I recorded portions of the rehearsal and edited them into one video. It was difficult to come up with a video title.
This video portrays the harsh realities of a shared artistic passion. I did not want to create a video to embarrass anyone. Student musicians that don’t record themselves, undermine their own development. Honestly, I SHOULD RECORD MORE. 😅
We learn many things from watching videos of ourselves. Some of the things we learn might’ve taken years without the video context.
I don’t like the video.
While editing, it’s necessary to listen to sections repeatedly. It’s not fun.
Here’s the video
The first song in this rehearsal video is a portion of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” The song goes from a 12/8 swinging type of funk into a jazz swing feel. The tempo never changes.
Clearly, the Drummer hasn’t practiced switching between these two feels while using a metronome. I also think he is only familiar with the Fugees version of this song. I think he mentioned it to me every single time we started to talk about our version of the song. 😅
Musicianship
We never really get it together. No matter what I do, the Drummer won’t lock into the directors voice or gets lost, or …
The Director verbally says the tempo and sings the tempo when he counts. All we need to do is continue hearing his voice as we begin the song.
I tell students to literally memorize the sond of his voice, as if you were going to mock him or mimic him. Get that counting sound of his voice stuck in your head so that you keep his tempo. Hear it like a character’s voice. Try to recall his voice at various points.
I’m not saying it’s easy. Once we know our tendencies, this is a little trick that helps us maintain finite instincts/early alarm instincts.
The second song in the video is called, “What Is Hip.” It’s one of those songs every bass player should know. I should’ve learned it years ago. Good time and feel is essential to make this song correct. I haven’t done enough homework. It’s still too fast for me. I should sound better. My groove… or lack of groove doesn’t help the drummer too much. I’ll say that, but the drummer would probably be struggling no matter who was playing bass.
I actually told the Director this song was over our heads. I resisted learning it for a few reasons.
First of all, I love the song so much that I don’t think anyone should play it. I also love my dead, beta fish, childhood pets, my grandma, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Frederick Douglass, my grandma, but I don’t try to resurrect them. I actually believe there’s a handful of songs out there that no one should do. Let the studio recordings stay the best and don’t ruin it for the rest of us. 😅
Second it’s in the wrong key. Yeah, I said that. I don’t care, I’ve earned the privilege of saying that. This might be the first time I’ve complained about a song being in a key that favors the horn sections. This version we’re doing is a halfstep different. I believe it’s to put the song within a more comfortable range for an instrument. The bass part is extremely busy and it’s helpful to have open strings. The original bass player has the option to use open strings. I don’t know about other bass players, but I find it difficult to jump between three octaves within the span of five or 6/16 notes without open strings.
Third reason is we don’t even have a rhythm section trained well enough to lock-in with each other and sound tight. That’s a major characteristic of this song. The bass, the congas, and the drums are incredibly locked in with each other. Our rhythm section players don’t really understand their tendencies. They push and drag time unknowingly. They actually think they’re supposed to be dependent upon me. They don’t understand the sharing and checks and balances that come along with professional grade rhythmic integrity.
Not my students. They don’t want to hear the truth. Metronome work and subdivision analysis is not a joke.
I say, “don’t believe me, record it!”
“record it a listen back!”
Looking back it was very healthy to learn What Is Hip. I knew it would be. I just didn’t wanna put in the time because there’s no money. Eventually, I got around to it. Learning the song was fun. Learning the song made a few other new songs easier to learn. Slowly chip away, repeat, repeat, and eventually you probably get it.
(I’m still working out the details.)
