What am I really doing these days? Most of you know I had specific definitions for rehearsing, practicing and my old standby woodshedding. After a year of not playing with people not on the other side of a computer screen, I’ve discarded or thrown out, if you will, these definitions. I have determined that they no longer apply in my musical world. I’m able to do that because they are my definitions at least in this context.
Getting back to my original question…what am I really doing these days?
It was almost exactly a year ago when I last played with real musicians. You can define real musicians in a few ways I suspect and while I value the real musicians that I have had the opportunity to play with including the ones I last played with, I was speaking in a more literal sense. By real musicians, I was referring to living, breathing players that I was in the same physical space with and could hear them (and their music) in real time. Obviously, this was opposed to listening through my computer speakers. As I’m sure all of us must feel, I miss the real music.
So again, back to the question. I’m not sure I know the answer at this point. Maybe I should review what I have done musically in this long ass year, kind of like what did I do during my pandemic vacation. I’m speaking musically of course and not so much how I maintained my sanity (if I did) although there is a lot of overlap between the two. The sanity piece had more tequila and beer of course but lots overlap otherwise.
After the lockdown, I planned to woodshed the pandemic away and after a slow start, I did jump into the woodshed, quite successfully, if I do say so myself. Most days I worked on my chops playing arpeggios across all keys concentrating on mostly bluegrass keys, not on keys like Ab or C# but at least touching them as well. Then I went back and did minor arpeggios. I was driving Linda crazy.
I’m calling this Phase 1 and I kept it up until June or so. Using this ‘shedding experience I wrote bass lines for a couple of not so bluegrass tunes that some advanced bluegrassers play, Limehouse Blues and Minor Swing. I was cooking.
About that time, I caught a recording bug. You know the “rabbit hole”. I was spending my time buying gear and then more gear and trying to learn some recording skills.
There is no inherent problem with this activity and heck I could even drink doing it as I didn’t need two hands on my bass. The problem though was I had no hands on my axe at all, Sure, I recorded my bass lines and some bass tracks for some bluegrass songs Linda sang and I recorded but that was no part of nothing to keep up my chops.
As you guessed, my chops deteriorated very quickly. I took multiple takes to record a bass part on Jingle Bells for a Christmas recording.
This was Phase 2 which went from summer through to the holiday season.
Throughout the whole pandemic, but more so in the fall and winter, I got immersed in some online bass webinars. All were very interesting and I gained a lot of musical knowledge but no chops.
I even took a couple of online camps. Good knowledge again but hardly any fricking fingers on the neck.
There were some very good teachers in these camps. Good classes and exercises to take to the shed but I never really got to it. A distinct lack of motivation was now taking over my routines. Days went by when I didn’t touch my bass.
This was Phase 3 which overlapped some with Phase 2 and ended very abruptly on February 17 at Stanford when I got poked with the 1st dose of Moderna vaccine.
Now I find myself in the Dose Phase with no chops and the promise of being able to play with “real” musicians coming up rather quickly. If I don’t do something soon, I’ll embarrass myself and lose my standing in the Bay Area Bass Players Guild.
So, I jumped back into my woodshed/studio space and started to play again every day. Here’s my conundrum though, what am I really doing these days? I’m not sure if I am woodshedding, practicing or rehearsing. I’m working on the jam repertoire from the various jams I was abruptly pulled from along with the rest of my “real” colleagues. By my previous definition, that technically means I’m rehearsing and by using Strum Machine I’m technically practicing… the songs I’ll need to not lose my place in the standings. To build my chops up, I am also spending more time, again, on scales and arpeggios which feels a whole lot like woodshedding to me.
I hope you can see and feel my confusion. My second shot is on St. Pat’s Day, so you can see I’m running out of time.
I’m sure you surmised that my “real” musician friends are also my older musician friends. That’s how we all are going to be vaccinated and get to start the jams back up.
To answer my original question, I’m going to go back to when I was still working and the management team got the duty of BBQing for the employees a couple times a year. As we had a diverse work force, the fare at these BBQ’s included veggie burgers. Inevitably, when a new cook jumped in, the question always arose: how do you know when a veggie burger is done? The standard answer was…it doesn’t matter!
So the answer to my question on what am I really doing now, woodshedding, rehearsing or practicing? The answer is…it doesn’t matter!
