Interview with the legendary bassist, Victor Wooten

hey guys how's it going so I'm on holiday right now like is it not like I'm on holiday right now as I'm like filming this obviously I don't have holidays with this man over here we should go on holiday we should go we should go hold it any of baldies what all the holes are baldies on tour yeah what for that anyway but yeah I'm on holiday right now so as in like I'm with my family and so I didn't want to miss a week and not upload anything so I thought I'd share something with you guys I really enjoyed I thought it was really special in a nutshell just over a year ago victor wooten swung by SPL towers to hang out and chat all things based and we caught the entire thing on camera and recorded the interview for you guys obviously victim isn't a like a legend legend in his own lifetime and I I think it's a really really valuable interview I think he drops some really really amazing bits of knowledge that I think you guys are going to learn a lot from and and yet so here is the interview with Victor moon and remember if you are an Academy member you can also watch our I think we've got like oh is 70 or the interviews on the site that you can watch the videos for that just like the one that you're about to watch and and if not guys you can not remember over Scott spaces from stock go check it out you can grab a 14-day free trial I put the link below and also remember guys we've got a podcast and this interview is on the podcast as well you can't watch the video on the podcast obviously but you can listen to all the interviews and as I said that over 70 of them I hope that's right around 70 anyway how do I go take it easy I'll see you in the I'll see you on the beach good bye hey guys how's it going Scott again here from Scotts bass lessons and we're here with the mighty the one and only Victor Whitney's been cool enough to come down to the towers and hang out is playing a brutal social club which is just down the road luckily it's literally eight minutes from this place we just checked out on the map before but anyway Victor just thank you so much and hang and they share sharing the knowledge bombs I'm expecting some serious knowledge but yeah but what brings you to Leeds in the first place what you're doing right now let's talk on that music yeah you know I want to play everywhere and anywhere I can unfortunately you know with the management and booking ages and someone here all agreed to let us play somewhere I'd be because how many Kings to be done in the UK this is probably the fifth I know we did a couple nights in Brighton ya know in Bristol - tomorrow - tomorrow we did a couple in Bristol we did London and we did where are we today today's Lior we did man get off yeah and you've just come home from Spain as well I'm in Spain and in Paris yeah yeah yeah so yeah yeah how many how many kicks is that interpret over the tour I don't even know I mean it's only about a two-week tour so it's not too bad yeah because I suppose a lot of the guys when they see you know most people that be watching this will probably experience you're basically playing through YouTube right you know and they probably wonder what your life is like you know sort of like day-to-day sort of like gigging and things like that you know like how does how do you talk about how you actually get to come on a tour in the UK and Europe and things like what do you need in place to actually do that well to do that it is generally to promote an album or something like that it could be yeah I guess it could actually be easier if you have a product because then people are interested in it but right now I don't have a new product yeah you know people like Marcus or Stanley know my heroes they just have a following so or Mike's turn let's yeah they can just go and play and people will show up so I'm just trying to follow suit down I put I don't put out records every year you know so if I only came when I put out a record it would it would be too long yeah yeah yeah but um as we were just kind of talking off off camera the industry has changed so much that a lot of us musicians now we don't sell records so we have to do something to maintain ourselves as musicians my jewelry coloring comes into place on Big Time we're touring comes into play especially if we're considered jazz musicians that usually our audiences are small the pay is smaller than like a pop popular pop so we have to tour a lot when did you when did you stop touring if I when we did when did you pick up the dice my brother Reggie was playing guitar with me tonight started me when I was very very young 1 or 2 years old normal - yeah yeah I mean literally and it's because I'm the youngest of the five boys yeah and they needed a bass player literally and that became me so my first tour I think Reggie said I turned six years old on the tour in the west coast of the United States we were opening for Curtis Mayfield grace Olsen really well I think it was his Superfly tour yeah yeah and we were an opening act and so I've just done it my whole life can you can you remember a time when you didn't play an instrument no no it's just felt like you've always played mr. eyes and do you play other instruments I do I know not well not well but you know a string works the same way on any instrument so you know you can figure out any stringed instrument whether it's a harp of violin or anything that's what guitar but I do play I play cello fairly well drums fairly well a little bit of guitar I know how the piano works but I can't really play yeah do you think that was to do with the way you brought up with all your brothers playing to kind of swap you know that I made it up it was mainly because I didn't need to learn those instruments I learned those instruments kind of later oh really yeah oh yeah I mean I why did I need to play piano I was living with one of the best in the world yeah it's our our sax or drums yeah I had it all there so I never really learned but oh what I would do is learn how I would learn their approaches