To Pluck or To Pick?

It's been in recent weeks I've been investigating a new tone.  I'm a strong believer in not using a pick as a bass player.  Now keep in mind, I love so many tones that use a pick.  Many of the old school and modern punk bands, metal, classic rock.  I started on my fingers and was determined to get my speed that way.  I feel I've achieved that and of course I will continue to keep it in shape and develop.  I came up with the impression at first that folks used a pick to develop speed easier.  To me that seemed as a weakness.  On that account, I worked very hard on my right hand to gain speed and articulation playing finger style early on.  It of course is an on going mission.  In fact, I still do and will encourage my students to develop a finger style first and foremost.  As time passed on, I still heard tones I loved that used picks.  In fact, I've spent much of my focus time wise competing with pick tones.  After all, I spent all the time working my right hand finger technique.   Beyond that, I would get compliments on the speed I could acquire with my finger style.  I've used different pedals, compressors, muting techniques, plucking positions, etc.  Now I'm facing a new project where I just may have to use a pick.  In this case it's not about speed, it's about tone and vibe, nothing more, nothing less.  Sure I could tweak pedals for days and get a fairly competent tone.  I know in my heart of hearts the music isn't too fast that I can probably take some practice time and use a pick.  So that's what I'm going to do!  I will use finger style for this project as well but it's apparent that if I want it to sound as authentic as possible, I'll have to get over my ego and years of investment in finger technique and break out a heavy pick.  I love the prospect though.  I don't anticipate being a huge advocate for pick playing as a bass player but I'm excited about a new challenge for sure.

There's a link in this blog that has a small demo of me playing fingerstyle but getting a bit of that plunky pick tone.  It was a demo for a students to study the Oingo Boingo song "Elevator Man".  Because it was just for reference, I simply plugged my P-Bass into a SansAmp VT Bass pedal and then into the computer..  You can hear even as a fingerstyle player with the right technique you can get a pretty good sounding pick tone.

Now keep in mind, if it were a personal project it's just not my interest to play with a plectrum.  As years have passed, my attitude towards the betterment of the project has become more important than exposing the fruits of my labor as a player.

Evolving as a player is not just about theory and groove.  We have to make sure we continue to evolve as team players, bandmates, product producers.  It's equally important.  

It's plunky time!

Elevator Man (bass sample)

Stage Volume

Have you ever walked off stage thinking you played a great show?  Someone walks up to you and says, "I couldn't hear you at all".  Funny, you were plenty loud on stage.  Have you ever walked off stage thinking you couldn't hear yourself very well?  Someone walks up to you and says,  "You were so loud!".  Turning up and turning down in the middle of songs, bandmates doing the same.  It can get crazy sounding on stage.  Everyone want's to "feel it".  For many "feeling it" means cranking it up.   

Does loud stage volume constitute good stage volume?  Hardly.  Most of the time, if your band is going through a P.A., the soundman will want you to have a conservative amount of stage volume.   Why is that?  Most soundguys believe that they can do a good job mixing the band if the sounds from all the amps don't cary into the crowd too much.   If you don't agree with this, I understand.  You might be one of many who says "The audience must hear me at all costs, and I must hear myself."  What happens when you perform with that attitude?  You sound great to yourself and the first 5 human rows of people in the crowd, the engineer turns you all the way down in the P.A. because even then your amp is still too loud.  In addition, your band can't be mixed well because you decided you needed to hear yourself at all costs.  Your statement.... as long as I sound good, I'm happy.  Nevermind how my band sounds as a whole.

Sometimes I feel I have no right to write these articles as I believe I'm always learning.  I have a lot of experience and I've made many sacrifices in my search for the best stage volume.  It all started when I got into playing through smaller amps in larger venues.  That reality about the amp on stage being just for my listening pleasure hit home in a big way.  After that, I started asking soundguys to tell me if I needed to bring my stage volume up or down.  They always seemed very happy about my welcoming them to chime in on the issue.  Sometimes it was great, sometimes I could have held a more roaring show in my bedroom with some volumes that have been requested of me.  

