Ben’s Blog

There’s so many things in Victor Wooten’s new book that I think about regularly. One cool thing he talked about was “thanking your headache”, like you would thank your car’s gas guage. It’s an indicator, telling you something isn’t quite right. As such, you should thank it.

That’s a cool concept. Extending that to musical stuff, one “headache” I have is that I feel that I don’t have enough music in my life. How I could fit more music into my current life context and responsibilities? I’m not quite sure.

But, I like the idea of thanking the “headache” as an action indicator. It’s more constructive.

In fact, it points me to a former teacher and mentor with a day job that plays out 4 times a week…maybe time for some lessons with Wes again.

bentorrey :: Jun.30.2007 :: The Life Pie :: No Comments »

When our water heater blew a few months ago, I got the chance to go through a lot of my old stuff. I found a lot of great old sheet music that I hadn’t seen or used in years. One thing I didn’t find was one of my favorite books, The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine.

I mentioned that to my good friend Ben, who then sent me his own well-worn copy.  “I particularly liked the chapter on Bud Powell voicings, but the whole volume is incredible,” he said in an email after I thanked him for generously loaning me this great book.

I had intended to work with the book this time around with our new (digital) piano forgetting the difficulties, struggles and frustrations I created for myself years ago trying to do this stuff on bass. But, I had to give it a quick try on bass, and the Bud Powell voicings were the perfect place to start.

Figure 17-21 on Page 164 is great. I started trying to comp these left hand voicings. I love how sparse that is. I realize how often I will mechanically always do 3rds and 7ths, as if the fabric of the universe might come unravelled if I leave a note or two out. This is great stuff, love that b9 voicing.

I worked a while longer until I could add the line up top with my right hand (love that second mode of the melodic minor sound). I’d need to work A LOT more until I could play this simple example in good time, and even A LOT LONGER to be able to use these concepts in my own playing and do it at the speed of Music live. But, that’s the point of practice I suppose.

Key takeaway for me is to not stick to 3rd and 7th voicings exclusively, thin out the voicings and add some interesting color notes, letting the melodies define the chords more.

Man, I used to sit with that great book for hours and try to figure out voicings that I could play on my bass. My roomates from ‘94 to ‘96 can attest to that. It’s good to be back playing. Here’s some junk related to this clip.

budpowell02.AVI
budpowellvoicings.pdf
budpowellvoicings.zip (zipped GP5)

bentorrey :: Jun.28.2007 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

If I had the time/cash, I would definitely go to the NH Bass Festival http://www.nhbassfest.com/schedule/index.html. I think I may still go to the Saturday PM concert to see Michael Manring.

If you’ve never taken a workshop with Michael, I’d so recommend it. Go up there, spend the money, make it happen.

I took a week long masterclass with Michael back in 1993, and I can still name a bunch of amazing distinctions that he taught us. I could make a list of probably 15 things that I think about regularly as I play and practice.

Here’s just one. He told us a story about how when he was first living in New York he met a bunch of dancers. They really loved having live music, so he would go play at their dance studio. Solo bass gigs for dance practice. Man, what a great idea! And, so great for timing. I sit and practice the Bach suites, and man, tempo, tempo, tempo!!! Geez, Music and time don’t wait for my “difficult” fingering, or issues in translating the music to bass.

It helps me to remember, geez a Bourree is a dance, a lively dance at that. I was just running Suite 1. Could anyone dance to my Bourree’s from suite 1? God, my timing needs so much work…but what a cool idea to play for dancers and see the time in action, and to realize, geez, my fingering ‘issues’ or whatever can’t stop this pulse…

Just one example of some of the ideas that Michael throws out there in workshops…so recommend checking his workshops out. He’s one of my favorite musicians on the planet!!!

bentorrey :: Jun.21.2007 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

I caught Glenn Kurtz’s reading at the Harvard Book Store last night. I’m really looking forward to reading his book, it looks fantastic. More info at http://glennkurtz.com and you can get the book on Amazon.

It’s amazing timing for me, because I’ve been really digging into the Artist’s Way of late, and had just finished the “get back on the horse” chapter of Walking In This World. I’ve also been thinking about “pure motives” in my own return to music (see my last post), and noticing some of the old “objective-based” types of thinking coming in. Focus on pure practice and pure art is great for me at this point.

It was also definitely interesting to hear him talk about the deep loss you can feel when you give up your dreams. People don’t always talk about that so openly. It’s pretty common to tell yourself, “you gotta just ‘grow up’, get a day job and be happy.” But, it’s necessary to say it and let it be said, to get past it, and to move on and move back to the real goal of the journey–the heart of which is practice.

Anyway, so this morning I got up early for my own practice session, really cranking on Suite 5 right now. But, first I had to balance the checkbook. So, I turned on the TV for some background noise while I did that less than desirable task. Man, that Sting Dowland special again on GBH 44 Great Performances!!! I watched it for the 12th time or so. How great a musician is Sting? Wow! The backdrop of his life and all the castles and time to work on music (1 year working on that music!!!) made me very happy for him, and more than a bit jealous though.

I set the last half hour to tape and ran suite 5 straight through.

bentorrey :: Jun.21.2007 :: Books I Enjoy(ed)/Will Enjoy :: No Comments »

One goal I’ve always had was to write music. In getting back to that goal I rediscovered one of my favorite books, Fux’s classic “The Study of Counterpoint”.

As I was digging into the first chapter I was blown away by the master Aloys’ question to his student Joseph that he needs resolved before they begin their studies. Aloys asks: “Perhaps the hope of future riches and possessions induces you to choose this [musical] life? …Whoever wants riches must take another path.” And, Joseph responds: “No, certainly not. Please be sure that I have no other object that to pursue my love of music, without any thought of gain.”

Wow, that exchange really made me think. Just a few weeks ago, I had to wonder about the purity of my own musical motives. I have decided to “reissue” Music for the 6-String Bass, and to do that I needed to find the DAT of the original recording. I spent a day looking through all my junk.

While I couldn’t find the DAT of the recording, I did find a folder with old stuff including a copy of the DR strings newsletter from 1996 announcing me as a new DR endorsee (along with tons of other players) and some copies of Bass Frontiers articles that I had written.

That launched me into quite a bit of a personal debate. Are my motives as pure as Joseph’s? They certainly weren’t back then. How could I care more about a newsletter or magazine article than a recording I did? Coming back to a musical life now, I need to be like Joseph and not think of any gain, just purely pursue my love of music. *

Figure 5, Page 29

*All that being said, I want to thank both DR Strings and Bass Frontiers for supporting and believing in me, an unknown player then (and now). It was really inspirational for me to get a direct strings deal with DR, and since new strings were such a part of my sound in those days, it made quite a big deal financially. The opportunity to write articles for Bass Frontiers was also quite an honor, and I want to thank Jim Hyatt for being a person that was able to look at the content without requiring a known commodity to have written it. Thanks to Faye Rappaport at DR and Jim Hyatt, formerly of Bass Frontiers, for your support.

bentorrey :: Jun.16.2007 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »