Flea’s favourite bass warm-up exercises A student recently advised that I should watch Rick Beato’s excellent interview with Flea (in my head, they should’ve titled it Rick Fleato). The part that really grabbed my attention was Flea’s demonstration of his practice routine. Flea starts by talking about his main bass, a 1961 Fender Jazz, along…
How to learn and practise triads on bass This video takes you through some of the best triad exercises that I developed for my personal practice and use all the time in my teaching. I’ve condensed everything into a 15-minute routine that you can follow along with and incorporate into your practice schedule. If you’re…
Since March 2020, when the UK went into COVID-19 lockdown and all my gigs disappeared overnight, I’ve been teaching people from all over the world about music as it applies to the bass guitar via Zoom. This is one of my favourite things to do; I love hearing about my students’ musical goals and enjoy…
Ray Brown’s Half Position F Blues Here’s a great excerpt from an old video called ‘Ray Brown Presents the Art of Playing the Bass’. Ray is talking about the importance of foundational skills and having solid sound and time in half position: for non-upright players, that’s the area between the open string and the third…
John Patitucci’s walking bass masterclass Here’s a great clip of upright and electric bass virtuoso demonstrating some foundational walking bass concepts during a clinic. In the video, he plays though the standard ‘Stella by Starlight’ several times – first unaccompanied, and then with guitarist Jay Azzolina – to illustrate the different concepts he uses when…
Don Blackman’s debut album (1982’s Don Blackman) is one of a handful of discs that falls into the category of ‘Records I Wish I’d Discovered 10 Years Earlier’, along with Donny Hathaway’s Extension of a Man, Pleasure’s Future Now, and Chaka Khan’s Naughty. Not only does Don Blackman feature forward-looking, genre-hopping compositions, a roll-call of…
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