Introduction:... Transcription: Yearnin Learnin... Video Tutorial 1 - Please Please Me... Video Tutorial 2 - Running Free...

Transcription

1

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction:... Transcription: Yearnin Learnin... Video Tutorial 1 - Please Please Me... Video Tutorial 2 - Running Free... Music Theory For Bass Playing Bass Lines From Chord Symbols Ask Paul First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

3 INTRODUCTION Welcome to Issue 268 of First Bass And Beyond. What s In This Week s Issue: The main transcription today is a great funk line from Verdine White with Earth Wind and Fire. It s the bass line to a tune called Yearnin Learnin from the Gratitude album - probably my favourite Earth Wind And Fire album. The first video tutorial for Issue 268 is a look at one of Paul McCartney s early 60s period lines - it s the parts to Please Please Me. Like the Help! tutorial last week, this is a straightforward line that nevertheless will repay more advanced players who are prepared to dive below the surface. The second video tutorial for Issue 268 is one of the first songs I ever learned - it s some Brit Heavy Metal courtesy of Running Free by Iron Maiden. In the Creating Bass Lines From Chord Progressions column I m finishing up the series with a look at how to create more backing tracks to practice with as you take the idea of creating bass lines on the fly forward. Next week we ll get started with the Deconstructing Tommy Shannon column. In today s Music Theory for Bass Column we re going to look at the fourth mode of the seven modes of the Major Scale. That mode is called the Lydian Mode and it s formed by playing all the white notes on a piano keyboard starting at F and ending at F. In Ask Paul I ve got an addendum to the band questions I dealt with a few weeks ago - in this column I m going to talk about following the original music path and my limited experience of that. 3 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

4 How To Contact Me If you ve got any questions you can me directly. My address is: Or you can post on my Facebook Page, which you ll find here: Com/ Have a great week. Paul 4 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

5 TRANSCRIPTION to YEARNIN LEARNIN by EARTH WIND AND FIRE - bass by VERDINE WHITE really tight, really funky, really interesting bass lines. Yearnin Learnin is from what is probably my favourite Earth Wind And Fire LP - Gratitude. Now this LP was originally a double album and featured 3/4 live and 1/4 cut in the studio. The live recordings capture EW&F at the height of their careers IMO. And this is especially true of Verdine White - he s playing some And Yearnin Learnin is a great example of this. (There are others on the album though - and if you re into classic fingerstyle funk this album is a must for you to have.) Some things to check out: 1. Simple (and not so simple!) variations on the main verse groove 2. Use of duration of note to change feel (listen to the syncopated sections at different points in the tune) 3. Use of open string to facilitate really higher register splashes 4. Use of higher register in sections (esp. syncopated section) 5. Use of chromatic approach notes throughout - placed correctly (as here) they NEVER clash with the harmony Here s how the bass line lays out: Letter A - Intro 0.00 Letter B - Bass In - Syncopated section Letter C - Groove Letter D - Verse Letter E - Syncopated section First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

6 Letter F - Groove Letter G - Verse Letter H - Syncopated section Letter I - Groove Letter J - Verse Letter K - Horns Letter L - Verse Letter M - Outro Feel free to vary my tabbed suggestions to suit your own combination of fingering system, bass size and hand size. 6 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

7 7 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

8 8 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

9 9 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

10 10 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

11 11 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

12 12 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

13 13 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

14 14 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

15 15 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

16 16 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

17 17 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

18 18 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

19 19 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

20 VIDEO TUTORIAL 1 - PLEASE PLEASE ME by THE BEATLES Please Please Me is the next in our series of Beatles tutorials. This is another straightforward McCartney line - but like the Help tutorial in last week s issue it s worth looking at to see how McCartney differentiates the different sections of the tune by using different bass line rhythms and different bass line devices. L Let s get started by looking at the intro: This sets up the verse - which carries on this driving 8th note feel: 20 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

