The vast majority of musicians I’ve ever run across pretty much all share a similar trait: they’re comfortable at the plateau they’ve reached in their playing abilities. By that I mean they’ve reached a certain point in their playing where they’re happy with where they’re at and they now have no desire to push beyond that boundary. “This is what; this is how far I can go and I accept that.” They’ve gotten to the point where they can play their favorite songs on the instrument of their choice and anything that’s too hard is just chalked up as unnecessary noodling. But there’s another group of people that constantly want to push their limits and their skill sets to better express themselves and become more confident on their instrument. Whether you want to become a professional musician that has a skill set desirable to other musicians hiring in a wide range of genres, or you want to be a hot shot in your field, there’s several ways to further your musical knowledge and push past musical stagnation.
In this article I’ll cover not only the causes of stagnation for a musician but the cure for it as well.
Look, you might have mastered 12-bar blues and you’re happy with that. You might have mastered or can reasonably fumble your way through improvising over a II-V-I jazz pattern and now you’re content. You might be able to play through Megadeth’s “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying” and accomplished all of your goals. If that’s the case then this article isn’t for you.
This is for the person that feels like they’ve hit a wall in their musical learning and is just at a loss at where to go from here.
I hit that wall a couple of years back.
I’m primarily a bass player. Some people know me as the lead singer of Cea Serin and they may have seen the band when I was just singing, either playing bass and singing, or when we had a separate bass player and I just did the bass solos. There was also a time when I was just playing keyboards. There were two years where I ONLY played guitar so I could just work on my right hand picking technique. There was a year or two when I was ONLY playing keyboards and my bass guitars were sitting around collecting dust.
This was mainly due to the fact that I was just tired of playing bass. I felt like I had learned everything I could; that there was nothing new under the sun for me on the bass. I knew that there were players out there much better than I was but I kind of figured that they were just really honed in on one style or technique and mastered that beyond what I was used to.
Boy was I wrong.
A couple of years ago I got sick of playing local gigs. I find playing locally in my home state is counterproductive to what bands really need it for. I mean, for the most part playing gigs is a way to build your fan base so you can get more money, to then turn that money around back into the band, and then use all that to fund studio time to work on a demo to impress a label. Long story short, playing local gigs is more hassle for what I get out of it. So I was done with it. I wanted to move on to other things.
I wanted to land gigs with touring companies. I wanted to play with Broadway-type acts like Blue Man Group, or Rock of Ages. So I figured I better get back on the bass guitar. It’s the instrument I’m best at.
After figuring out how to land auditions I secured a role on a national tour as a bass player and singer with Cirque Dreams. And it was on this tour that I rediscovered my passion for the bass guitar and what it could do.
I wanted to go beyond what I already knew. I wanted to know why bass players like Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey, and Michael Manring were so different and what made them so great. And there’s no question about it, those are three of my favorite bass players. And those are three bass players with completely different skill sets that were absolutely foreign to me.
But my PERCEPTION was that I already knew what they were doing, they were just doing it far better.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It’s this perception that made me stagnate as a musician and made me waste years of my life that could’ve been spent learning new things and becoming better at my craft.
There are 5 key things that, I feel, cause stagnation in a musician
1) Limited interest in other genres, i.e. learning one style of playing: the style you like
2) Not knowing effective practice techniques
3) Not know where your weaknesses are (related to No. 1)
4) Frustration in not seeing/hearing results (related to No. 2)
5) Running out of time to implement these things because of work, kids, life, etc.
So here’s how I rediscovered my instrument and broke free of the frustrating stagnation that plagues most, if not all, musicians at one time or another.
1) Limited Interest in Other Genres
You’re probably thinking, “why on Earth would I want to force myself to like something I know I don’t like.”
It’s quite simple.
You might hate to listen to improvised jazz, but you might fucking LOVE to play it. Take it from me. I hate listening to jazz. I think, for the most part, it’s meandering nonsense. I mean, I’d rather listen to two pothead college girls wax fantastic over the fragility of the environment than listen to any form of jazz. It’s just, ugh, where are you going and when will you get there?
But I knew that there was something to it.
