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Candidate no. V 0 4 9 9 8

Module Title: Issues & Topics 4

Module Code:(e.g. 5AABC123 ) 4AAMS164

Essay no:(e.g. 1 or 2) 1

Essay Title:(may be abbreviated) On Bi-Musicality

Assignment tutor/group: Moehn

Deadline: 24/02/2015

Date Submitted: 24/02/2015

Word Count: 1400

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In order to investigate and understand the concept of ‘bi-musicality’, I chose to learn to play the double bass, specifically, jazz double bass. My musical history being a jazz pianist meant that I felt I could transition fairly easily from one to the other as it would be a simple matter of transferring skills learned from the piano to the bass. Little did I know how wrong I was. What follows is an essay based on a diary I kept of my time learning the bass over the last month or so in which I will talk about the challenges (and there were many), difficulties and benefits of this endeavour.

The first thing I needed to do was to decide which instrument I would learn. Initially I contemplated choosing an instrument from a completely different culture, such as the Ney or Sitar, but then I decided that in order to focus on the bi-musicality aspect of the task at hand, and the fact that I have always wanted to learn the double bass and this would give me the impetus I needed to commit to what was a difficult process.

Having decided on the double bass as my instrument of choice, I set about the process of learning. For me, this entailed finding where the actual notes where on the finger board. For the last ten years, I have played the piano, where the technique for note production is press a note, hear a note. I quickly found that this was not the case on the double bass. There is no fret board, so at the start, note production is completely hit and miss; guesswork. This is where I encountered my first real challenge; impatience. Without sounding conceited, I have been playing jazz piano for so long now that I had forgotten what it was like to be bad, and those feelings came rushing back as I fumbled around with this great hulking mass of wood, (I specifically recorded this emotion in my learning diary). This led to me starting from scratch and working my up incrementally, doing only what I was able to do at the time. This sounds like a truism and it is, but while one is going through such as slow, arduous procedure, a single, solitary hour of practice can feel like an eternity.

Slowly but surely, however, I progressed, and after four days of consistent practice, I was starting to find my way around the instrument. I was finally able to produce what sounded to me like the noise a bass was meant to make, rather than an indiscernible ‘wub’ like sound. My primary practice technique, before I had any formal tuition, was to playing along with jazz tracks that I knew very well, and to try and fit a bass line to them. My go to album was Robbie Williams’ ‘Swing when you’re winning’ as I’d listened to it from childhood and knew each song by heart, which meant I was able to focus my energy on matching the bass line on the track. This was immensely helpful as I was actually starting to enjoy the learning process.

However it was here that I encountered the biggest challenge of all; stamina. Playing the piano for so long had led to me building a lot of pianist-specific stamina in my fingers but only for chords fingerings, not bass fingerings. This meant that, for the first week, I could only play properly for an hour at a time before I literally could not hold the bass anymore.

After two weeks, of self-tuition, I felt that I needed the guidance of a professional bass player, so I contacted a friend of mine who frequently plays at Ronnie Scott’s and asked him if he would look over my playing and critique it, which he did, and there was a lot to critique (as he put it). I suddenly felt very nervous, because all of sudden, my ability was being directly observed, rather than being listened to underneath the rest of a sound, as is the case in jazz. However, my friend was really

helpful and gave me some excellent pointers on how I could improve my sound, including things I had never even considered, such as how to stand, how to hold the bass so that I wouldn’t hurt myself in the long run and more general things like tuning. Again, all things that are second nature to long term players of the instrument, but these had never even crossed my mind. I would like to note that I consider this to be one of the best parts of this assignment; being the catalyst for me to understand a completely different aspect of playing and the process other people have to go through to produce a sound.

The evening after my first lesson, I took my bass down to a jam session that I have been running at my University. I saw this as a very important step, because I would no longer be able to stop and fix what I was doing wrong, I had to keep going due to the live nature of a jam session. My nerves were tempered by the fact that I knew everyone at this event, and they all knew that I by no means an actual bass player, rather that I was learning and that this would be a great opportunity for me to test my skills in a participant observation.

As I’d hoped, the jam was exceptionally helpful. It showed me that although had a lot of work to do, I was well on the well to becoming a bass player. I was able to play in the band for a number of songs in various styles with varying degrees of success. What was also very helpful was getting the opinions of those I played with on my ability to see what they thought I needed to work on.

Practising consistently for two weeks, combined with two more jam sessions meant that I felt I was making considerable progress. It also made me quite conscious of the effect it had had on my approach to the process of music making. Prior to learning the bass, I’d thought of music principally from the middle out; in essence, I’d thought in terms of chords and the function they had in the sound being produced. This process forced me to listen to and appreciate the bass as both a separate entity, with all its complexity, and as one part of a multi-layered sound. This gave me a completely new perspective on what was a very familiar area, and I feel it has genuinely helped me to develop as a musician.

Playing in the jam was also extremely significant for me, as it enabled me to play a completely different role from the one I had played for the last decade. I suddenly was able to understand what Hood meant when he said that ‘you have to persist in your basic studies until’ your ‘basic musicianship is secure’.1 For the first time since I’d started learning the bass, I felt like I belonged in the sound, that I could essentially hold my own and become part of the greater sound. This was an immense feeling and has led to my decision to carry on learning the bass outside of the assignment.

During the time I’d studied the bass for this assignment, I’d learnt an entirely new instrument, how to play it, how it works, how it fits in a jazz ensemble and how to think like a bass player. As mentioned before, it also gave me an entirely new musical insight that I absolutely cherish, and I believe will be invaluable going forward. Furthermore, it has enabled me to really understand the concept of bi-musicality, that is, playing more than one instrument proficiently and to a level where one can interact with others in the instruments natural environment. Although the peculiar notes I continue to produce make me well aware that I am not Ray Brown, I feel that I have made a lot of progress and will continue to do so. As Thelonius Monk said ‘there are no wrong notes in jazz, just poor choices’.

1 Hood, (1960) Pg. 58