21 Now when we switch to the chorus - note that the rhythm for the first bars creates a really effective contrast, as does changing the line from predominantly root notes to a more melodic line: From here we go back to the verse - where we repeat what we learned above. And then Chorus 2 is almost identical to Chorus 1 - the main difference is the last note of Bar 7 and then a stab on the downbeat of Bar 8: This sets up the next section of the tune - which is the bridge. And here McCartney switches to yet another rhythm. In the first two bars he moves to a walking, quarter note style rhythm: 21 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

22 From here we go back to the verse. And then we ve got the outro chorus. The first six bars are identical to the previous two choruses - but I ve included everything for the sake of completeness: 22 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

23 Now although this is a relatively simple bass line - as with the Help! tutorial last week there s more to be gleaned for more advanced players by diving below the surface of the bass line and really looking beyond what notes are being played. There are three different sections of the tune - Verse, Chorus and Bridge - and each section has a combination of rhythm and bass line ideas that clearly delineate them. For such a simple song, that s a great lesson to take away. How To Program The Sections In Band In A Box If you want to program and isolate the sections in Band In A Box (and play with the tempos)here s how to do it: 1. Set key to E 2. Aim for performance tempo to be around 140 BPM 3. Choose a style for practice. I made a hybrid style that was Ok that combined RockClassicBritEv real drums with Acoustic Guitar Stumming 136 and Electric Guitar Country RockRiff Ev 120. Not brilliant...but does the job. 4. Mute the bass! Here s a screenshot showing the intro and the verse: Here s what the first chorus looks like: 23 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

24 Here s what the bridge looks like: And finally, here s what the outro chorus looks like - including the stabs in the penultimate two bars: There will be a bass less backing track available to play along with as well on the Issue 268 page. 24 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

25 VIDEO TUTORIAL 2 - RUNNING FREE PART 1 by IRON MAIDEN are certainly one of them! This week s second video tutorial is Running Free by Iron Maiden. Now I m not really much of a heavy metal fan - did all that when I was younger and kind of grew out of it as I became better on the bass and was looking to play more sophisticated material. But there are a couple of bands who I have a soft spot for - and the Maiden Running Free was one of the first real songs I ever learned. And I ve always liked the energy that Steve Harris brings to Iron Maiden - plus he writes a lot of the songs too (see what I have to say about that in Ask Paul!) We re going to split this tutorial into two parts - in the first part we ll cover the basic parts of the line. And in the second part of the tutorial we ll cover the fills and the bits that really enhance the line. So let s get started. I ve split the intro into two parts - here s the bars where the bass plays with the drums: 25 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

26 One word on interpretation here - you can either play this as it s notated here OR if you want to play it more authentically you can play the first note of each pair of swung 8th notes staccato. This interpretation can follow throughout the tutorial - once the guitars crank up though the subtlety of that staccato note will get lost in the general noise. Here s the second part of the intro. This is where the guitars have joined in: What you ve learned so far will help you with the next part of the tune - this is the verse: 26 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

27 And here s the basic chorus pattern that we need to play: The final part of this week s tutorial is going to be the first part of the interlude/solo section. That looks like this: 27 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

28 Next week we ll pick up the rest of the parts needed to get through the song. I think when I originally learned it this was where my teacher gave up - saying something like: you can work the rest of the song out from here, it s pretty similar. Well HE might have been able to work the rest of the song out easily - but I certainly couldn t at that stage. And I remember that experience when I started the How To Play Bass website - and hopefully I don t ever leave anyone hanging when learning a song! 28 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

