Hey guys, how's it going?
Scott Devine here from scottsbasslessons.com.
If
you haven't checked out scottsbasslessons.com
yet, there's a link below
this video that you can go to, and there you
will find nearly 100, if not
over 100 now, I'm not sure, HD video lessons
ranging from beginner to
intermediate, right through to advanced 'turn
your brain into pumpkin
juice,' because it was Halloween a few days
ago.
Today I'm going to be
talking about how to use study pieces within
your practice time to really
get your technique together, and get your
timing together as well.
We're
going to talk about that at the end of this
lesson.
But first of all, what is a study piece?
Well, a study piece is something
that's used in classical music.
It's what musicians use within the
classical, what would you call it, the classical
arena, we'll call it.
They
use it for building their technique.
It's something that they'll study over
an extended period of time, and a lot of the
time these pieces have been
written for a particular technique.
For instance, something like a tremolo,
or string skipping thing.
Whatever it may be.
A lot of the time, the actual
piece is written for a particular technical
exercise.
What's unfortunate
for us is in the world of bassdom, that doesn't
really exist.
There's no
study pieces.
And that's probably because the world of bassdom
really has
only been around 50-60 years, or something
like that.
So, we haven't caught
up yet.
I'm sure in another 50 years, we'll have lots
of study pieces.
Hopefully we will.
Maybe I should write some.
Anyway, what I like to get my students to
use as study pieces are jazz
standard heads, or bop heads.
Be-bop heads, or be-bop tunes.
If you hear
the word 'head' sometimes, if somebody says,
'Oh, let's play the head', it
just means, 'Let's play the tune.'
So I really like to use be-bop tunes for
my students to study.
And it's good because you kind of have to
get over
the entire fingerboard to play these things.
And normally they're quite
fast, and it's hard playing something that
wasn't originally written for
bass or guitar on a bass and guitar.
Normally be-bop heads are written for
trumpet, or saxophone, or whatever, something
like that.
The head, or the tune that we will be working
on today is a tune called
Donna Lee.
Now, this is written by Charlie Parker, the
famous alto
saxophone player, but it was made famous for
bass players because the bass
player Jaco Pastorius, who if you haven't
heard of, after this video, after
you've checked out my website, Scott's Bass
Lessons, go check out Jaco
Pastorius.
Because on his first solo album, he played
Donna Lee, and it was
frightening.
Everybody was blown away, and it has gone
down in history as
sort of like a seminal piece that he played.
So, check that out after this
video.
So, when you're looking for a study piece,
and hopefully you'll use this
one, because it's a great one, Donna Lee.
First of all I should mention
that the notation and the tablature are available
on my website, and that
means all the specific fingering I use, all
that kind of thing, the tab and
the notation are available on the website.
So, Donna Lee.
What does it
sound like?
Well, this is what it sounds like.
I'll play it to speed, and
then I'm going to break it down, and then
I'm going to tell you why I'm
breaking it down.
Okay, so this is it up to speed.
One, two, one two three
four.
Now, that's the first half, and that's the
half that we're going to
learn today.
Or, we're going to work on, should I say.
I'm not going to
take you through the exact fingering and things
like that, because we will
be here all week, or all month.
How do I approach something like this, and
how do I tell my students to
approach it?
What I do is I get them to break it down.
You need to break it
down to be able to learn something like this.
You can't just go at it like
a bull in a china shop.
You need to break it down into small, bite-sized
sections and phrases.
Then, once you've mastered that phrase, you
move on
to the next phrase.
And this is what a lot of classical musicians
do.
They
don't just open a piece of music, and then
just go for it.
Classical
musicians, they'll take it bar-by-bar sometimes.
Sometimes the piece will
be eight A4 sheets long.
They take it bar-by-bar, working on each specific
thing, making sure their technique is really
clean and the music's coming
out correctly.
There's no point, you know, doing this kind
of thing.
You
know, it just sounds like crap.
You need to take each specific phrase and
learn that and work your technique into it
so it sounds great.
Then you
move on to the next phrase.
So, what do I mean by phrases?
Well, you'll be
able to hear them when I play.
Once I show you, you'll be like, 'Oh yeah,
that's a phrase.'
Okay, so the first phrase is here.
Then there's a natural pause.
Okay.
The
next one.
Hear how it's two different phrases.
Again.
So that's the first
two phrases you should work on with this piece.
And the next phrase.
I
would say that's one phrase there.
And then.
So there's two phrases there,
as well.
Next phrase.
Yeah.
Next phrase.
Can you hear how there's the
different phrases there?
And that's how you need to learn something
like
this.
You can't just blast at it, you know.
The only reason I've got it this clean, how
you can hear every single note,
is because I've taken single phrases, worked
on them.
Again, first phrase.
Second.
Third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Sixth.
Seventh.
Eighth.
Ninth.
And there we
are halfway through the piece.
So, I'm going to play that really slowly first,
and then we'll take it up
to speed.
And then I'm going to show you some great
metronome exercises to
use with stuff like this.
Okay, Slowly.
One, two, three, four.
Now a little
bit up.
One, two, one two three four.
Now maybe a bit up from there.
One,
two, one two three four.
Now there, the phrases weren't so good.
I was kind
of on the edge; I need to strip back maybe,
come back a little bit in my
tempo and work on that, and then after a week
or so, I'll be able to nail
it at that tempo.
So even I do this, I strip everything back.
So once you've got your technique down, you
can play each phrase really
well and cleanly.
There's some great, great metronome exercises
you can
also try out as well.
Just to stop you kind of speeding up where
you know
it, and then slowing down when you don't,
and speeding up.
Everybody does
it, dont worry about it.
So get the metronome on.
We're going to put it on
160.
And that's, One two three four, two two three
four.
Try to play it
really cleanly.
Now there, I'm just trying to play it really
cleanly.
After you can do it at that tempo, 160 bpm
cleanly, okay, with the click on
every beat of the bar, One two three four,
one two three four.
Then, I want
you to halve it.
So it's on 80 BPM now.
And instead of it being a one and
three, we're going to put it on two and four.
Okay, two three four, one two
three four, one two three four, one two three
four, one two three four, Now
once you can do that, it's time to halve it
again.
We're on 80 at the
minute, let's try 40.
Now at the minute, I want that click to be
on beat
one.
OK.
So, one two three four, one two three four,
one two, one two three
four.
Now let's put it on the two.
Okay. two three four, one two three four,
one
two three four, one two three four, one two.
Now let's put it 
on the three.
Three four, one two three four, one two three
four, one two three four, one
two.
And finally, we're going to put it 
on the four.
Four, Four, I'm stuck
on the three.
Four, one two three four, one two three four,
one two three
four, one two three four, one two three.
So there you have it.
There's some
fantastic metronome exercises to use with
study pieces.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this lesson.
Don't forget, go to Scott's Bass
Lessons.
Check all my stuff out.
I'm really, really positive you're going
to enjoy it.
And don't forget that all the metronome tempos,
you can get
the MP3s right under this video on my website.
Take it easy, and get in the
shed.
