Learn in Your Sleep or: Put Your Bass Under Your Pillow for Maximum Practice Effect. Wait, what? In this article I talk about the magic window of learning we get right before we drift into dream land. Another opportunity to maximize your practice bang with just a small pre-sleep routine. It is really easy and

Learning Channels Ever played a piece over and over and it still failed to “stick”? No matter how often you repeat it, when you return back to it it feels as if you are starting from scratch? Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with you. Likely you just never learned how to practice effectively. Focusing

It’s a no-brainer, you practice, then you take a break, right? True, but, even that process of taking breaks can be improved upon and hence make your practice session significantly more effective. How you take those breaks, the spirit in which you take breaks and at what intervals all plays into how much you will

I recently wrote on Feedback Loops, and I got a few questions on it. So I wanted to go a bit deeper on the topic, particularly, by giving you examples of “how not to” and rather “how to”. It helps to have examples  – whether it is to improve yourself or others! Make sure to

Adapting The Patterns for Four-, Five-, Six-string Basses – Surprisingly Easy and Not What you Might Think I have been getting a few emails lately with questions about The Pattern System. The Pattern System is a systematic approach of getting the fretboard down, learning to think ahead (great for the groove!) and being able to

The best method I know of for habit change is the PORA method. I learned the basics of it at the University of Music in Vienna, Austria, refined it over the years and created a step-by-step infographic. Get the scoop and a video I did for ISB here.        

New playing video play list: Bach Cello Suite #1 in its entirety I recently released the entire Bach Cello Suite #1, all seven movements, on youtube. Let me know how you like it, please give a comment and a thumbs up. Bach is an amazing teacher. Notice how the bass lines weave through the chords…

The Right Questions at the Right Time… When a student is interested in working with me, I send them an in depth questionnaire. Why do I ask you questions? Am I not the teacher, the one who is supposed to have the answers for you? Besides the fact that I genuinely want to know the

European Wall Owners - Rejoice! Shipping to Europe - Now Awesome! I am fully aware that even the lowest shipping costs I could obtain to ship to our European friends from California were still - ridiculously high. Of course I have no control over that, it's not like I am a big warehouse or Amazon,

Help Being Accountable? A question I just got in: I read that one of the reasons you created the 20 unit program was to help folks be accountable with practice/studies.  My question is, how does the program actually do that? Here is the reply I wrote on email: Hi Derek, Quick answer to your query:

White keys, black keys… Got a question, wrote an answer. This is a very fundamental one on black keys on the piano, but nonetheless important to the bassist. Without a clear understanding how notes relate to each other it is too hard to understand theory and use it. Get the fundamentals under your belt, it’s

If you want to remember something, make it emotional Very often we can vividly recall times/moments of our lives that were very dramatic; or loaded with emotional (good or bad) responses. This means to me that we were very deeply involved with a given situation. We were living it with great intensity. And this imprints

Tritone Tricks – using ’em for big effect on the bass I got a question about the tritone. What is it and what can it do for me on the bass? Oh, it is all about tension and resolving it in wicked ways. Unless it’s a blues context, then we quite like that tension. I show you

Upright Bass… I received a question today about how to get into upright bass. My journey started on the electric bass, and a great entry point for upright it was for me: I remember picking up the upright for the first time and – bam – it connected instantly! I remember my classmates being astounded: even

Always on the hunt for the biggest pay-off for your practicing time… I am taking on an important and often overlooked aspect in this Talking Technique Episode: Feedback! We learn effectively (and unconsciously) through feed-back loops all the time. And we are excellent at it, whether we know it or not! After all, this is how

Three Awesome Tools to Spice up Your Practice TrueFire Live video seminar – if you missed it, watch it here! 3 Awesome Tools to Spice up Your Practice (for Guitarists and Bassists) There is a good reason scales and arpeggios are essential mainstays of any meaningful practice regimen: they will improve your playing and understanding

What to use – over a blues – when you are tired of blues scales… I got a question in  about scales to use for soloing over a blues but not just using blues scales. I could not help but add a bit of a caveat; because sometimes thinking only about what notes to use

Tune in, Ask Questions, Connect! Truefire Live is an interactive live broadcast  - a seminar with live Q & A. Since this is my first one, I cannot tell you exactly how it works, but knowing Truefire, the tech end will be super easy, clean and smooth! Bookmark the link on the bottom! I have a

E# – Maybe not so Sharp? Got a question, here is my answer. The short answer is, well sort of: musicians would know what to do when encountering an E# triad, but a knowledgable musician would not use this naming and there are some great reasons for that. These reasons all go back to understanding intervals

Well, yes, BUT: there is a crucial difference to understand…. and that difference lies in chord functions. It is all in how notes relate to what is perceived as “home”. In this article I lay out all the reasons why it is very important to distinguish between major and minor key signatures, even though the

Is your Bass sounding Timid and Quiet on one particular string? In a bass we want as balanced a sound as possible. If one of the strings is by its nature on the skimpy side, that can be a problem, especially for the fat E. Or the low B on a five. Keep in mind that