29 Music Theory 28

30 MUSIC THEORY FOR BASS PLAYERS LESSON 28 - THE LYDIAN MODE Introduction Music Theory For Bass Players is a series of lessons aimed at teaching the bass player music theory. Now there s lots of resources out there - both paid and free - which teach music theory. But what s going to be different about this theory course is that everything is going to be taught from the perspective of the bass player. And the other thing that will make this theory course unique is that teaching theory from the perspective of the bass will take place by using examples from real world bass songs. This lesson will also be transferred to the First Bass And Beyond website and all the relevant music examples will be filmed and posted on the lesson so that you can see and hear the examples. In the last few lessons we ve been talking about modes of the major scale. In today s lesson we re going to look at the fourth mode of the seven modes of the major scale - and that s the Lydian mode. Modes Of The Major Scale - The Lydian Mode The fourth mode of the modes of the major scale is called the Lydian Mode. The Lydian Mode is formed by playing all the white keys on the piano starting and ending on F. On a piano keyboard it looks like this: 30 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

31 If you were to play that on your bass, it would look like this: The reason why I say that the piano keyboard is such a good visual tool for learning theory is that there is only ONE place on the keyboard where you can play this unique sequence of notes at that pitch level. On a bass guitar there are many different ways to play this sequence of notes. Now if you listen to the example on the Theory Web Page this is probably NOT a familiar sound to you - the Lydian mode is not a commonly used major scale. Here are the notes of the Lydian mode displayed in table format and displaying what type of note each successive degree is: D Root Root E 2nd Major 2nd F 3rd Major 3rd G 4th Augmented 4th A 5th Perfect 5th B 6th Major 6th C 7th Major 7th D Octave perfect octave The Lydian Mode ALWAYS contains these notes. So if you transposed to G you d still have a sequence of Root, Major 2nd, Major 3rd, Augmented 4th, Perfect 5th, Major 6th, Major 7th and Perfect Octave. On your bass that would look like this: 31 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

32 On a piano keyboard it would look like this: If you play that note sequence on a piano - or on your bass - you ll soon hear that it s the same sound as the F Lydian scale, only it s a tone higher. So the Lydian Mode (also known as the Lydian minor scale) is formed of this sequence of steps: Root to second - tone Second to third - tone Third to fourth - tone Fourth to fifth - semi-tone Fifth to sixth - tone Sixth to seventh - tone Seventh to Octave -semi-tone Now as well as F to F giving us the Lydian scale, it also gives us a chord. Knowing the chords built from the parent mode scales is a necessary piece of theory to know. It helps with creating bass lines, soloing AND song writing! Let s look at the chord formed from the F Lydian mode. 32 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

33 What Chord Is Formed From The F Lydian Mode We obtain the chord by stacking the scale notes in thirds rather than playing them sequentially. So on a piano keyboard here s what we d get: Now that gives us the root note, a major third, a perfect fifth and a major 7th. If you played those together on the piano you d get the distinctive sound of a major 7 chord - this time the F Major 7th chord. (See the earlier sections of the theory course for more on this as well.) So as well as getting the Lydian mode from playing F to F on the keyboard using white keys only, we also get the chord that goes with that scale. That chord is an Fmaj7 chord. Advanced Theory - Chord Extensions We talked above about getting the chord by stacking the scale notes in thirds rather than playing them sequentially. But we only used four of the scale notes - F, A, C and E. And as with the earlier theory lessons we can continue stacking chord notes on top. So to those primary chord tones we could add G. That would give us an F Major 9 chord. In this instance, G is the 9th (the 2nd degree of the scale, but played an octave above). A So to make sure the harmony instruments play the right chord we make sure that the denomination maj9 is in the chord name. 33 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