and their mentalities and apply it to one thats thought process around what they were playing exactly or even drum rudiments like I think a lot of young boys like to beat on things you want play the drums I'm silly but you know and that's natural but we already have still want to do that yeah yeah me too so I really I just learned how to play the drums on the bass and which is why my style is very rhythmic and when I was very very young when Jaco Pastorius really made it popular to learn horn lines and there donnelly and bird and things like that I was learning drum solos on division yeah learning Billy Cobb Tony Williams licks and transcribing their solos but figuring out how to play it so how old are you this play I don't know 9 10 some sailor so he where was the infant you know like Billy Cobham you know where where were these names my brother so your brother's a cold I listened to this little hot every they didn't have to ask and where did they get it from that's a family apparently a better question that's all you need to be really interviewing yeah yeah my story is pretty easy I had four great teachers but like when Reggie was teaching me at 2:00 to play the bass he was also teaching brother Joseph at 5:00 to play piano so if I was - Reggie was only 10 he's oh really we're only 8 years apart for the oldest Tiana's so the real story is there yeah whoo how did he learn how how did he know to teach me well enough to be on tour at six yeah and Joseph they play the keys and then Roy was playing drums and Rudy they're all very close in age so they were starting together but that's the real story you know anyone born in my position would be good you know you have no choice but to be good but how they learned via parents leadership not musicians no but musical yes right and so they supported us they would sing a lot around the house they play records they would different styles of music they would take us to concerts I remember being in the first and second grade going to see James of my own life and all those people ever yeah yeah totally supportive and then you know their brothers and sisters were also very musical and I can remember one of my aunts my aunt and Louis she would say oh you got to listen to this Victor this is Willie weeks playing with Donny Hathaway records everything is everything you know Donny Hathaway live you got to hear this bass solo and they would just turn us on the things Oh somebody yeah it's really really is amazing but back then it was just what it was yeah when you read it you don't realize you don't realize how amazing it is I don't realize how amazing the opportunities that us brothers had as a kid the things we got to do yeah because we could play music I see it now because I have kids that age and did touring in music ever take you out of school or did you oh yeah it did yeah yeah we'd have to miss school yeah yeah we have to miss sporting events you know cuz we played sports in school and things like that so you had to miss miss school and I missed a lot you know just some sometimes playing with friends I can look out I can remember looking out the window see my friends playing industry but I've got to learn this song to live a wedding coming up there right yeah the bride wants this song ready crying I don't worry I know it's hard now but you'll get it rest teach it well he's good yeah like I was talking to Evan Brewer and he would say they feel like Reggie the teacher you know as people call it the tier Evans one of the guys that came through the Reggie Wooten like he's legend a legend me teacher man anybody was a brother yeah so yeah there's only many people that Reggie has touched musically what do you think he got that side of his personality room that's a very good question I'm telling you that's the better story you know I mean I'm the I'm the most known of the brothers yeah but my path was kind of set for me and it's very easy and and growing up a kid I don't know any kid that likes to practice and I was one you know kids like to do it they want to play not practice no kid wants to practice video games they want to play you know and so it was that way for me so I've never enjoyed practice but put someone in my position with the brothers I had who really worked on it and like to practice you know I'm here with the youngest I suppose as well so that you're slightly heavy influence coming down from the moment oh yeah I'd practice onto that so and it would some people would be easily like four times as good as I am when you were practicing what kind of things we practice it obviously you've mentioned like transcription of working at yeah still I look at it I I'll answer that question but I really look at it like let's say I want to learn to speak English and I admire you because you speak so well and I say when you were growing up what did you practice you know speaking you did it yeah you just spoke and and you were never not allowed to participate no one needs you practice no one said you have to learn these words first got to say your ABCs or your skills over and over no one ever did that you maintained your freedom that's why you have your own voice music has been identical for me I was learning it at the same time as I was learning to speak and in the same way through freedom not through a regimen of practice so practice is not my mentality playing is but a lot of people hear me say that and they think I'm saying don't practice I'm not saying yeah I'm just saying that wasn't a part of what I did I'm not you played I had a lot of opportunity to play all the time yeah because you're four older brothers were playing over time and parents were getting us a gig yeah yeah so but when I would work on things I would get excited about certain things like when I heard Jocko one of the first things a great drummer named Billy Drummond yeah I'm Billy Drummond lives in New York now but he was a neighbor and he played portrait of Tracy yeah hello via this point Monteux was when it's what I don't know what year that was when that record came out jackals