I needa lesson …

After watching players that I like on youtube I have concluded that my left hand position may not be correct. I have looked at some lessons on youtube and they have the rights idea but I think I would like an in-person lesson so someone can closely check out my hand and make sure i’m doing it right. I am going to ask Gary T., the music director at our church if he knows of the best bass teacher in the area ’cause he’s been in the local music scene since the 70s. He should know.

Practicing can be fun …

I am currently meditating on “Afternoon in Paris” by John Lewis. What I mean by that is I am exploring it to death. I am applying patterns from the book “Patterns for Jazz” by Jerry Coker to the changes in the song. The changes are great because they really work your IIm-V7s but also throws some interesting variations in there.Right now I’m working through the major chord patterns. It’s a lot more fun than just practicing the patterns they way they do it in the book going through all 12 keys all the time in differnent configurations.

I recorded the song in “Reaper” … I layed down a drum track, keyboard (which is so bad i mute it out) and rhythm guitar, loop it and either play the melody or “improvise”, i.e. play the pattern du jour against the track. To flesh out the rest of the changes in the song (besides the major chords) I have used some other patterns from the book for the II-V changes but I’m not varying them right now. It’s pretty good fun.

Hello world! (Part 1)

Yes, that’s right. Hello world. The default 1st blog entry on a new WordPress blog.

I can’t think of a more appropriate subject title for a first entry.

I am a 63 year old musician, sometimes actually playing, sometimes just thinking about it and sometimes not thinking about it at all but almost always have a tune running through my head.

I’m currently playing bass guitar in the worship band at my church. It’s a good gig. Amazingly, I am playing with guys I have admired for years and could never have orchestrated this myself. All our musicians are good to very good and I am ecstatic at being able to play with them and in turn be respected by them. I would hope I am at least competent. In any event, I sure have a good time!

I started playing guitar at the age of 10. I got a used Kay arch top for Christmas or something (cost $10). Neck was narrow and action horrendous but i didn’t know any better. First song I learned to play on it was “The Lonely One”, a twangy guitar instrumental by Duane Eddy.

…. to be continued