34 Similarly you can add the other scale notes above. The octave of B is the 11th. And the octave of D is the 13th. As this is a major chord you wouldn t usually see the 11th added to the chord name. Now these notes when used chordally are like flavouring notes - they don t change the basic nature of the chord. But they do add an extra element to the sound of the chord. You won t encounter these extension chords too often in rock and pop music. But you ll find them in jazz a lot. As a bass player if you are confronted with a Major 9 chord you can actually treat it, from a bass line creation perspective, as a major 7 and focus on the arpeggio notes of the major 7 chord. That s because the four notes that make up the major 7 chord are the fundamental tones of that chord. The extension notes - predominantly the 9th and the 13th - are colour tones and should be picked up by either the guitarist or the keyboard player. Of course we can use 2nds (or 9ths) and 6ths (or 13ths) in our lines - but the point is we don t have to. Using the chord tones of the major 7 chord to build our lines around will communicate the harmony of the song we are playing well enough. Chord Extensions are a more advanced topic - and affect players much more if those players are regularly soloing. But now when you see a chord like a Major 9th (or a minor 11th, or a dominant 7 b9 chord etc) you can work out what chord tones need to be covered by your bass line (the fundamental chord tones - the degrees that are 7ths or less) and what chord tones are colour tones and can be safely ignored if necessary. 34 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

35 Summary In this lesson we ve looked at the fourth mode of the Major Scale. That mode is called the Lydian scale, or sometimes the Lydian Major. The Lydian Major scale has the following degrees: 1. Root 2. Major Second 3. Major Third 4. Augmented Fourth 5. Perfect Fifth 6. Major Sixth 7. Major Seventh Irrespective of what root note you start with, to be a Lydian scale it has to consist of those scale degrees. The Lydian Scale when played chordally becomes a Major 7th Chord. The fundamental tones of this chord are the Root, the major third, the perfect fifth and the major seventh. The second, and the sixth can be added as extension tones. The chord then becomes a Major 9 chord. If playing the other extensions you d get something like Fmaj13. The 4th (or 11th) isn t used as an extension on a major chord very often. When playing on chords like that, bass players should still build their lines around the fundamental chord tones of the major 7th chord. Next week we ll look at the fifth mode of the major scale in a similar level of detail. If you remember from the previous column this mode is formed by playing all the white notes on the piano keyboard, but starting at G and ending at G. The mode formed by doing this is called the Mixolydian mode. 35 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

36 Questions. As always, if you have any questions please don t hesitate to me or post a comment on the appropriate lesson page. 36 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

37 Creating Lines From Chord Symbols - Col 15

38 HOW TO CREATE BASS LINES FROM CHORD SYMBOLS - COLUMN 14 Introduction So far we ve covered these topics in learning how to create bass lines from chord symbols: 1. Using root notes 2. Using root notes and octaves. 3. Using root notes and octaves and fifths. 4. Using root notes and major/minor thirds. 5. Using chromatic connectors in several different instances 6. Using scalar connectors. 7. Slash chords 8. Rhythmic patterns 9. Genre specific rhythm Now we could keep going with bass line devices...but this ISN T a course on creating bass lines per se. It s a step by step method showing you how to go about learning and practicing how to create bass lines either on the fly or from a chord chart. In the previous lessons we had some longer chord progressions to practice basslines from. Now like any skill you only really get better at it by practicing it. So in this column we re going to look at how to generate chord progressions that you can practice with. There are essentially two ways that I can think of that you can use to generate more chord progressions to practice with. That s the good news. The bad news is that both ways require Band In a Box in order for you to do this. 38 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

39 Generating Unlimited Chord Progressions To Practice With - #1 The first method is pretty much the method that I ve been using for the whole of the course. In this method I choose a chord progression - either it s adapted from an actual tune OR it s a collection of chords that form a common chord progression. For example Cmaj7 to Am7 to Dm7 to G7 is a common chord progression. And I ve used others. One of the things I like to do when doing this is take the chords to a soul tune, enter them into Band in A Box and then choose a rock backing style. Or a reggae backing style. The other thing that you can do is enter the chords in the key they were originally in - and then change the key. For example here is the chord progression from Help from last week s issue: Generating Unlimited Chord Progressions To Practice With - #2 And notice that in the section at the top of the screen that I ve outlined with a Red Box you can see the original key of the tune - in this case A. 39 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

