After almost a month of packing, moving, unpacking, and barely touching the bass, I'm finally back in the studio, and my chops definitely aren't where I need them.
With a weekend at Birdland with Steve Smith and Vital Information coming up, it would be very easy to panic and spend every available minute working on the music for the gig.Instead, I'm trying something different.I've been going back to classical music (Brahms in particular) and experimenting with arranging music I love for solo electric bass. Rather than immediately putting pressure on myself to be "gig ready," I'm using completely unrelated music to reconnect with the instrument, rebuild the mechanics of my playing, and get my ears and imagination working again.
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In this episode, I work through part of Brahms' Poco Allegretto from Symphony No. 3 and start asking some of the questions that might eventually shape an entire solo classical bass album.How much of the original harmony should I keep?Should I reharmonize it?Do I play the melodies completely solo, or use loops?Should there be improvisation?Could classical repertoire live alongside original music and more ambient, experimental sounds?And how far can I push the orchestration when I'm trying to make all of this work on a five-string electric bass tuned E–C?We also get into one of the harmonic exercises I've been using to get my hands moving again: taking V–I resolutions and breaking triadic ideas into groups of five using 2+3 and 3+2 patterns. It's a simple concept that opens up a huge amount of melodic and rhythmic material. You can find it in my book From Practice to PerformanceThis episode ended up becoming a pretty accurate snapshot of where my musical brain is right now. I start with Brahms, move into dominant harmony, disappear into ambient sounds and effects, and somehow end up seriously thinking about what a solo classical electric bass record could become.There's also a little history behind all of this. Before bass became my instrument, I was heavily involved in classical guitar, working through the UK grade system to Grade 8 and playing solo classical guitar and in ensembles. A lot of the chordal and right-hand techniques I use on bass today actually come directly from that period of my life.I'd love your input on where I take it.If I make a solo classical electric bass album, would you want the visual side to be an important part of the project — filmed performances in a beautiful space — or would you rather put on headphones, close your eyes, and experience it purely as a record?Let me know in the comments.Also in this episode: the new studio is slowly coming together, the blue couch has returned, the new transcription book is finally in stock, and I found a photograph from my first semester at Berklee in 1998 featuring a fellow bass player you might recognize...More soon, Janek
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