Comfort Zones!

Today on Yamaha Music USA #silentbass and Lakland Basses Friday, we take a pause on our current discussion and talk about something I have covered several times this week in lessons..."comfort zones". We all have places on the board we are comfortable to play as well as genres/riffs/vocabulary. The problem is, as we become more comfortable, we become more hesitant to venture out of those zones and our playing risks becoming stale. Today, we will focus on comfort zones on the instrument. When we all began our journey, we learned the instrument in patterns, sections or positions. While this is a good way to begin, it can be limiting IMO. By looking at the board "as a whole", we unlock so many more alternatives, colors, harmonies, etc. And we can become more creative and original. Ok, how...first and foremost, relearn EVERYTHING you play AS NOTES. Try to identify their role in the harmony and what they sound like against the chord. It will begin to give you a mental catalog that you can draw from. Second, take every scale and pattern u know and play them over the entire instrument. Start from the lowest note (not necessarily the root) and play to the highest note you can saying the notes...SLOWLY. Sing them if u can. You will be surprised how much more "music" you will discover. Do this systematically. Make a list of scales and/or patterns you know or want to work on and randomly take one each practice session. Third, take a given bassline and try to expand it. Use different notes, notes in a different octave, play less or more. Try everything, thinking NOTES. The key here is to be able to play anything anywhere infinitely variable..allowing you to purposefully, creatively and originally interact musically in real time. As always, I invite your insights. #yamahamusicusa #makewaves #pirastro #glasserny #laklandbasses #sitstrings #tsunamicables #philjonesbass #basslessons #remotelessons