40 If you hover your mouse over that dialogue box then you ll get the option to change key. For example, here is the exact same chord progression - but everything has been transposed to the key of C#: This took about two seconds - so building up a library of chord progressions is really helpful for this. I recommend either going to the library and borrowing some PVG songbooks (PVG = Piano,Vocal, Guitar) and entering some of the song progressions into Band In A Box. Or you can start building up a library of chord progressions by buying some PVG songbooks. Good value ones tend to be collections of some description - e.g. Chart Hits Of The 90s. Or The Big Book series - which includes The Big Book Of Motown, The Big Book Of Blues, The Big Book of R&B and so on. Using real world chord progressions like this to generate backing tracks to practice with in multiple keys is a great way to accustom your ears to the sound of the kind of chords used in pop, rock, soul and reggae. You ll find that there aren t that many progressions! And programming a bunch of songs will help you identify those progressions as well as train your ears subliminally to be used to the sound of those progressions. 40 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

41 Generating Unlimited Chord Progressions To Practice With - #2 The second method to generate chord progressions to practice with is interesting. With a little initial setting up you can generate as many chord progressions as you want at the touch of a button. We re going to be using a feature called The Melodist Feature. To find it, click to the right of the Soloist feature and you ll see some drop down buttons that don t fit on the screen: One of those buttons is the melodist feature. When you click on it you ll get a dialogue box like this: 41 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

42 Now there are a lot of preset melodists already set up - the first one here is based on a 16th Note feel. We ll look at the dialogue options in a moment. By scrolling down through the list of presets I found an 8th note preset with a country rock.eagles vibe: Clicking OK generates a track and a chord progression for us to play along with. Here s what it looks like: 42 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

43 You could print that out, mute the bass and hit play and have a new chord sequence to play along too. Now I just want to take a moment to look again at the Eagles style in the melodist dialogue box and highlight some of the areas where you can make quick changes: 43 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

44 We ll go from top to bottom. The box outlined in red in the top right corner (which currently says ANY KEY ) can be changed to specific keys. So if you find Db is a weak key area you can generate a bunch of different chord progressions in Db. Or F#m. Or whatever key areas you want. Or you can leave it set to random and you ll get pot luck as to what key you get. The next box outlined in red gives you the format of the song - currently it s set to AABA 32 Bars. This is one area that BIAB is deficient - there should be other forms available - 16 bar forms. 8 bar forms. Etc. But YOU can do this yourself by creating a form of the length that you require (e.g. 16 bars) and then going to the Melodist Dialogue and use the NO FORM. Band In A Box will then generate a chord progression based on the form you created. It will have the same number of bars- but will be a totally different chord progression. The next section - which currently says Section Plus - gives you the option to transpose part of the chord progression in an AABA form. So it gives you a wider variety of chords to play too - if you re using an AABA form then you should leave this transposed. The box - which says: Instrument: Atmosphere - just instructs the program what instrument will actually play the melody that BIAB generates. You can change this to something like a sax or a guitar. Finally the box with the STYLE in - you can autoload a style if you wish. Most of the styles that have been preset have midi based styles set up - but my recommendation is to change that to whatever real track based styles you have in your BIAB libraries. Sounds much more authentic and is much more fun to play with. Now there is lots more customization that you can play with - but just what I ve sketched out will allow you to generate literally thousands of different chord progressions to practice with. And what s good about doing this with Band In A Box is that their chord progression library is extensive and you get lots of variations that 44 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

