Confession time: I’m a terrible student. March 2019 marked an entire decade since I took a lesson with the great Dr Richard Niles, a guitarist/producer/composer/arranger who studied under Pat Metheny at Berklee in the 1970s and has subsequently worked with Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, James Brown and a host of others. I met…
Here’s the third and final instalment of Janek Gwizdala’s bass clinic at ACM Guildford in 2007. For those who missed the first two episodes, you can find them here: – Part 1 focuses on transcription, including things he stole from George Benson and Allan Holdsworth – Part 2 deals with Janek’s early days playing the…
Here’s part 2 of Janek Gwizdala’s masterclass at ACM Guildford in March 2007 (in case you missed Part 1, you can find the video and the pdf transcription here). In this video, Janek discusses how he came to playing the bass, his early mentorship with Laurence Cottle*, how he got his ferocious level of technique…
I have a confession to make: I’m an addict. Over the last 15 years I’ve built a comprehensive library of instructional materials; books, DVDs, play-a-long CDs, online video lessons, VHS (yes, I’m that old). Here’s a glimpse of part of my bookshelf: The problem is that I’ve never really used half of them;…
The blog has been alarmingly quiet over the last 6 months. Sorry. Must try harder in future. Here’s something to tide you over until the next post. I made a resolution in 2013 to start writing my own music as the bulk of my work as a bassist involves interpreting other peoples’ songs and I…
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