first record 76 at least I was in the six or 78 whatever it was if it was 76 I was in a sixth-grade which would have made me 11 yeah yeah so 78 I would have been in the eighth grade whatever yeah I heard it and because I was young I didn't have the mentality of wow that's hard I can't do that my mentality is if he can do it I'm gonna learn that yeah but my mentality is was because I don't like the practice right my mentality is I'm going to learn tonight and so there's about three instances that I can still recall Portugal Tracy was one where I didn't sleep til I landed the whole song he was if I just got a date up and learned that song and that was my introduction that was my whole practice of harmonics yeah you know I mean I was showing a girl just a few days ago in where was it Madrid how to play harmonics on the bass it was very difficult and she was just complaining I'll never get it I just never had that mentality yeah I'm gonna learn it tonight yeah yeah yeah and it took me a long time but after I learned that song I knew so much about Jocko yeah because he you know he had there's a lot of patterns that he repeats yeah in that song so I learned a lot about Jaco I learned a lot about our minds and I was just better so I called it I call that concentrated practice yeah not so much that I'm concentrating but like when you have orange juice concentrate yeah yeah yeah add a little water and you get a lot yeah that was the comment process really digging in in tonight unless if I was like if you're talking about life music being a language and you're you're learning what he said you know absolutely you study in the way he spoke and then the okay's I feel absolutely absolutely and when you approach it that way it's not as difficult like if I wanted to learn a speech one of my favorite speakers is dr. Martin Luther King if I wanted to learn his speech I wouldn't say oh wow this is going to be hard man how does he do it you would listen and you repeat it yeah yeah you know you may not even know what the words mean but you can repeat it yeah I've just treated music that same way and there have been a few things that did the same thing with Stanley Jordan that's how I learned the tap is they not only told me yeah and I'm night I heard Stanley Jordan I'm like that's one guy so I got my brothers guitar I found out from reading the record that Stanley tuned in all fours I tuned my brothers guitar an off for us and and I say one night and when I say when I it's a long night you know what I mean I mean it's hot you know the Sun is up yeah yeah yeah but still going I just don't sleep yeah until I get it and I learned his songs and that's pretty much the the most I've ever practiced you having the rest has been doing it more doing it and using it as like compositionally coming up with great thing coming up with things them so I'm not great at tapping I'm not I'm really not Stanley Jordan is I'm not people think I am because I use what I have well rock in a musical way yeah but I can't run lines and solo like Stanley Jordan he's like a piano the I don't have ice in me so my my ability is limited but I just used my limits to their force yeah yeah and so I would do that with drum solos you know Billy Cobham my brothers were listening to Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin I just love the power and the fast and you know of Billy cop yeah and I wanted my bass to sound like that and I had been studying Larry Graham yeah and so I was learning how to do the thumb thing thumbing and plucking and so that gave me the power but not the speed go ahead so when Reggie showed me how to use my thumb in both directions yeah that just opened up a whole new world my mind kicked so did that come from Reggie that oh yeah oh yeah yeah I have a film yeah and at the time there was no name for it we were just using the thumb like a useless because you were the kind of the first god I really saw doing that well what is he yeah you know I mean but if a guitarist sees it it's no big deal because guitars if they don't have a pic they'll use their thumb jazz guitarist did at all yeah yeah Django so for guitars it's nothing for a bassist it's new so it must be hard and Victor was the only guy who can do it we never thought that way you know for for me and fortunately my kids if I see you do it I'm halfway there got a you know knowing that it can be done his house about that fit and and have another example to see yeah I won in way is having to create it but when I can see you're doing them halfway there and if you look at YouTube you'll see young kids there's young kids now eight years old playing it's crazy more stuff not because they can see people doing it because the whole world is at your finger to get right now we just have to make it musical and and and these people need experience and there's a whole lot of music halide that needs to be added to the technical things like that and visit what I call musical wisdom when to use what you have and when not to yeah things like that but ability you know is it you know can quickly be attained by by the younger person with an open mind were you were you like transcriber or working out either guys like you know oh yeah Stanley absolutely who are we - the guy sort of like just a mind when just when I think well I meant in them Willy weeks that's the first space so I can ever remember learning yeah that was turned on to us by my art but Stanley was kind of like my really number one guy yeah I learned everything from Stanley yeah but you know but I sound like me yeah yeah absolutely yeah i I can't sound like Stanley but I think you know and I hope you can hear the influence yeah Stanley I mean he's just you know it's my my hero I met him when I was nine well and and I still feel nine whenever I'm around but he was so nice to me that it just stuck with me from that day in the Hampton Virginia it just stuck with me how kind he was and so you know when you things in your childhood big moments like that just stuff it was good or bad and that was a great one and so