45 are still typical of real world chord progressions. So this is a really great way to practice playing from chord progressions. And just to remind you, you have totally control of the key and the tempo. So if something is too fast you can slow it down. And if a key centre is weak for you, you can slow it down and start with simpler progressions. What If You Don t Have Band In A Box? Without Band In A Box you will struggle to really extend your practicing of playing bass lines with chord symbols. You can make tracks with other programs using loops and programming - but I find it wastes valuable practicing time creating the actual tracks in the first place. With Band In A Box you can literally load up the program and have the first backing track playing within 45 to 60 seconds. I wrote a previous Ask Paul column about the different levels of Band In A Box too - you can get started with good real track sounds for as little as $200 or so. (If $200 sounds like a lot...believe me it s not. Band In A Box is just about the best practice partner you could have IMO!) Going Beyond The Structures Of The Course Now to keep this mini course down in size so that it s actually mini I ve only covered using a few bass playing devices. There are literally dozens more - I know, I ve been slowly cataloguing them! - and there are more that I ve probably not discovered yet! But the method we ve used in this course of adding just one device at a time and working on it thoroughly is a method I recommend that you carry on using in your practicing. Here are the three ways I can think of to add new devices to your library of bass playing devices: 1. Do some analyzing of bass lines of players you like and see what they are doing. (Caveat: depending on who you d like to emulate you may 45 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

46 find that you need to do a fair amount of transcription). 2. Buy some genre bass books and see if you can pick some devices up from those. There s a caveat here too - most genre bass books have a bunch of lines for you to learn without explaining how the lines are built up. So you re going to have to do some analysis. 3. Get someone to teach you some bass playing devices. E.g. a local teacher. Or I do so in various courses e.g. Cracking The Detroit Code, Fingerstyle Funk Rock, Basslines 101, Walking Basslines 101 and the Reconstructing/Deconstructing Series. Talking of the Deconstructing series I think this is as good a place as any to bring this mini course to a close. And next week we ll start looking at Deconstructing The Bass Lines of Tommy Shannon. In that process I ll be picking out typical rhythms and typical devices that Tommy uses. And I m looking for a new way to label these that I ll be using going forward with all my analysis. So if you re into blues rock you can pick up some licks and tricks for creating those types of bass lines! Summary In Column 15 we ve come to the end of our mini journey looking at how you can practice creating bass lines from chord symbols. Now this mini-course was never intended to be a fully blown course that would expose you to multiple genres and multiple bass line devices that you can use. Instead it was designed to give you the opportunity to dip your toes in the water - to use a metaphor - and then designed to give you a practicing methodology so that if this is something you want to persevere with, then you should have a good idea on how to keep moving forward. One of the necessary parts in keeping moving forward is creating more backing tracks of chord progressions to play along with - and in this column I ve shown you two ways to create an almost unlimited amount of tracks to play along with using Band In A Box. 46 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

47 I also briefly touched upon the three ways that you can find more bass line devices to add to your library of bass line ideas. Questions As always if you have any questions you can either drop me an or you can post a question on the Lesson 15 page on the website version of this lesson. 47 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

48 Ask Paul?

49 ASK PAUL! I get lots of questions via . And if they are from FB&B subscribers I try to answer all of them! However it occurred to me that for each particular question there are probably several of you out there in FB&B land who would be interested in the answer. So if you have a question for me, here s where you need to post it: This week FB&B subscriber Thomas Bonomo, who asked the question on picking two weeks ago, asked a question on Bands that I think needs answering, even though I thought we d finished the topic on bands. Tom s was this: Thanks for answering the picking question. I hope to give this technique a try. I thoroughly enjoyed your series on running your bands. Reminded me a lot of my music days back in college. We had a drummer and a sax/flute player, but we were an undisciplined lot. Mostly, we were paid in kind, which meant food and drink, maybe some gas money, hahaha. But none of us were in it for the money, so it worked because we were having fun and making music. There is one more part in the series you might consider. You were obviously a pretty good player, so at some point you must have considered and yet rejected putting together a band to produce original material? I gather the risks would have been much higher, but with it would have come a shot at riches and fame. Your thoughts on that thought process would finish out the band series very nicely. This is a really interesting question - and has great relevance to the recent series of articles for two reasons: (i) we did indeed consider the 49 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

