had to up their game to keep up with the competition, got the chance to study with the right people and eventually got lucky to land the big gig that made their career and established them at the top table??

Obviously you have to have the potential to be that good and I would imagine you have to have a fair share of luck to get the breaks and make it big in such a competitive field. But you have infinitely more chance of getting lucky if you live in New York or LA than if you live in a small coastal town in SE England…

Edited May 21, 2015 by peteb

[Bilbo]

I think there is a lot of truth in that, pete. Geography is undouibtedly an issue. If you think about it, the number of gigs available is going to change depending on where you are but also on what the density of musicians in an area is i.e. lots of available gigs is great but if there are even more musicains, you end up playing less. I know that in the US university towns like Boston, music students get gigs because they pull gangs of other music students in wiht them whilst established musicians cannot compete even though they are better players. Simple economics.

The flipside of this is that the NY or LA scenes have the potential to create bloated perversions like the bloke in 'The League of Extraordinary Gentleman' who drinks too much of Dr. Jekyll's formula. I was listening to a track off that Anthony Jackson 'Interspirit' recording today (ipod on shuffle). It was monsterously technical and an astonishing achievement in terms of arranging and exectuging the parts but, ultimately, the music was fugly and amounted to nothing more than a clever juggling act. When Art becomes competition (not even commerce) it is lost. Astonishing facility used to 'impress' rather than move.

[No lust in Jazz]

I just enjoy music and I enjoy having a laugh with my mates in the band, for me technique merely allows me to play music through my bass. I apply musical theory to satisfy my tastes, while supporting the music that I'm playing. The more theory and technique that I know the more fun that I have.

My current squeeze is a fretted 6 string, I sit for hours working out all sorts of tunes, back filled with extended harmony, I guess that I have low goals, but increasingly often a chord or phrase puts a smile on my face, time (as its not a chore) flies by.

This compliments my professional work as an engineer, where I design, create and deliver solutions to mundane problems. The highlights of this are creating a something technically sound and elegant - much like music.

Like engineering, music doesn't require recognition nor ego.

Edited May 22, 2015 by No lust in Jazz

[Guest bassman7755]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1432189985' post='2778939']
I do think the limiter is what you hear and how you hear it
[/quote]

Agreed, and this is where I know the limits of my own talent lie, its why I've invested a lot of time on ear training - to allow me to hear things I would not naturally be able to.

Theres an interview with gene simmons somewhere where he recounts a conversation they had when they toured together when rush were just hitting the scene and how he was shocked that ged was completely ignorant about any music theory. Point being that some people are just born with an ability to hear stuff that would never occur to rest of us.