What is the correct stage volume?  There's no right answer.  As most of you know, every gig is different.   I used to think if I matched my stage volume to the drums things would be pretty good.  Not so!  I learned that my stage volume is almost never as loud as rehearsal volumes.  At rehearsal,  your amp volume is in fact responsible for filling up the room so everyone can hear.  The same can be said for gigs with minimal P.A. systems where maybe they just put the vocals through.  

It takes a lot of experimentation and of course it's a venue to venue issue on this subject matter.  I've had plenty of shows where I set my own conservative stage volume and then suffered as far as not being able to hear myself on stage or lost my headroom for playing dynamically.  Dynamics is how you want to gauge your stage volume.  If your amp is so quiet that you feel you have to play with more strength than usual, it's good cause to turn up.  If we were all blessed with masterful monitor mixes on the stage and nice lengthy soundchecks all the time it would never be an issue.  I imagine most of you reading this are entry level to intermediate players in addition to players who gig in many different styles like me.  My amp doesn't have a "set it and forget it" setting that I use for all gigs and all instruments.  Sure I know what I like to do with my amp typically but I always do a minute or two of adjusting once I put my gear on stage.  Sometimes, I think I have my amp set up the way I'd like it but then get on stage and found out the room drinks low end for breakfast and I have to crank some "bass" in my bass.  Some rooms fill up will little effort so I may have to turn way down.  

There are so many variables.  Being aware of your surroundings and what is happening all around you is the best advice I can give on almost all of the musical experiences.  Sacrifice is inevitable yet it always comes with a lesson to learn.  Ideally, your stage volume is for you, possibly the drummer a little if he isn't getting a good monitor mix.  You will probably play your whole show and not know exactly what your instrument sounds like to the crowd until you walk off stage and people start telling you what it sounded like.  This is the angle of live sound that always keeps me humble.  What I hear on stage through my amp and even my monitors is just for me and my bandmates.  My awesome expensive speaker cabinet is almost always for my reference only.  There's lots of good and bad live sound engineers out there and you usually don't have control over it.  All you can do is ask the crowd a few times "Can you hear everything alright?"       

Much of your stage volume is going to have to do with the equipment you choose and how you set it up on stage.  I've had very comfortable stage volumes with smaller amps set on a chair.  I've had hard to hear stage volumes with a cranked amp and a huge speaker cabinet.  Some of these issues are dependent on the directionality of a speaker cabinet.  If the speaker is sealed up and has no porting on the front, it may not fill up a very wide area.  I've found much of the time, standing right in front of your amp isn't always the best place to hear yourself.  I usually have to walk around the stage some to find the sweet spots when it comes to hearing my bass. 

Personal Experiences:

I played a gig and the soundman wanted my stage volume very low.  I struggled to hear myself during this set but I made it through OK.  After nearly a 90 minute set, the singer moves from the center of the stage during the last tune.  I decide to stroll over to center stage.  Holy loftiness, Batman!  I was supercranked!  I wish I had known the whole show.  I wouldn't have been pluckin away on stage playing with a bit of frustration towards the soundman requesting my low stage volume.  My amp volume wasn't cranked, but from center stage at this particular venue at least I could feel the sub woofers and the rest of the overall P.A. much better.  I heard the band had a great mix that night in the audience and my bass was plenty present.  

Sometimes you have to lose to learn.  Again, it's about sacrifice.  If from your very first gig, you thought you had the art of live playing down, then your that way too loud guitar player that many bands have or maybe that drummer who keeps speeding up.   Maybe, your that bass player that's annoyingly loud or slaps when it's completely uncalled for.  This doesn't mean you don't deserve to be pro-active and try for a great stage tone and volume.