50 original material route: (ii) eventually the pursuit of the original material route is what led to the break up of the first band (The Avant Gardeners) AND was the cause of tension between myself and Jon when we were partners of my second main band (Carte Blanche). So let s quickly talk about it and then I ll sketch some thoughts on this route now - because 20 years ago things were very different. How We Nearly Got A Manager And Made A Pop Video Back in the early 90s - 92 I think - the band played a wedding at a Hotel near Heathrow airport. The Hotel was part of a 5 star chain, and the wedding was very lavish - the family of either the groom or bride were a big deal in mediterranean shipping and the guests flew in from all over Europe. Quick side note: we had a major faux pas at the start of this wedding - after we sound checked we turned the PA off and went to wait for the usual few hours before being called upon to play. When the audience were ready for us we started with the wedding dance - only we forgot to turn the PA back on so the only sound was coming through our monitors. And at the time we had really basic home made monitors! Oopsss! Anyways, back to the main story. After the wedding a guy came up to us and asked for a card. Normal procedure, it often happened. So a card was duly given. A few days later this guy called. It turned out he was also in shipping, had money to burn and told us he was looking to diversify and would we be interested in him managing us. Now this call was so far away from the kind of calls that we usually got that we had to seriously think it over. And then we had a number of meetings with him to find out what he meant. Here s the basics of what he was proposing: 1. We would sign a contract making him our manager. The contract was I believe, a pretty standard industry/agent type of contract. 15% of all 50 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

51 earnings that came about through his efforts would go to him. 2. Upon signature of the contract he would put 50 K in the pot (at that time, a serious amount of money) to get a song commissioned for us and a video made that he would then use to shop around record companies and try to get us a record deal. 3. If we got a record deal, then Point 1 came into force and he started recouping his investment via 15% of any advances. And so on. 4. If we didn t get a record deal after a certain period of time - it was either a year or 18 months - either party could terminate the contract with a months notice. And there was no liability for us to pay back any of his investment. Now we had several meetings with this guy - Robert - with our lawyer. (Both of our saxophone player s parents were lawyers - and his Dad was a high powered lawyer. So we got our legal stuff for free - otherwise it would have cost a fortune!). And it turned out by coincidence that he lived only two streets away from us in London. So we spent some time at his house - which included him shooting me accidentally with a firework! (That s a loooonnnnnggggg story!). But ultimately the contract never got signed and the deal fell through. I m almost certain thinking back this was 1992 as in the UK we had a mini recession triggered by being ejected from a fixed rate currency mechanism - those of you old enough to remember Black Wednesday may recall that. And it s possible that Robert got cold feet. But it was exciting for a while. Moving On - Writing Original Songs At around the time that Jon (Keyboard player) came into the band we started pursuing the idea of being an original band more. We sat around and wrote some songs and recorded some demos and shopped them around to various people that we either knew or that we were put in touch with via networking. 51 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

52 This got us a few meetings with people with some degree of clout in the record business. But ultimately our songs weren t considered good enough for anyone to display any real interest. How The Avant Gardeners Broke Up That first band broke up due to following the original route. We were still playing wedding and corporate gigs to pay the rent, but increasingly Bob and Nick and Jon wanted to follow the writing songs and original material route. And my heart wasn t in it. I wanted to do other things. And Reg - the original guitarist, who d left the band under a cloud - was still good friends with Bob and he wanted back in to the song writing project. So I bowed out of that. The day I did that was the day that The Avant Gardeners started breaking up. We staggered on for another six months or so - but that six months was enough for Reg to piss Nick and Jon off, so that they both bowed out of the original music project and Bob decided to leave the band because he wanted to pursue the original material side of things. Original Bands Did Things Differently Then This was before the X Factor and widespread adoption of the Internet - and original bands did things differently. The problem with any original band - actually, any original art of just about any form - is discovery. Getting either potential fans to find you and like you - or getting record company people to find you and like you and sign you up. The route to record company signing in those days was mostly through starting a band, playing some showcase gigs and inviting Industry people to come and see the gigs and hope that (a) you did a good show on the night; (b) that said industry people liked you. 52 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

