I’ve been involved in the martial arts a little longer than I’ve been playing bass. At the time, I was brand new to each one of these areas and was still learning them on an “It’s-Right-Or-It’s-Not” mindset. I was still very much locked into the “rules” of each and playing by those rules.
As I became more familiar with both bass and martial arts, I realized that with time, patience, practice and dedication, you can begin to revise the rules and manipulate them to make new rules. You no longer need to abide by the pre-set rules of the teacher or of the culture.
“Now the Real Work Starts”
This discovery was a bit prolonged. Upon receiving my black belt, my teacher told me – and I’ll never forget – “Now the real work starts.”
And he was right.
Now, my martial arts education was less about how to do exact defenses against a limited possibilities of attacks and more about taking the CONCEPT and applying it accordingly.
My teacher often said, if someone comes at you with a knife, you can’t tell the attacker, “Wait wait! Umm..can you do that again, I forgot to parry the knife”. You need to be able to see that knife and BOOM! react. Do SOMETHING or get cut.
My training to this day includes dismantling many of my old techniques and seeing what makes them tick.
Circling Wing utilizes circular motion which causes the body to move in X directions. That can set you up for Y and Z attacks.
The body only moves in a limited number of directions: up, down, left and right.
Consider different planes of motion when you attack and when being attacked.
These were the kinds of things I was learning: taking the old, verbatim “get-you-acquainted-with-martial-arts” ideas and stepping them up. Being able to see the body movements that are going on, what happens when X happens, how to direct energy and so much more.
What does this have to do with bass guitar?
Everything.
Here’s why.
1. When you start playing bass, you look for examples, lessons, verbatim techniques, songs and other outlets where there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to doing it. We naturally incline towards this as a starting point because we want to feel like we are making progress in some direction towards musical goals.
2. You need vision and perseverance to get to “That Point” in your development. Granted, in the martial arts it is easy: you move from no belt to black and beyond and the hierarchy is clear and visible.
Bass is a bit more murky, but still holds some aspects true: it is assumed the longer you’ve been involved with the craft, the more knowledge you have accumulated over time and have more wisdom to provide about the instrument that a beginner might not have ever seen. But to get to that point – that pinnacle when you can see in between the rules and make your own, requires time and commitment.
3. You start with fundamentals then you work into concepts. “You slap like this….”, “You pluck like this…”, “This is how to play Daytripper…” – common things you’ll hear starting out. Very rigid, very instructional with the goal of showing you progress. Later you’ll hear, “If you do this…”, “You can do this…”, “Ever notice….” and other phrases that focus on musical AWARENESS and PRACTICAL APPLICATION over rote instruction.
Jeff Berlin, for example, has now reached the point of being able to see music as music. His bass is just a crayon that he can paint his musical picture with. He is not tied down by rote concepts any more. He has achieved this point of musical liberation and can see the craft multidimensionally. Victor Wooten, Flea, Janek Gwizdala, Michael Manring – you name it! They have all reached a point in their playing where they play the bass to express and are no longer tied down my rote instruction the same way that a beginner might be.
What does musical liberation, concept orientation and years of dedication sound like?
Also I want to shout out to Bass Frontiers Magazine. One of their authors posted this great article that inspired me to write this article! Thanks guys.
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