My 2022 Bass Practice

I practiced this song and recorded. By this stage, I played bass for only a month or so -- so this is actually March or  April 2021

This practice was really my first jazz tune-- little did I know what I was getting myself into when I decided to join the  After3 Jazz programme  :)
I learned this with SBL, Scott's Bass Lessons help.

Greg's Bass Shed gave a brief lesson on this jazz tune. I tried it out this evening, and this is my short practice session. It's a fun song...

I sent it to Greg and he was mighty impressed :) 

Part of my Bass challenge that I did online. From all of the songs that were on the challenge, this was my favourite.  You can watch all of the song here

I practiced this for my performance that was coming up in a few days. I practiced at this tempo and was doing pretty good until some band members, 2 days before the scheduled performance, wanted to play this faster.
Well.. you know... I had to play it another way because my fingers couldn't keep up :)  June 20, 2022

I've been practicing this for so long that I thought that I could give singing a try. I tried!  :) 

This is a 23 second video as it was a student performance and respecting others who didn't want to be filmed. 

There was a bit of a discovery on my part-- might sound simple now, but I didn't really know this at the time... The area where you pluck the strings is important when you want the fatter sound.. which is what jazz needs.
I thank Bassistdan1 for his comment under my video !

I'm only putting this up because to show how difficult it was for me as I didn't really know all of these types of time signature. I knew they existed and would sing with others, but never had to do this on my own!

This was as tough as it gets. The details are: 
1. Compose a melody in D minor in compound duple time, using key signature. DUPLE time-- something in 8 so I chose 6/8, not 5/8

2. Clap or tap (audibly) the rhythm of your melody while counting 'one, two' aloud to fit the metre of each bar.  ~~ when I first read it, I was wonder why there wasn't a three :)  Yup, I have come far... (2 points)

3. Sing (ya right) or play your melody WHILE tapping the beats (3 points)

4. Say your melody in sol-fa (2 points)  ~~ I learn my music in French and I thought that Do Re Mi etc was French, NOT sol fa !!!  AND there is actually words for the sharps and flats. AND the sol fa can be used in any scale. Who would have known!!

This was the highlight of my year. I did something that I never thought that I could do... and get a grade that I've never received in my life.
Apart from the grade, I was clever enough to write a 16 bar composition using someone else's chords but made it my own..... from all what I've learnt from music theory, to sitting in my lecture at University. 
My mother would have been proud! 

A very short video - sorry it doesn't show the whole band on stage playing this beautiful song, however due to privacy and it being a student 'safe' zone', I definitely understand that some don't want to be on the WWW :) 

I felt that I needed to show some of my Facebook friends what I do all day :)
But in reality, I love this video because I'm seeing what I did July 2022. On the video, I write what I'm doing on the video itself so that you know what is what.

Grooving on my bass 1 5 8 and 10

What do you think? 

A few smiles all around, starting from the beginning! Any comments, pls add on YouTube

It is, in my opinion, important to read music.  When I was a child, I played piano and learnt how to read music in treble clef, but always had issues with the bass clef. WELL, that' s come back to bite me!