Stanley I learned a lot of Marcus I learned a lot of Bootsie I didn't know who he was at the time but I was learning Jameson's lines yeah I was learning all that Motown and you know anything that was popular in the late 60s and 70s when I was growing up yeah back in the time where pop music was not a style of music it just meant popular yeah so growing up we had jazz radio stations we had classical we had country you know R&B but we had pop stations and the pop stations just played what was popular from all the stuff yeah yeah yeah you know now we think of pop as a watered-down obvious style as a style I'm a pop artist yeah pop really an original was just short for popular yeah and if you were popular you might be considered pop artists so listening to a pop station you'd hear everything yeah Beatles Led Zeppelin Jefferson Starship Larry Graham Sly Stone Earth Wind & Fire you'd hear it all zero and so we were influenced by it all but right around the time of fusion started to have when when miles started doing some electronic thing then Maha Vishnu and then weather report and we turned to forever my brothers got into that I of course followed so yeah yeah yeah and when did you know and when you're transcribing these guidelines and learning their language and learning how to apply that to the Bey's when did you when did you start understanding that from from like a musical harmonic perspective like oh this is a root no this is a fit this is the third this is that you know that kind of thing I don't know because for me it was very I can say I learnt to emulate before I actually start laughs only and that's the way to do it yeah a child learns to talk before they spell yeah you don't know it's a now you know yeah and the child learns to say the words they need first the most I'll learn milk mama dada amor yeah right but in music the teacher says this is what you have to learn first right and in a lot of cases we want you to understand it before you can play yeah yeah which is a slower process is boring and most people quit absolutely right rather than letting the student play what they like yeah getting into the music so music just learning what it is later so what I hear you saying to me is a proper order to just play that's what I did I just play but my brother Reggie was smart what I am Telling You that's the story because like for example learning modes yeah I never I can never remember learning all the modes from Reggie but I learned the ones we use yeah what I now know as Dorian was James Brown but I got you yes sex machine yeah and so now when you listen to songs like uptown funk or prints yeah a lot of stuff from Stace I know it now as a Dorian mode but for us it was just a funky minor key is the sound yeah a lot of times like what we call Aeolian my brother Joseph always explained it as a sad minor yeah yeah it sounds kind of sad but as soon as you put that major sixth in it lets go by uplifting viola and so now he calls it happy mine yeah or better yet he caused a funky mind yeah and that's what the funk songs are yeah yeah and so I knew Dorian before I knew it was called Dorian I just knew if we're going to play James Brown here's the scale he invested that's the shape that's the shape absolutely well you visually orientated when you learn about yeah visually totally yeah totally and I still am I still use shapes I actually this is weird I do a camp in Tennessee that we call the spirit of music yeah because I love that stuff I love dreams visualizing just weird yeah yeah and and the students do also so we created a camp and I share a story because when I was really little and it had to have been after I met Stanley Clarke I don't remember the chronological order but I had a dream that I met Stanley Clarke and he showed me a pattern in the dream that I still use today Rick and I absolutely and it works and he showed me how to use it in any key and it's very very simple but I realized as I got older and started learning real theory yeah that if I were to change one note it would be a minor pentatonic scale yeah which is when Stanley was running these fast lines in his early days it's usually this is real fast you run in minor condition you know so you know through a dream I got a really good insight in the house you his show you kiss sound yeah and it's just a shape you know so yeah anyway that's a long answer to I use a lot of yeah because that our instrument the bass is so symmetrical it's made for its yang for and as a blessing and a curse yeah yeah because yeah yeah you can tell a lot but before you walk in certain way that's a far oh yeah changing keys is yeah Phoenix like what I love exactly a piece of cake but you know that causes us also not to know the notes on an instrument yeah we don't read that well but we can play how did you learn that I was on the instrument was ready it was every time where you thought I need to learn the notes there probably was but I don't I don't remember it but when I got in the sixth grade and living in Virginia the sixth grade so I was 11 or so yeah that was when they allow students to start learning in musical instruments yeah I wanted to play double bass but growing up in nightclubs I only saw the big double basses and I was always too short I didn't know they made them small so the blessing in disguise the hidden blessing was I chose cello okay in the orchestra there was no place to play electric bass in the 6th grade so I chose cello I learned to read very well right because I and it was bass clef it was the same notes that were on the bass yeah so I was learning to read it here and here but then the cello the cello parts in the orchestra are always much better than the bait yeah thanks for us double bass you just counting rest you get the praça no need of rest again but the cellos playing beautiful melodies so I learned that part of music yeah I really make a note singing and things like that where a lot of us bass players play a long time and some of us never get that yeah we get the rhythmic aspect of it but the nuances of that to