New Week

With my last day at Paramount Farms Friday, I'm taking this week off before starting the new job. I'm going to catch up on a few things around the house and garden. Later in the week I'm heading up to Santa Cruz to meet with my new bass teacher, Dan Robbins.

A week or two back I met Dan while he was playing bass for Bruce Forman in Paso. I liked his style and ended up chatting with him after the show. He showed me a couple things on the upright which was pretty cool. I'm hoping to pick up some jazz bass styles from him.

Speaking of Bruce Forman in Paso, I attended his jazz workshop the day after. It was really enlightening. Pretty much everything he taught came down to one thing - learn the details. At the end of the workshop he played with each of the students, whom were of varying skill levels. I sensed he was able to provide each one of us with exactly what we needed.

My notes from the workshop:

- Learn the chords over the neck, wiggle around and learn the notes around the chords
- in jazz use half steps to solo through the chords rather on top of the chords
- learn to play the scales at different volume levels, play them ascending/descending in volume
- KNOW the form of the song, use it as home base if you get lost
- learn the jazz phrasing...Continually build your jazz vocabulary
- master the details!