I might hate listening to it, but I know that they’re great musicians. And it’s not their fault that I don’t like jazz; it’s my fault.
So I decided that if I was going to be a better bass player I better start figuring out what it is that these jazz bass players are doing that is so different than what I’m doing. I wanted to know what it was about these players that made other bass players hold them in such high regard.
Alright, so I did a search for some of the greatest jazz bass players. I hit on some familiar names. I knew of Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey and Michael Manring but I never really listened to them. Actually, I’d been a fan of Michael Manring for quite some time but his albums were strange to me. I never quite knew how he got the sound he was getting on the bass. (But I’ll get into that later).
Okay, I’ve got three jazz bass players in a genre I know nothing about – how do I learn from them?
The first thing I did was find out if any of them had any instructional home videos or instructional books. And the answer was yes. There was quite a bit.
It turns out that that Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey have done quite a bit of instructional work together. However, these days it’s hard to come by. The best you can do to get a physical copy of this stuff is hope that your local music store carries it over in the instructional section. I’ve actually come across quite a bit of bass instructional videos.
However…and I stress HOWEVER. There are a lot of shitty instructional videos out there that are a complete waste of time.
The point of this whole thing is how to move PAST stagnation not on how to CREATE stagnation.
Here’s how I weed through the garbage.
Okay, so Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey have some instructional videos available. Some are better than others. This is where YouTube comes in. You can pretty much find whatever you want on YouTube these days. So I looked up the available video series that these guys had out together and did a search for it on YouTube. I pretty much found it all right there. Some of these videos are choked with performances. And even though watching performance footage of your favorite bass players is cool, it doesn’t do you a lot of good if they don’t talk about the techniques they use to get to the point where they can pull off that kind of performance.
So the honest way to go about this is to find which videos are based purely on instruction and not on performances. Find the one that will benefit you learning and go over to Amazon.com and see if you can buy it there. If you can buy the videos or DVDs online then you can go about it the dishonest way….just watch it all on YouTube.
The benefit of the honest way is that a lot of these videos come with tablature. So unless you’ve got a great ear and can pick out what they’re doing you might want to fork over a couple of books and get the actual physical product with the tab booklet inside.
The other way to get instructional videos is by using a YouTube downloader. I found a Stu Hamm video series I kind of liked but couldn’t find the videos anywhere online to buy. And it’s not like they have them on iTunes. It just so happens that some fan somewhere in the world uploaded an old VHS tape of an instructional home video Stu Hamm did back in the day. So I just use the old “YTD” to rip those YouTube videos, convert them for my TV, and then I could watch them at home and in my living room with bass guitar in hand.
Look, you should always buy the artist’s product. I only mention ripping a video off of YouTube when the video is so old you can no longer find it in stores or anywhere else online. If you don’t buy the artists product then they won’t make any scratch off of their hard work of putting it together and in return they probably won’t make any more. Why would a video company put out instructional videos if one person buys it and everyone else rips it off from them?
That being said, the instructional DVDs I’ve mentioned, and am about to mention, were all purchased at my local music store, bought off of a site like chopsfromhell.com or bought directly from the artist themselves.
I’ve only had three exceptions to this: a Michael Manring, Stu Hamm, Louis Johnson, and Billy Sheehan set of videos that I’m still unable to find for purchase online.
My point is that there are a number of instructional videos from some of the greatest musicians on the planet. Sure, you have to weed through a lot of them to find which ones aren’t performance filler and actual lessons, but when you find those by scoping out what YouTube has to offer you can then go and buy the ones that will help you without buying blindly. You also have to get into players that you’re not normally into.
If there’s one bit of knowledge that I can impart on you is that it makes no sense if you play like Paul Gilbert then go out and buy more Paul Gilbert instructional DVDs. It might sharpen you up on something but it’s only sharpening you up on a skill set you already have. To get out of stagnation you have to move outside your comfort zone.
Instead of reinforcing what you already know about Paul Gilbert’s playing you have to go find out what makes Guthrie Govan so great. Look up what Al Di Meola can teach you. Look up what Anthony Wellington has to offer. I assure you, you’ll learn more and benefit more by taking on instruction from players you’ve never heard, and in genres you’re not comfortable in, then by relearning old techniques you’re already familiar with.