a dynamic claim absolutely how to like sustain a note yeah and really just make that note sing so I got that early on and and now I was learning how to read the music and I guess some kind of way Reggie had already showed me where the notes were on the instrument but I translated that over to the bit that's really what sort of kick-started absolutely learning the fretboard exact from a note perspective our native apartment perspectives they had are in a sound this sounds here and it's somewhere here to you know yeah yeah like we did the whole solo based income come from um in terms of you doing gig in Rome probably the mixture of Jocko and Stanley Jordan but yeah I think Stanley Jordan had recorded a version of Stevie Wonder's or overjoyed yeah and I came up with my own is this a beautiful song and so that was one of the first Arrangements I can ever remember really coming up with that was kind of elaborate yeah was overjoyed and I I'm sure that was a Stanley Jordan influence because he did a whole record that way yeah so can you take it a gig in straight away when did you start gig not really gigging like that um that didn't happen until I moved to Nashville Tennessee at the end of 88 so I'm now you know I'm on my own I'm there I've been living at home with my parents my whole life yeah and so I'm finally on my own and I have to pay rent and what is that oh that's what mom independently I was time so I needed extra money yeah and there was a in Nashville there was a great healthful healthy restaurant do they still like to go to and I noticed that a few times a week they'd have a guitarist playing there and he'd get tips you know I could do that so I went to the owners and I said can I play here they said what do you play I said guitar and they said ok as not a complete lie yeah so I said well bring your guitar and come play for us so I brought I showed up with the bass and ice you know did they cook it I did this so they're like why but when I played and I had worked up just a few things over joyed and some harmonics yeah portrait of Tracy and things like they were into it they were totally into it and so I was also just getting into looping pedals yeah so every was either Tuesday or Thursday I started playing dinner music at this health food restaurant and it turned into an event oh really every Tuesday or whatever it was was an event at this recipe it was amazing how you can make an opportunity out of anything yeah but I threw that I met great musicians because what happened if any if any musician was in town on that night they would say you have to go to this recipe so I met Michael Brecker sex Claire great duo tuck and Patti James Taylor well going on the restaurant yeah and so it was nice I made some connections it was also at the very beginning of bailiff like in the Flecktones starting so because that was an idea to go with exactly so some nights my brother would show up he'd bring his drum ATAR and Baylor would bring his banjo so at this health food restaurant on a small little section Flecktones would rehearse yeah yeah yeah and it was just amazing will you follow any brothers to Nashville they moved there I actually went there first yeah followed Iria yeah and and I hadn't planned on moving there what does he like that when you've been said that I wasn't seen like damn great musicians great musicians a heavy studio scene in a lot of course country and things like N but and this is just my take on it with the musicians that I was surrounded with great musicians of top studio musicians and they would play on the weekends or play at night and I got a chance to play in some band with them but in my opinion well you have to remember I came from musical freedom then we jammed in the garage every day yeah every weekend and all the musicians from Virginia or even before when we lived in California if you're a musician you ended up in our garage so and you know jams weren't rehearse and we just jam so when I got into this Nashville bands that was my mentality yeah but I was playing with a lot of studio musicians where everything is perfect yeah and if it was perfect this way last night it's going to be perfectly not me you know I'm slinging my bass around my neck I'm slapping his yes I was your last or thinking like that's for this yoga studio I was seeing was that something did you move there to get involved in oh no no I just moved there well again I didn't think I was moving I went there first to visit a friend and then Kurt a guy added met working at our amusement park and I went to visit him for four days and he was born and raised there so he knew everybody so he introduced me to Baylor and all the top musicians studio musicians guy named Bob Moore who played bass for Elvis it's all these we're all set in the meeting these guys great double bassist Edgar Meyer oh yeah yeah and I mean I got a about a 45-minute solo concert by Edgar just me sitting on the fascia you know the oyster I saw a jam with Bale in his living room just the two of us in his kitchen rather just the two of us I'm hanging with this violinist Mark O'Connor just all these top guys this one guy whose wife was a singer her name was Joan L she heard a recording demo that I did I just did a demo while I was there for a guy yeah and she heard and asked me to come back to Nashville and sub in her band for a month over that month has turned into 30 years still left still there yeah yeah so um again I never planned on moving but uh but I'm there and so then you know natural also the scene I was in and I hope I just doesn't offend anyone but the scene I wasn't one a lot of black people so all of a sudden when I came into this scene I'm hanging with the top bluegrass musicians yeah I'm hanging with these top studio musicians and I just stood out in all senses of the word yeah a I look the way I played but fortunately people love bellota who loved it and it kind of became a thing where I was getting asked to do more and more and I just have you going that kind of thing I knew the right the new guy in town and fortunately