Ray Brown - Double Bass Master class.avi

you thank you thank you that was a short but sweet version of Frankie and Johnny which was a little different in the due to the fact that I had the pianist play the bass part and I played the melody part traditionally this instrument the string bass has been known as the bottom and over the past 60 70 years it has made many leaps and which I think that it has passed even the expectations of the makers and players of the 1800s I don't think they would imagine that this instrument would be played as it is today by some of our fine young people and a few of our good old people the first thing I'd like to go back is to refresh for some of you young people and maybe to remind some of the old people of how this thing used to be played now I didn't know anything about this they just told me about it but back around 1910 in the early days just as they made the transition from the tuba to the string bass it was played in a very I guess you could call hat hazard way there was not a lot of finesse and it was played very harshly like this now that particular slap version and method was refined to some extent I recall vividly as a kid hearing Wellman Braud it was with Duke Ellington who also was written up in believe it or not Ripley as being able to play more slaps per minute than any other bass player life but he refined it to the point where he could play and I learned to do this because this when I was first playing the bass this was the thing to do was to play the melody like let's say T for to that style it's very hard on your hands while we're using string steel strings as we do now if I had gut strings I think I could be a little more elaborate but it has come a long way in that into the 40s and early 50s the basses played this way so the hand was off of the string now going into the middle 50s and on the hand stayed on the board and also the left hand stayed on the board you know and the old days a guy would have flying fingers he'd play this way and only time his hands stayed on the boards when he played up high so he can slide up and down but when he came down here then the fingers flew up this way you know which kept the tune from being sustained and how that's been remedied is if you find it keep the string down the talent the tone will say even and it'll last a long time you don't have to play loud to swing you can play soft and swing just play me a little blues and a flat one two three four we use all just still swing all right thank you I'd like to get our first student up here we have a very lovely young lady and named Erica Howard would you please come up you can applaud all right Erica we want to go over a couple of things today I have asked the students to pick out several songs that they know and I'm hoping they make some mistakes so I can tell them what's wrong they play too good I'm in trouble first thing I like you to do is play a play a blues line for me just on your own like all right now play that same blues in another key and played about this temple 1 2 gotta keep it up 1 2 3 4 all right in the hold of one second now when you start playing that's slow remember the principle of holding the strings down right so I told you to play the first blues you played alright now when I told you to play it slower you got a little more careless with the hands and the fingers came up you didn't sustain the string in other words so if I'm playing down here if I say one two everything everything that's insane I am to see me coming baby got everything I want those notes to ring out now try it again for me 1 2 3 4 time use all of the base long way up I won't up here somewhere now I told you about gumming home back home now all right when you finish your blues make sure it's finished don't don't leave me up in the air when you finish the song oh hi difficult to kind of come round to end this just last couple of bars a hundred difficulty so you were playing in the key of F right so your last four bars would be G right so if you say last four bars one two three four sometimes it and the two bars before like this gene see I find it cats that I'm in a funny position we weren't you know funny part in the cold then it's difficult to start a run to end it off all right but you have so many options when you come to the last two bars you can go G minor C so you've any direction you go in you can still always win a bag of F so you know don't be afraid to stretch out and those I don't you know you don't have to go that's not necessary you know you can say G minor C you know anything million innings but make sure you bring it back home as they say you know now I'd like you to play a song for me that you say you know right Cherokee right okay so I'm going to have you play some of that with the rhythm section here tell them what kind of reduction you want what temple you want Oh all right now do something for me I want you to play that same song and the key of D natural and that goes fast I want to be able to hear what all the chords are and you can't fool him because he knows I'm all I'm going to ask me if you're doing it right down in here so we here to change this one to you hum the melody if you want if you don't know what just played the time one two a-one two three four you all right right now listen if I'm going to play this song Indy right or any key I'm going to play a little bit for you indeed to show you what I mean but I you should play it so it's very audible to the musicians if he's not playing he should be able to follow it you know all right but you should make it very plain so you're playing a lot of accidental and it could fit but it couldn't fit according what he would be playing you see and if he's not playing if he's playing the exact voicings of the chords then you could be wrong you see so now what I want you to practice at home alone not with records or anything you know Cherokee very well in b-flat you don't have any problem with it and b-flat you know I want you to play it indeed I want you to play it in flat D natural f-sharp a flat a natural right until you can play it in all the keys and play it slow play that's a I don't care if you played as a waltz you know Annie okay thank you very much how about giving her a hand now I'd like to get our next student up Andy Evans now Andy we had a chance to chat a little bit today now one of the things that I want to go over with you is that the first thing I want you to do is turn your amplifier off just nothing just turn the sound off for a second alright now play a few notes for me okay now turn some of your volume up okay okay now one of the things I've talked to the students about is you have to watch you play the amplifier don't have the amplifier play you you're in a very close point where the amplifier is changing the sound of your instrument and this shouldn't happen it takes many years to build a character you know you get known for the sound that you build when you play this instrument you know and we