What’s better, being a great Rock bass player or just an all around Great bass player?
And let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you’re just a bass player. Don’t go out and just find videos by bass players. Don’t be one of these elitist bass player assholes that doesn’t want to have anything to do with guitar technique. “Oh, I don’t play with a pick…what am I a guitarist?”
Well, if it’s anybody that can teach you proper picking technique it’s probably going to be a guitarist.
One of the guitarists I like that is a great teacher of picking technique is Michael Angelo Batio.
Just as a side note, I’ve yet to meet a bass player with decent picking technique. Hey, it’s great you developed this wonderful three finger right hand technique and you can palm mute while playing with just your thumb, but why don’t you stop being such a fucking snob and learn how to play with a pick…as well.
“I’m going to learn all these different finger techniques but I’m going to stop at playing with a pick.”
Unless your thumb was run over by a train and replaced with a .88mm piece of plastic then you can’t duplicate the sound of playing with a pick by using your thumb. You just can’t. So if you’re going to spend all this time working on all these different right hand techniques then you might as well learn how to properly use a pick. Bass players need to learn how to stop holding picks in their hands with a death grip. It’s a guitar pick not your last piece of candy.
What I’m driving at here is that you can only learn so much if you’re only interested in one genre of music. Learning about country music, jazz, new age, rock-a-billy, and the blues can benefit every musician. So stop being a music snob and branch out into other areas. You never know, you might learn something in one genre and be able to apply it in your own genre of choice.
2) Not knowing effective practice techniques
It’s one thing to invest your time into learning new techniques of playing and it’s another thing to waste your time in learning how to play them the wrong way. There are many stories about brilliant musicians that developed off-the-wall techniques by trying to duplicate what they heard on their favorite musical recordings because they never had a chance to actually see how these performances were captured. Those are great inspirational stories of how a determined musician can overcome an environment of limited access and still amount to being competent in their craft. However, those stories probably won’t be applying to you.
I’ll give “proper technique” its credit. And I adhere to proper technique. However, when people start saying things like “it’s proper technique to not bounce your thumb on the string when you slap but to strike through the string.” Well, tell that to Flea and Louis Johnson. There is a place in slap bass for bouncing your thumb and there’s a place for striking through. So I don’t want to focus too much on the whole “proper technique” thing but focus more on practicing effectively so you don’t develop bad habits.
You should be able to listen to a recording, be able to store that in your head, then be able to work out a technique so that you can duplicate what you hear. Maybe not sonically in terms of what effects the players is using (like phasers and flangers) but I’m talking about playing – I’m talking about phrasing – I’m talking about picking patterns – I’m talking about hand position. You should be able to listen to certain Metallica songs and come to the conclusion that in order to make those riffs sound a certain way you should be using all down strokes with your picking technique (as opposed to alternate picking).
You should be able to think to yourself “here’s how I want it to sound and here’s what I have to do to make it sound that way.”
With the duplication of performance, you’re on your own. I’m talking about how to effectively practice so that you’ll see results.
Look, I want you to be your own musician and to have your own sound. The only reason I preface this with knowing how to duplicate a performance is so that you know the end result – you know where you want to eventually end up with what you’re playing. It’s just getting from point A to point Z to achieve that performance is the issue.
This is what causes a lot of stagnation. It’s players that know they have to get to point Z, know what they have to do to make it sound that way, but they don’t see the results; and the journey to being able to play that piece of music seems impossible.
First and foremost you need to at least have a rudimentary knowledge of proper technique, i.e. keep your thumb in the middle of the neck (don’t hold the bass neck like it’s a bat), how to alternate your fingers, how to mute strings that shouldn’t be ringing out, etc.
So whether you’re a beginner trying to develop proper technique or you’ve been playing for a while and you’re trying to tackle harder songs, here’s what I do to tune up my playing game.
To start things off, get a metronome. Learn how to use it. Become friends with it. Don’t practice without it.
Use a metronome. Use a metronome. Use a metronome. Use a metronome. Holy shit, people. Practice with a fucking metronome.
