Sting Groove Workshop (Videos) – Learning a Song and learning from a song

by Ari • 19 Oct 2018 — 2 minute read

Okay, so let’s say you are learning a song. Here is the usual approach:

You decide to figure out the right notes as a first step to learning the song. So you:
- check out the TAB (a discussion for another time), or
- have the guitar player show you, or
- find a bass cover on youtube.com (see TAB), or
- find a transcription or buy a book, or
- or transcribe the notes by ear (best option!) and make your own chart or memorize it.
You listen to it over and over until you know it by heart. (Try to get the sound, phrasing, dynamics etc while you are at it!)
You play it over and over with the recording until you have it down cold.
You rehearse it with your band (thumbs up for coming in prepared!) and you are good to go on it.
The end. Right?

After all you did learn the song… you are happy. The band is happy and the audience is dancing. But why stop there? Why not take it one step further, and learn from the song? This will be extremely beneficial to you – way beyond just learning that single song.

Learn from a song by making an exercise out of it. Why?

Because you can turn it into a workout that is great for your technique!
To help you find rhythmic ideas for your own grooves!
How about dissecting the theory a bit and learning from that?
And finally, using the learning from the above elements to create your own grooves and ideas….

And that is what this episode of Talking Technique is about.

Here is a PDF to download with it

A bit about the back story:

I put this song together because a dear friend of mine was terminally ill. I made him a video of the song together with pictures that his travels inspired. He has since passed on. I thought of the song for him because of the line in the lyrics: “If the Doctors fail to heal you, let your soul be your pilot”.

Keep flying, dear Peter, now your soul is truly free.

Groove Creation Workout – Tips for you

Bass by Marleaux
Fretwrap for muting when tapping by Gruvgear
My favorite Strings (by Dean Markley, tapered)
Amp by TC
Revsound Cabs
Favorite Looper: Infinity by Pigtronix
Sound by WolfTrackAudio.com

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Technique

Bassist, author, educator.

Groove enthusiast and learning nerd.

Joined by 15,000+ Bassists

Your Instructor

Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

Read more…

Sting Groove Workshop (Videos) – Learning a Song and learning from a song

Okay, so let’s say you are learning a song. Here is the usual approach:

Learn from a song by making an exercise out of it. Why?

And that is what this episode of Talking Technique is about.