Most live sound engineers are characters.  They mix up to 25 bands a week and your band is no more special to them than the others until you start your show and have a chance to prove yourself.  When you soundcheck or linecheck and are asked to play your bass, if your way cranked, the soundman will think your an obnoxious selfish jerk and will probably think that will set the tone for the whole evening.  If your lucky, the engineer will communicate with you and maybe even school you.  Every chance I have, I always ask the engineer after each show if he had any thoughts or comments on my tone or volume.  If there's a soundcheck I'll ask after that.  Even if your not working with the best engineer, he probably knows something you don't.   One more note about soundcheck.  When the sound man asks you to play something to he can check the line and tone, don't play some slap line if your playing in a blues band.  Play something that's representative of what your going to be doing most of the evening.  That way, there's less of a chance to surprise the sound man or yourself when things start sounding different.  I've also walked off the stage after soundcheck telling the sound guy "Thanks, everything is great."  Then moments later, Joe guitarist says "i just turned up", or maybe you decided in retrospect you were a bit loud or soft.  That's ok.  Sometimes it all takes a moment to soak in.  Instead of surprising the sound man, tell him your concern.  Maybe he'll tell you there's room to turn up or turn down.  Maybe he'll have another idea such as if one part of your tone could use some sprucing up which man get you more presence on stage as well.  I like a very aggressive tone for some gigs and it can get thin if I don't watch out.  Sometimes, all I need i someone to tell me it would benefit from some low end out front to help out greatly.  

Mixing humbleness with awareness is a great way to move forward as a live player.  Things may not always go your way but you'll learn from each experience.  These lessons can only make you better.   

Practice Makes Practice

It seems a lot of these blog ideas come up by things currently surrounding me in my life.  Maybe it's something for myself, or something that may be coming up frequently with my students.  On occasion, like this particular blog, it's both.

My last blog covered a lot about practice.  Today I'm going to talk about the two types of practicing approaches I live by.  It's really important that you keep at least one of two philosophies behind your practicing habits.  1) Frequency. 2) Variety.

FREQUENCY:  Students and of course parents of students will ask me how much practicing should be going on.  For an absolute beginner they may not have as much material or even stamina to go for hours on end.  Maybe your a experienced musician who's going through a busy time in your life which doesn't grant you the enjoyment of lots of practice time.  My answer is 15-30 min, five days a week, and seven if you please.  I follow it up by saying.  Not 15 min one day, skip three and then 45 min the next time to make up for it.  It's the frequency that your looking for.  The five days in a row.  With this type of practicing habit, physical goals are going to be a lot more slow going but you will still have some effective mental practice which of course is important as well.  For the more experienced players, it may just be up keep until we can get back into a deeper regimen.  I don't think this approach should be used as a replacement for serious nose to the grind stone practicing.  I think it's good for experienced players who are just a bit busier trying to make sure their bills get paid, their relationships are in tact and are taking a breather from music from time to time for whatever reason.  Possibly other pleasures in life?  For beginners, I feel that after 6 months, you should probably at that point be motivated to play at least 30 min a day or more.  

VARIETY:  If you can squeeze a variety of tasks into a short practice successfully, more power to ya.  Usually if I'm going for such an approach, I'm only running down a few things that needed very little work to begin with.  Maybe I'm just running down two or three songs I need to get up on stage and play that night or the next day.  Think of it this way... Do you get much from jumping in on the middle of a 30min TV show for 7 1/2 min and then flipping to another one for 7 1/2 min?  Usually not.  It's all a bit disjointed and of course if you liked the first show to begin with, you would have stuck with it.  So one of those 7 1/2 min slots was probably a waste.  You might of caught on to the plot, but you probably don't know all the characters and there's still a lot of holes in the story.  Bummer.  Now, the rest of this portion of the blog is about those of us who love those practices that go on forever, or would like to know how those who do practice for hours on end get there.

Let's say you have 60 min or more to get some practicing done.  I'm not going to get into an exact regimen because all players have different needs but I'll give you a few basics I go by.  I spend about 1/4 of my time warming up.  This usually starts with very simple and painfully slow right hand exercises that gets me warmed up and gets my mind and body going with some sort of solid rhythm reference such as a metronome or drum machine.  After that, I'm spending some time on some sort of chromatic exercises.  Gotta make sure my left and right hands are agreeing.  From there I'm probably running down some scales in various keys, chords, etc.  Depending on what your studying it may be other things.  You'll notice how I haven't talked about the creative side yet.  This is because I believe the #1 key to a good long practice is eating your Wheaties and makings sure you get some educational progress going first and foremost.  Once we start vamping on a groove or tune, we probably aren't going to be very motivated to go back to modes and arpeggios after that.  Here's the beauty of this approach though...This is exactly how shorter practices turn into enjoyable marathons.  Time permitting of course.  After you've done all your cerebral stuff, you may have already covered nearly 60 min.  Then when you get into your songwriting, grooving, vamping, hashing out a tune you grew up listening to, they may carry you for quite a bit longer.  The importance and effectiveness is much deeper than how simple it sounds.  Of course you can spend longer on one part of your initial practice if you feel you need it or are especially enjoying/appreciating it.