53 So it was very much a lottery. And getting signed to a record label didn t guarantee that you would make it. Plus the recording industry started changing when production software like Cubase became available - you didn t need musicians to make a record now. You could do most of it yourself with a good keyboard player/programmer. (I ll be talking more about this soon with regard to the development of the bass too.) And this really started the era of the manufactured bands or singers. Now for sure there had always been manufactured bands - but in the early 90s things were really swinging that way. If you look at the current charts - or a roster of current musicians/bands/singers - you ll find an awful lot of them who came from talent shows like The X Factor. And very few who came the traditional route. If You re Thinking About This Route - Discovery Is Much Easier in 2014 Discovery of you and your material is much easier in 2014 thanks to the Internet. And especially thanks to YouTube. If you write songs then you can build a channel on YouTube and try and build a following that you can then either sell directly to, or a following that s big enough for a traditional record company to sit up and take notice of. But if you ARE going down the original music route - and this might sound self explanatory - the one thing that you need is great songs. And lots of them. If no-one in your band is a songwriter then take it upon yourself to learn. Deconstruct the classics - there are 210 or so songs in the Beatles discography, going through 100 or so of those ranging from the simpler, early tunes to the more complex, mid 60s masterpieces is as good a place to start learning about song writing as anything. Another reason to learn song writing is that the songwriter gets paid more than people who don t write songs. And if you strike lucky and write something that sells really well, a single song can generate revenue for the rest of your life. 53 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

54 A True Life Example Of This In late 2005 or 2006, one of our regular keyboard players - a guy called Ciaran Jeremiah - had to pull out of a series of gigs because his original band had been signed up by a record label. That original band were called The Feeling, and they went on to have three mega hits in (Google: Never Be Lonely, Fill My Little World Right Up and Love It When You Call.) They went on world tours. They played at the Princes Trust Diana Memorial Concert at Wembly. They did tons of cool stuff and were starts. But their second album didn t do so well. And their third truly bombed. And they were dropped by their record label. They ve since released a fourth album and apparently a fifth is in the works. But here s the thing: Ciaran didn t write any of the songs and although he did OK from his time with The Feeling (was able to buy a house in South West London not too far from me, and so on), he didn t do anything like as well as the two guys who wrote the songs (who made millions). And in 2013 whilst I was still involved with Carte Blanche both Ciaran and his brother Kevin - also a member of The Feeling - did gigs for Carte Blanche where they were paid 200. And probably had to work a lot harder than doing a gig for The Feeling where they would have a crew of roadies and the like. So the lesson here is that if you re going to go down the original route, you really need to know about song writing and be involved in it. I remember reading an interview about The Kings Of Leon that said one of the guys in the band was interviewed by Rolling Stone and told them he d started working on the follow up to Only By The Night. The other band members didn t know and when THEY read the interview they went straight round to his house to make sure that they were involved in the song writing and got song writing credits. 54 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com

55 Summary This was an interesting question to answer - I d forgotten about Robert and the exciting two or three months were we thought we were going to be pop stars (we did things like go round the main London recording studios to decide which we liked and which we didn t). Ultimately though if you want to pursue original music you HAVE to be able to write songs. And good songs. Interestingly enough - and I see a parallel with an area that I ve wanted to move into for a long time - a lot of people focus on the trappings of being a pop star and not much time on the songs. And there s a dearth of good songs around - so there is always opportunities for people who can write good songs in specific genres. Now song writing isn t something I ve really done much with - and not something that I really feel qualified to talk about - but deliberate practice and the learning principles associated with it would work for learning to write better songs just as it works for getting better at bass. And I can t think of a better song writing trajectory to follow and model than the Beatles. If you re going to do this, dig into their Hamburg experience and all the different music they were exposed to there (rock and roll to jazz ) and see how those influences played out in their song writing. Thanks to Tom - and if you have any questions to ask, please ask away! 55 First Bass And Beyond Issue November 2014 how-to-play-bass.com