it worked in my favor and also Nashville's been very very good and you still let yesterday there how long you be looking at 30 years at the end of 88 I've never thought about moving not seriously the Columbia I have thought about like where else would I enjoy living Colorado or again you know or something like that Canada yes you know but I'm I love it there because it's a musical hub but it's not too big or too small I can get to New York easily and I shared an apartment with my wife in New York she's funny oh yes and she's in the theater and what did you live in New York alone boy yeah but but which I still had a place in Nashville because her world was there doing theater and things like that acting in shows and I didn't want her to just have to leave that yeah so we we had a place in both Nashville in New York did you ever think about moving to New York fulfilling I didn't like it not for living yeah I like being there knowing I'd be gone soon and that sounds mean and I don't really mean it that way even though I've heard people says it's been cool all right it's just that what if I was in New York that meant I was off yeah and I didn't have to work yeah I didn't have to get into that rat race that my wife was into I mean lower on the totem pole than musicians a starving musician is a starving actor Oh - what she would have to go through to get a job to get into it don't stand in line in the rain just to go to an audition where you get to sing eight bars or 16 but yes yeah and the parts already feel they just have to by Union law have auditions yeah yeah you know and then hopefully you might get a part in a commercial or a touring children's show or whatever and it's like you know musicians if we don't have a gig at least we can get together and have a jam session yeah actors would hey let's get together maybe Shakespeare yeah they're not going to get together the girls and be from Shakespeare yes it's so tough it's so tough and my wife was having to go through that and but when I was in New York and a plus she had to work a job yeah I would have hit on New York that meant I was off I mean it was in between tours with the flick did you hook up with federa at that point is that where that connection for Dara Dara very much earlier I was so lucky I'm telling you know this I have good luck or something but I was doing some recording with my brothers in New York in 1983 and I was in the market for a new bass short stuff what were you playing beforehand I never seen the Alembic a leak on the clock right yeah yeah but I had a series one Atlantic which is huge other those are heavier than the Sun oh and yeah yeah and so you can think of the short kid I got it in 77 so I'm in the seventh grade yeah and I've got two cylinder I still can't even hit a low acting I have to use my thumb oh yeah cuz the Nexus Oh longer I Stanley plays the smallest they go I mean he plays the short scale look like a ukulele or hell yeah you know but I was playing that and we were doing some studio work the producer said he didn't like alembics he wanted me to play his music man I didn't want to play that so this guitar player that we were working with I named IRA Segal great guitars he says I have funds that are making bases this is a 1983 the piece of all Colin I said great Joey Lars chela shows up at the studio with two-foot air bases no one knew for their no one knew me yeah but Joey knew that we were working on my brothers and I were working on this record deal with Arista and there was a budget for stuff and so he knew he'd get paid he said just you like this bass keep it send the money when you want and that's really absolutely this was their first year making bases in 83 Wow and Joey shows up at the studio with with bassist number 11 basis number 37 number 11 looked a lot like my foot air I'm sorry it looked a lot like my Olympic Oh everywhere tie but the number 37 had a lighter flamed maple and that's I want that yeah so since from that day is that the one I've seen without that base you've seen it because my first I don't know 15 years was all that buy all their one with a Toyota Corolla yeah I eventually about six years later added a case yeah yeah yeah so it was 83 we just met by luck it was their first year making bases Joey was so kind that picked the right guy I guess and I am NOT me too I mean yeah yeah I made it happen on the base I think was $900 you know the federa monarch yeah and um and but going from this big Olympic yeah to this beautiful feeling base it was the feel yeah that that dot always feels so good and I you want instrument guy are you because obviously there's some bass players you see them and they're you know Doug basis and different strings and all that you can have more of a one I want to I want to play what I'm comfortable yeah with but as you know as I'm playing on tour I I bring a couple different areas and at home I have a bunch because on this song I want the sound yeah I make sure at home I have a base that's heavier gauge strings with higher action because I actually think that sounds better yeah and I play all my bass lines on that bass so yeah so you to use a different base from the solo bass stuff yeah and if I'm going to play every night I don't want to work hard yeah it's hard for me to play the heavier gauge yeah and I don't want to do that G do that to bring the heavier gauge with you always the light to go jessileah would you say it affects the tone either so they'll have a heavy oh yeah out for me it actually sounds better have you game oh yeah yeah but I go for a feel yeah I don't want to struggle you know and if I feel better I think I'll play better yeah yeah enjoy a bit more exactly unison together man um because I play so much I don't do a lot of listening when I'm off that ability if I'm off for a while then I'll listen more but there are some great bands I really well I like everything there's bass players that are playing things I'll never be able to play like this young kid I've been following since he was young my people Kenyon oh god oh Michael