I'm sure there will be more blogs in the future on practicing.  For now I encourage you to experiment with your practice regimen.  Make sure that when you change something, you sit on it for a while and don't abandon it so quickly.  Really give it a chance to be effective.  That goes for everything!

Chi, Flow, Zen, The Force...Whatever.

Stop me if you've heard this one.  "There's something to be said for spontaneity."  How about this?  "I don't improvise or jam, I'm more of a riff guy."

Maybe you've said those very lines yourself.  I'm hoping through these blogs, one thing I can break down for some folks are the stigmas that come with well...... practice, learning theory, playing with a metronome, etc.  Basically anything that takes time, effort, and usually leads to frustration.

Many are discouraged from the above mentioned subjects because they will usually either learn it and move on, or learn it but not well enough to actually use it in real world playing situations.  Real world being outside of the bedroom.  That's ok though, I feel the same way about learning foreign languages.  Sure I may know a few words but I would hardly dare use them in fear someone would ask me to complete a whole sentence.

So why is the title of this blog  "Chi, Flow, Zen, The Force"?  I don't think musicians need to learn theory or practice certain physical techniques to earn their stripes and suffer with the rest of us geeks.  I don't think those are the only paths to musical enlightenment either.  Of course you'll have additional benefits if you do learn the above mentioned subjects.  I do believe that good practicing habits and as much time as you can invest is paramount though.  Maybe it's mind numbing finger exercises, maybe it's songwriting for hours on end.

Let's face it, it's not always fun to think so hard.  Chances are except for a rare occasion, I'm having much more fun playing a song I've practiced quite a bit or I've already played live many times before.  How many times does one need to hear "Practice means perfect." to believe it.  It's like a brainwashing motto to tell you that brainwashing is beneficial.

We're talking liberation here folks.  We're talking about being so equipped from our day to day preparedness, that it takes little or no effort to execute what we hear in our heads.

Ear Training: When learning a part of a song, we can try next fret, next fret, next fret, and maybe we decide we've got the right notes.  Or we can spend time frequently ear training, learning songs and eventually get ourselves at least in the right zip code.

Shows:  Very simple.  I can look down at my instrument the whole time, sweat various sections of a tune, and all other sorts of uncomfortable moments.  Alternatively, I can prepare in large amounts and enjoy a bit more, look up and connect with the audience,  focus on my articulation, just flow a bit more overall.

Be it theory all night long or inventing your own scales when you practice, one thing is for certain, the end result of what you do is the real answer to how hard you need to work or prepare.  It comes out in shows, recordings, lessons, jams.  "This section is really tricky" is something one unprepared guy at rehearsal may utter as the other players think "He doesn't even look like he worked on it."  So nobody wins in that situation.  The song doesn't that's for sure, nor does the vibe.  While your sitting there sweating out a tricky passage or trying to find all the notes in the key of the song, your enjoyment is suffering.  If your smiling, it's out of nervousness.

Music should be enjoyable.  Forgive me but allow me to point out the world "able" in "enjoyable".  If your able, your most likely going to enjoy.  

Before I was Joe Musician, I used to watch all those Van Halen videos that came out to support the album "1984".  One thing I noticed was Eddie was always smiling.  While many guitarists are crying over learning his licks, this guy is smiling.  Not because he practically invented a style, because he's that practiced.  I'm leaving some live Eddie footage below to show those videos aren't just what happens when your playing along to a pre-recorded track on a soundstage.

Smilin' Eddie

D.I., D.I., D.I., My Darling!