Nobody likes a drummer that pushes and pulls the tempo; nobody likes a bass player that can’t hold the groove; nobody likes a guitarist that can’t play in rhythm.
Whatever you want to play, play it to a metronome and start things slow…..slooooooow.
You’ll be surprised how hard it is to play a simple piece of music to a slow metronome. Most musicians want to rush the beat. Force yourself to play slow by setting the metronome off slow.
Here’s my metronome advice. When you’re first learning a piece of music set the metronome so that the ticks are on every note that you’re playing. So if you’re playing a piece of music that is all 8th notes set the metronome so that it ticks on every note you’re supposed to hit. Gradually speed that up. Once you’ve gotten it up to speed start learning it faster than what it should be. Once you’re comfortable at a fast speed you should slow the metronome back down so that the ticks are on quarter notes. So as the metronome ticks it’s only ticking on every OTHER note you play. Keep doing this and speeding it up. And, of course, get to the point where you can set the metronome so that it’s ticking on every half note and then to every whole note.
The point of doing this is to not only develop clean playing techniques in the context of the musical piece of your choice but to also develop good internal rhythm.
Also, when I practice a piece of music what I do is I learn it so that it’s comfortable to play. I then set the metronome to a decent tempo and then watch TV as I play that once piece of music over and over and over so that it becomes second nature. I do this until I can play the piece of music cleanly without mistakes for 5 minutes straight. So you should be able to play whatever scale or difficult run of notes perfectly for an extended period of time. Don’t think that just because you can squeak out a passable run of notes in one measure that you’re in the clear and a great musician. When you go to record this stuff you don’t want to have to keep punching in every few measures to get a good performance.
You should be able to record the song all the way through and then if there’s any hiccups go back and correct those.
There are some pieces of music that are so weird and difficult I actually have to write them out to see what hand goes where and at what time.
Any kind of two-hand tapping technique might require you to assess what hand needs to be doing what and at what time to get a clean performance. When picking a series of notes over multiple strings you have to know that you’re going to start the run on a down stroke, pick X amount of times per string, and then end on an up stroke.
Knowing exactly what your fingers should be doing, which fingers should start, and which finger to end on helps get a cleaner performance. Don’t just move your right hand fingers fast, move your left hand fingers fast, play the shape of the riff, and try to end on the right note.
Here’s where people get frustrated. They get a difficult piece of music and they want to play it as fast as the musician on tape is playing it. They’ll start off learning the lick slow until they have it memorized then they’ll try and get up to speed as fast as possible. What this does is it doesn’t get the two hands in sync with each other. The left hand is playing the figure, the right hand is picking the pattern, but the two hands aren’t necessarily in sync yet.
Getting your fingers to sync with each other starts by practicing very slowly. You have to figure out, I’m going to start with a down stroke, play three notes on this string, then I’ll do this and do that, and then I’m over here now. Then practice that over and over.
Creating this mechanical technique will force your body to find the proper placement it should be in to better accomplish the difficult piece of music.
For example: When I started learning the double-thumping technique (striking through the string with your thumb, then coming up and popping the string with your thumb nail) I had to figure out how to exactly hold my right hand, i.e. what angle it should be at, how to turn my wrist, and where to rest my forearm on the instrument. It’s this slow repetition that will force your body to find its proper form to make the piece sound the way it should on a consistent basis.
You’ll be amazed that the more you practice slow the quicker you’ll be able to play fast.
You’ll also be amazed at how many musicians that play fast aren’t able to play those same runs at a slow speed. Because if you were able to slow down their performance you’ll actually be able to hear just how sloppy it is.
3) Not knowing where your weaknesses are
This really has to deal with the first point. When you’re steeped in one genre of music you won’t be able to know what other techniques and possibilities are available to you.
I’ve always known my weakness was timing. I like fast and heavy music for the most part. So I always want to play stuff faster. I have to force myself to slow things down. That’s why I have to always practice with a metronome. When I play live I want to always play with a click track.
But aside from timing I always knew I had weaknesses in other areas of playing bass. It’s easy to find this out just by watching what other players are doing. You can watch Victor Wooten play and you should be able to say to yourself that your thumb technique needs some work. You can watch Steve Bailey play and see that you should develop a way to incorporate harp harmonics the way he does. You can watch Michael Manring play and your eyes and ears should be open to this new world of possibilities of not just playing in the same old tunings and what is possible with fretless instruments.