yeah yeah trying this on yeah I mean since it's like how do you know what it is you to be there today maybe 20 now but he's just phenomenal yeah but I also like bass players like like the band's smoky puppy but my oh my oh yes they kiss yes solid bass player yeah yeah yeah people people like Michael I'm assisting what Alec what is his nick name last name is like people kina but with column I can't remember at the moment but I worry about players like that because players that are known for that yeah you'll only get called for that for that one and that's happened to me I'm gonna say is that it's not really so I try to warn other people you know people won't call me to play bass lines they'll call me if they want to fire me solo okay and I love playing bass lines yeah you know and I I know if unless things change that's going to happen yeah because I thought yeah cuz I actually love you oh I love listened to a lot of my favourite albums like you do you know you obviously got like serious chops on it but with a the album that you did the trio up with Steve Smith and Scott Anderson yeah you know that's what my favorite albums that you played on absolutely loved it because there was there was the chops but there was just some killing lady fighting on there as well you know you well I mean I that's what I do even though I solo alive if you really listen to a 90 percent of it even with bailiffs like in the Flecktones 90% of the time I'm playing bass bass lines is it yeah but people pay attention to the soloing you know which I don't mind that but it ends up causing people like me to not get called for bass playing the bass gigs and recordings or whatever yeah I'm always so excited when I finally get called to play today I got couldn't wait to do routing face Oh light yeah I got a recording session from a well known uh like you know kind of I didn't describe just a kind of popular artists yeah in the 70s and 80s I got a phone call to do a session because he was looking for a specific thing and I asked the down I was like what what did you want a solo is it no no song I'll sing really the same thing with this great singer I like a woman named india.arie oh yeah yeah I got a call to do a song for her oh really wicked and the producer just wanted the connection between this drummer and me right okay I was like and I knew this producers like the el solo no soul yes yeah goodbye love it I mean I uh but when the Flecktones hit I became known as the solos yeah yeah you know and because all of us and now I had a worldwide audience yeah I was in bass player magazine three years straight on the back cover with company and I became known for that and there's a blessing and a curse I have a career because of it yeah but there's a lot of opportunities I don't get yeah yeah so I like to just send that out to to all of us chop stirs yeah that more even more than we show the chops we need to show that we can play bass that we can support that we can listen that we know how to play behind the singer we need to know how to do that so I love players like you know like listening to Pino Paladino yeah and some of these newer guys that are doing the work now that some of the older guys like Bob bad and Chuck Rainey yeah and James there's a whole new batch of people leaf Sklar and Pino being there guys and Darryl Jones and Marcus yes people that everybody wants yeah like Marcus Marcus has more chops and most of us get to see really but he's smart about he's smarter I also take a solo and it's built around the bass line yeah and he'll get fancy a little bit you know but he's aware all my goodness yeah he's he's smarter but could you be no to it mark more I'm Stanley isn't really my mouth was that strange when you see initially hooks up yeah I was in one of you guys that initiated it I was like an outside forces thought you guys it was the outside force that finally solidify yeah but I have been dropping these hints with Marcus and Stanley because when I saw Paco deal Chia John McLoughlin yeah I'll do me yeah that rate I was like I want to do that without a split who would I want to do it with stallion Marcus yeah so as I as my name started to grow to where we started to know each other and usually I would only see them at the NAMM show yes something like that or if they came to now where I was living Nashville I would go see them yeah but every time I would meant to do this standing you and the instantiation yeah you know and okay sure yeah we should I'd see Stanley Stanley Marcus you and me we should do something okay okay you know that would happen a lot but it wasn't until bass player magazine in the US was going to give Stanley a Lifetime Achievement Award yeah and for some reason they asked Marcus and me to present the award to him and that's what it that's when it happened we got on stage and played school days so earlier asked us to play school days with him and during sound check without rehearsal we just started playing it and it was like perfect yeah because those guys are such musicians you know Stanley is up here Marcus goes down here I find the middle yeah if Marcus comes up here I'll drop when Stanley everything cuz I was like wow this is no work so in the interview once that magazine came out I'm reading the article in Stannis and oh yeah you know we're going to be doing this recording and then we're going to tour and I'm like really you know he started he's laying up this whole plan of Italian Marcus and me I called him I said really happen if yeah let's do it so we started but that was that yeah yeah before I let you go you've got to talk about your base camps sure because I'm super interested it sounds I like camping I like base there how do they how did the idea kick off and well here we do know sure now keep this short if I can when I moved to Nashville a good friend who became a good friends a violinist named Mark O'Connor this guy is amazing plays incredible violin mandolin guitar he held a world record in skateboarding at one point but and we just hit it off we actually did two shows