A short lesson for those who don't know what D.I. is.  D.I. is short for "Direct Injection".  If your amp has an XLR (3 pin plug) out on the back, that's your D.I..  If you go to a club and they plug a box between your bass and your amp, that's a D.I..  What a D.I. does is takes the signal of your instrument which is made to go into amps, pedals, etc. and converts it into making nice with mixing boards and recording devices.   You can find a inexpensive D.I. for around $40 or a high end one for around $500 up.  The D.I. I use is under $200 and I'm very happy with it.  Of course if you go to a studio they should have D.I.'s out and ready to go for you.  Many bass players have D.I.'s they feel are reliable and a part of their sound and will bring them along to sessions and shows.

Some D.I.'s folks use are not so much dedicated D.I.'s, but have a D.I. as one of their features.  The Tech 21 Bass Driver D.I. is a great example.  People buy that product more for tone features than D.I. purposes.  Otherwise, they would just buy a stand alone D.I.  In the case of multi-function pedals that have D.I. as a feature, I typically will send that out to a dedicated D.I. but beware as there's a possibility at that point of getting some noise going.  If you encounter that, adjustments will have to be made.  I've gotten some great sounds just plugging the D.I. of my SansAmp Bass Driver into a recording device.  Let me stress, in the end your tone will be up to you and/or the engineer.  If you have a good D.I., and sensible quality bass, you should be able to get a tone that makes you smile.  Depending on the style of music you play, fresh strings can be a factor too.  Just like any piece of electronics, no two units are the same.  Though the concept of the D.I. is to bring the natural tone of your instrument to it's full potential, some units have one or two features which can shape your tone even further.  Many come with a "high pass" filter which excludes some of the lower end frequencies and let's all the other frequencies after pass through.  I don't find myself using this feature too often on bass.  Depending on the instrument I'm using, it can come in handy.  D.I.'s are very common for use on keyboards and acoustic guitars and at times a "high pass" filter can be helpful.  Other D.I.'s may have an additional tone boost feature to augment your sound.  The Eclair Evil Twin D.I. is a good example.  It has a toggle switch to boost selectable high end frequencies. 

Once you start recording with a D.I., you may find your instrument responds in a different way than when your playing through an amp and cabinet.  There's lots of factors of course.  Remember, your amp is usually made to fill a room and not car speakers or ear buds.  Recording is an audio illusion.  When you see a car blow up in a movie, you sit there and think "wow".  Not usually thinking "They didn't sell it because I wanted to see a car blow up inside the theater."  Same with recorded audio.  Your tones are implied.  Four inch boom box speakers are not there to replace our large speaker cabs that we use live.  If your looking for a very pure tone, I suggest using a D.I. or direct out of your amp and nothing else.  Minor adjustments can be addressed at the mixing board or compressor.  Coming up with tones takes a lot of faith in your equipment, playing, engineer, the room, etc.  

Using the D.I. from your amp can be very useful as well, just make sure you know the rules about if your amp has to be plugged into a speaker or not to function properly.  Looking at the manual will usually give you that info.  I will typically use the D.I. from the back of my amp if I'm only going to record one channel of bass.  The benefit is I can do some tone shaping from my amp.  Keep in mind, concept wise the D.I. from an amp is different than plugging into a dedicated unit. 

CREATIVE BENEFITS 

A friend of mine once scolded me for not recording a D.I. of a guitar on one of my demos.  The demo could have been the real thing except I just used a whatever guitar tone and worked on my tune.  Had I used a D.I. going at the same time, I could have later "re-amped" and had a very non-demo sounding guitar.  Alternatively, I could have used the D.I. tone and ran it through some software for more of an advantage.  The same can be said for bass.  If your going to record with a mic, or a D.I. from your amp, use a separate D.I. of your natural bass tone in addition.  This means your tone can always go through another amp later if you aren't happy with what you committed to while recording.  It's important you always record a true uncolored version of your bass for possible later use and back up.  Options are good right?  

D.I.'s can be easy to use if your just a plug 'n play type of person.  If you are going to record two different tones or give yourself multiple options for tones later, D.I.'s can get a little more involved when it comes to routing your tone and such.  I feel a video on the subject coming on!