Bass

"Teaching is all thinking, but performing is different. When it’s right, performing is an out-of-body experience and thinking goes out the window. You just let it happen, like riding a bike. There is always fresh inspiration even week to week when I perform, which is an outgrowth of being well rounded and ready to play anything. And there’s a difference between playing an instrument well and playing music well. Some people have an incredible amount of technique and can do unbelievable things—by themselves. But when they have to jam with a band they have no idea what to do. It’s like a guy on the basketball court who has all the moves and looks really great, but the ball never goes into the hoop."

"I use a sports analogy all the time. Let's take a great baseball player, Kevin Youkilis. You rarely see him disappoint anybody. But just think of how many times he gets up and practices batting. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of times. What does he do before the game, even when the season's in full spring? He goes to batting practice. Now it's the game. We're in the bottom of the ninth, there are two outs, bases are loaded. Kevin Youkilis comes up. The last thing he wants to think about is his swing. He has to just stand there and trust all of that preparation, that he can react creatively to the next pitch. And that's kind of how we have to play. We have to practice and practice and practice and practice, and now in the moment we have to let everything go and just play."

"We play a lot of current pop hits, and I bring those tunes into class and show my students what's coming through the Top 40 market. I show them what people like to hear at bars, what people like to dance to, and what songs are the big hits at night. I also bring in songs from the past 20 years, songs that people know, and we really look at the music so the students can understand the songs on a different level. We do a lot of singing in class, a lot of rhythm. I'll have some music playing in the background and I'll point to certain rhythms, and the students will clap over the consistent beat that's going on in the background."

"One of the main things I see the students need is to be able to play the instrument well. Their improvising will be limited to what they can do as far as getting around the instrument, so I'm concentrating on making sure they can comfortably play whatever they need to play—all the different scales and chords, how to arpeggiate their way through chords, the inversion of chords, that kind of thing. I get them started on that, then try to apply it to their playing, whether they're playing bass lines or soloing."