outdoors where we're all on wireless on skateboards the whole show you do skateboard - yeah that's why we hit up but I'm playing bass with wireless microphone he's on violin and my friend Michael from I wrote a book called the music lesson yeah yeah as a teacher in their name Michael well that guy plays cello yeah and he's wireless selling well skateboard and just crazy stuff so anyway um Marc was running what he called fiddle camps violin camps yeah and they'd go out into the park you know and it'd be violinist everywhere I visit his camp and think this is the coolest thing yeah so Google violin is sitting under a tree there's another group over here and then there'd be concerts sometimes he'd have me come and play and things like that and I thought man I want to do that here but so I combined that idea with when I started learning nature skills all the skills our ancestors had to know that arise out of build houses how to start fires all the things that we can you know we do easily now yeah how to plant gardens they had to know what the birds were saying they had to be able to read the weather yeah all that stuff you know I started learning about that in in the end of 91 and I learned from a man named Tom Brown jr. and when I took the first class with him I'm sitting there listening to him talk and in my head I'm thinking he's calling it nature but he's teaching music yeah and I said because the process was so natural yeah and I said this is how I learn it wasn't like okay here's some skills go practice he said okay now let's go do it yeah yeah you know and it was a lot about feeling when we're looking at tracks on the ground animals where they walk through the wood yeah of course there were some things to look for but he would say what's that track feel like it was about feelings you know and a lot of times in music as we're teaching it feeling never comes in yeah this is what it is yeah you know no that's not a feeling it's a it's a mode it's is hell you know but the kid came to you because he felt something and when we don't nervous that filling the kid leaves yeah that's why our students leave but I was thinking not only is he teaching music this is the way music should be taught so taking lessons from him and Mark O'Connor's violin yeah it is put them together and I called it a bass slash nature Karia but I didn't want to do it in the normal way that people were teaching not that it was bad I'm not down I'm not talking bad about any teacher I think they're all good maybe some are better than the others but I felt that the way I was taught and the way we all learned to speak is a more natural natural process and so if I could combine I also felt that a lot of the things that people were teaching musically the good stuff was being left out oh yeah yeah yeah because like literally when you buy your bass you buy the notes that all the other bass player yeah but when I learned those notes I still don't sound like Jack yeah so there has to be something that yeah that's just something else that I'm interested in yeah all right so I wanted to add a more natural process to the process of learning music if so I literally looked in a dictionary the word natural means to be like nature so if we're trying to become natural when we play we should be like nature yet like a bird doesn't have to go to a conservatory and pay money to learn they see a beaver or squirrel is just born with the knowledge knowledge and the ability to build a nest or to chew down a tree yeah they don't to practice yeah they just have it well we're a part of that too and we have natural ability and we teach it ourselves right out of it yeah so I wanted to bring that natural process back and nourish it a week at a time yeah but in the dictionary under the word natural it also says without sharps or without flats all right that's music so even the dictionary makes the relationship which really names for music yeah so once I saw that's it we're doing it well when did you start your first one mm mm yeah so this our 17 and you were saying that you doing five this year right only I this year yeah we're doing three were two at the end last two weeks of October yeah I will do a week on the 18th through the 24th of I said October July that's my wine getting old July 18 through 24 is all bass player care to buy 25 to 30 one is a as a rhythm section camp okay so I'm looking to solve my base and then rhythm section there absolutely and then August 1 through 7 is any instrument we call our music nature camp for any instrument but we're going to focus on writing arranging and performing okay so we'll bring in writers we'll bring in arrangers and then we'll look at how we perform it now in with the big performance so suppose I want to find it where did they go they can go to either Victor Wooten DICOM and click on the camp link or if you want to go directly to the camp website its Vic's camps daikon comes and it's VIX okay fix VIX see am PSV scamp's calm will take you right there and the registration is open there's camps that get into right now do it at all the live guys we're streaming this live as well go how many we go on they notice that while we go yeah anyway bit thank you some vinegars gotten to me that's it this is to me like advice I'm in the family right you are on appeal and family thank you so much Parker with an angular today don't do this thing guys bye thank you whoa where are you going if you haven't subscribed to the Scott's bass lessons channel yet here on YouTube click the link subscribe I released two videos like this every single week you can also check out all the videos over there and if you've not checked out Scott's beta CENTCOM membership check out you can grab your 14-day free trial over there

Channel: Scott's Bass Lessons

Views: 322,985

Rating: 4.9630165 out of 5

Keywords: scott devine, bass lessons, bass guitar, soloing, funk, cover, groove, jazz, slap, tuition, masterclass, beginner, beginners, clinic

Id: bUlS7q58Ovo

Length: 52min 6sec (3126 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2017