When I first saw a Michael Manring live video I realized what I’d been missing out on all those years. I was confused at how Manring was getting this crazy sustain on his bass and how he was making these really high pitched notes. I didn’t know he was using an Ebow, piccolo strings, and hipshot tuners to make all those cool sounds come off his instrument.
Don’t just look at another player and say, “well, they’re just really good at that one technique. That’s their thing.”
There’s no reason you can’t learn what they’re doing and incorporate it in your repertoire.
Think of how cool it would be as a metal bass player you could incorporate thumb position into your songs. It’s just another world of possibilities. I think everyone should want a large palette to paint with.
4) Frustration
Getting frustrated in not seeing results can lead to complacency. I’ve known plenty of musicians that started playing an instrument, were getting good at it, and then they just hit that plateau where they no longer improved. It seems like that next level was just unreachable for them.
This happens when you can easily grasp the basics of the instrument yet lose your passion when the next level seems insurmountable. In the beginning you have a love for what you’re doing and you can pick up some easy songs, you practice all the time, you learn the essentials, but then you get bored with that and reach out to more difficult ventures.
Like everything in life, this is the area that separates the people that are “good” from the people that will be “great.” Good musicians can handle the music of their primary interest; great musicians are the ones that can handle whatever you throw at them.
There is that wall that every musician hits where the next level of performance is difficult to obtain. I’ve known guitar players that would learn a guitar solo and just walk around their house playing that solo all day. Their day and night time was spent only on that solo, repeating it over and over until it became ingrained into their brain and hands. Some people throw their hands up in the air and give up, some push through it.
To be able to push through it you have to apply what I just wrote about. It’s going to take more time, more effort, and more emphasis on learning correctly, practicing correctly, and applying correctly.
Let’s just say you want to learn a bass solo that is just two measures long. That’s it. Just two measures. You can do that. First, learn how the solo goes – listen to it; study it. When you learn it note for note you should also learn what fingers play what note on the left hand and what fingers pick which note on the right hand (for the lefties out there you know what I’m talking about). Now practice that at a very slow speed until you can play it perfectly for 5 minutes straight. Now speed up the metronome until you can get it up to speed.
The key here is to not only learn it note for note, but to learn what your hands and fingers should be doing note for note – and it should stay that way every time. If the first three notes of the solo are on one string and you pick four times on that string one time and pick three times the next time then four times the next time then two times the next time while giving an additional hammer-on – you’re not doing yourself any good.
It might take you weeks to get it up to speed. But in the end it’ll be worth it to be able to play the piece like it should be played and done cleanly.
5) Time management
I understand that everyone gets to a point in their life where they can’t devote as much time to music as they want. Kids, a spouse, a mistress, work, and diabolical plans all creep up on us with age and with that comes responsibility…I guess.
I’m lucky in that I’ve only had pregnancy scares and no actual kids ever came into the picture.
However, I have gotten to the point on occasion where I’ve worked so much that I’ve had to bring a Traveler Guitar with me to work so I can get in an hour of practice before going off and doing something else. I don’t advise this unless you have the type of job that you can get away with your boss not minding you practicing on the job. But, I’ve chosen career paths wisely.
It all comes down to making a schedule. And I know that sounds regimented and mechanical but, for me, it works.
The way I work it is that I go to my day job, get home and give myself one hour of reading time, then I start my musical night of practicing or writing, I then give myself another hour to read, and then if there’s any time left I’ll unwind with some TV and some light practicing that I can do while zoning out to TV. It’s the kind of practicing where you set the metronome and do an exercise over and over while your body takes over and your brain is somewhere else. That’s just how I roll.
Everybody is different though and everyone has their own thing going for them. If practicing is important to you and bettering yourself at music is important then find a time of day that you can do that. Even if you have to wake up early in the morning to scope out a YouTube instructional video to practice along to, do that.
That’s it for now. Don’t get frustrated! Push through. If they can do it; you can do it.