never it's a rare occasion I think for somebody to go home and practice in his room with his amplifier on right yes you wouldn't do it you know so you create a sound with this instrument and once you create that sound then you never want to lose it you know so you you spend a lot of time working getting a sound whether it's with the boy whether it's pizza kado you spend a lot of time getting that sound and you want to retain it because it's your character it belongs to you when I play you know they know who that is you know cuz I've been playing it for 50 years matter of fact I've been trying to forget it but I can't you know but you spend a lot of time building this up so you don't want to dilute it by having an amplifier that doesn't end what you're doing you understand so we're not talking about names of amplifiers now but as long as we're going to have amplification make sure the amplifier takes what you have and just raise it a little bit you know and monitors it so you can hear it you can play a little softer you know but don't let it change your sound you know so that it's you sound like any of a hundred bass players who have amplification land solid you know that's the important thing because it's an illusion anyway when you're saying peak et Gong you know get hit bottom so it means something yeah this is where you start where you're finishing you know so when you make those entity calm make sure that last one is solid you can miss the other three you know you can create an illusion with the three but the fourth one's got a hit don't miss the fourth one you don't even say they're not player again for me ng this time will give you easy key plate for me in G just a little slower and play a little bit of it one two three four that's it all right you didn't give me too many that time in G you know you didn't get as fancy as you were an EFT you know you're very fancy enough you can plate a little straight life in G so now when you go home to practice and you play this through the keys make sure that you play it if you play it in 15 bump on through bottom do like you did or if you play it okay thank you very much here Gemini's angel before I bring our last student up you know I want to talk about styles of music because music is undergoing a very big and vast change I started playing the bass I hate to admit it because I should be playing better but I started back around 1939 and I've seen this instrument go through a lot of changes a lot of changes you know and we are now just coming out of the rock era and I think it's going somewhere else I don't know where it's going but you'll find that music goes through something every ten to twenty years something else takes over you know and there's not very much room for this instrument in rock music however it is possible to use it I'd like to give a short demonstration that I'm not going to try to use the volume that they use I'm just going to try to simulate the feeling that you can get if you just give me a little time back there on now you can take this give me the frame thank you now I'd like to bring up 10 Tim Farrow as our third student please Tim how much studying have you done not much not much all right how much plane do you do normally oh the play casual work what kind of jobs do you play yeah whatever comes lungs maybe once twice a week you're gonna play body and soul for us today okay okay fine right now some things you're playing half base part and half melody within C now I've got him playing the melody now if you want to play the melody line then you do it in a different manner you do it this way one two just a couple three four or if you're going to play the bass part you see what I'm saying in other words I don't feel that you're you're supposed to be the leader up here you know you call the tomb and you beat off the temple and I expect then that you have to assume some leadership you understand so to assume some leadership you don't have to play the melody but you have to sound like you know what the song is you know I don't care what it is any song in the world you know I don't keep you even playing some blues you got to sound like you know what you're doing you know and uh this is what I've always told students you know I said for God's sake get your own time quit right around waiting down drummers you know they have their own problems they don't need bass players hanging on their coattails do they you know they really don't they you've got to have your time let your time work join me now stop but I don't need him it's nice to have it but you don't have to have it you know and say I don't want you to be dependent on it you see so when you go home to practice two things I want you to learn body and soul inside out I want you to be able to play the melody all right and I want you to play the exact bass part and play it like you own the tune dude okay thank you very much thank you at this time folks I'd like to attempt to do something that I started doing all some years back in a reference to the base coming to it into its own essay not just a support instrument but as a solo instrument I would like to play a unaccompanied sole whereupon I play the melody and the accompaniment and what little time there is I'll handle that also and you have to pick out a vehicle when you do this if you're playing a rhythm tune it's one thing but if you're going to play I'm picking out a ballot if you're going to play a ballad then you have to pick out a song it has the necessary holes let me explain what I mean when I say the necessary holes a good tune to play by yourself would be a tune like tenderly where you would go so it has enough holes in it to allow you to elaborate you say the evening breeze then you go and play whatever you want to play caress the trees bah-bah-ba-wa tenderly but it's got nice piecing of the melody to allow especially a bass player to lay in what he wants to lay in so with that in mind I'd like to play a song entitled them the very thought of you Oh you

Channel: Jean-Luc Picard

Views: 290,640

Rating: 4.9684834 out of 5

Keywords: ray brown, double bass, swing, jazz

Id: SmoIvdWJpdQ

Length: 36min 15sec (2175 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 11 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

On this same note I'm trying to really get good at walking jazz bass lines but I'm having a lot of struggles. Are there any intermediate guides to walking bass lines I can get access to that doesn't require money seeing as I have none?

[u/chopitreddot]

You can't get much more masterful in a jazz bass class than seeing one with Ray Brown.

[u/Drum-]

I don't even play bass but this was really good.

[u/zhemao]

The thing that strikes me the most is his sense of time and swing feel. You can tell with the first student that she has the tendency to rush the beat, even at the normal (fast) tempo. But when Ray plays it, his time is perfectly laid back, and he swings so hard you don't even need to drummer to hear it.