Victor Wooten/Berklee Summer Bass Workshop
June 14–16, 2013
Why should I attend?
Would you like your bass lines to groove? Would you like to play music fluently, like you speak your native tongue? Regardless of your playing style, Victor Wooten and his team of innovative instructors join forces with Berklee’s world-class faculty to help your musical dreams come true. Wooten and his longtime musical and educational collaborator Steve Bailey—Berklee's Bass Department chair—have created a fusion of cutting-edge educational concepts from two of the world’s leading institutions: the Victor Wooten Center for Music and Nature and Berklee College of Music.
For students who are also interested in enrolling at Berklee full time, or attending any of Wooten's programs in Nashville, there are several benefits to attending the Victor Wooten/Berklee Summer Bass Workshop:
- Find out what it takes to succeed in music and at Berklee.
- Study with Berklee faculty.
- Learn more about Wooten’s bass/nature camp and concepts and ensure guaranteed acceptance into any of the more than 11 annual programs ranging in length from three days to three weeks.
- Meet other musicians from around the world.
- Get to know Boston, New England’s hub of culture and academia.
- Learn about admission, audition, and scholarship requirements.
What’s the plan?
- Start and end the day with lectures, lessons, and performances by Wooten and his team.
- Faculty Concerts: Attend concerts performed by Berklee faculty members and a final concert by Wooten and his all-star band.
- Ensemble: Gain rhythm-section performance experience through work in an ensemble setting.
- Group Lesson: Develop instrumental skills specific to performing music on the bass. This class is taught in a group/master class setting.
- Theory/Harmony/Ear Training: Experience the Wooten/Berklee approach to harmony as it applies to the bass.
- Survey of Bass Styles: Gain a historical overview of bass in the rhythm section starting in the early 1900s.
On the last day of the program, friends and family are welcome to attend an afternoon concert presented by Victor Wooten and program participants, beginning at 2:00 p.m.
Who are the instructors?
VICTOR WOOTEN
Victor Wooten is a founding member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones as well as a five-time Grammy Award winner and has graced the covers of bass magazines the world over. He has been voted Bass Player of the Year by Bass Player magazine readers more often than anyone alive and is in constant demand as an artist/clinician/producer. His novel The Music Lesson has been translated to several languages and is integrated into Berklee’s core curriculum. He is widely considered the most influential bassist of the millenium. His most recent releases, Words and Tones, a vocal album, and Swords and Stones, an instrumental album, both appeard in the top-ten of the iTunes music charts—possibly an historic first. In 2008, Wooten founded the Victor Wooten Center for Music and Nature, which hosts innovative music camps regularly, catering to all instrumentalists. Wooten was recently featured in the TED-Ed online film Music as a Language offering an inspiring message about music as a powerful and effective communication tool.
STEVE BAILEY
Bass Player magazine has stated, "Steve Bailey is to the six-string fretless bass what Columbus is to America." He has toured and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Willie Nelson, Jethro Tull, Paquito D’Rivera, Larry Carlton, the Rippingtons, and all points in between. Bailey has performed solo concerts and clinics all over the world. He has written six books and released numerous solo CDs and instructional DVDs. Bass Player magazine readers have voted Bailey among the top five bass players, and his latest multi-bass production is Warwick’s Fuss On the Buss 2, a live DVD featuring Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham, Robert Trujillo, Lee Sklar, and many others. For over 20 years he has partnered through concerts, recordings, and master classes with fellow bassist Victor Wooten in numerous projects, including the cutting edge group, Bass Extremes. Most recently Bailey has toured with bass legends Lee Sklar and Jonas Hellborg in the three bass group JoStLe. Thirty-five years as a professional musician and twenty-two years of education experience have led to Bailey’s recent appointment as chair of Berklee's Bass Department.
J. D. BLAIR
J. D. Blair’s credo boils down to this: groove and praise to God. For more than forty years, that is exactly what Blair has done. His work, which began at church, reaches across all musical genres. As he has lived a large part of his life in the South, it was inevitable that country music would eventually come calling. Blair has played with some of the biggest names in country music, including Wynonna Judd, Lyle Lovett, Shelby Lynne, and one of the most renowned names in music history, Shania Twain. Along with a host of video and worldwide TV appearances, Blair has received many awards for his accomplishments, including Drum! Magazine’s 2000 Country Drummer of the Year. He also has been awarded the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award. Spring 2011 saw Blair and Victor Wooten out as a duo promoting their 2 Minds, 1 Groove Tour in Europe. The Groove Regulator has released a new project called 2012? on Vix Records.
DERICO WATSON
Derico Watson hails from Muskeegan, Michigan, and is an accomplished educator and clinician who has performed and/or recorded with artists such as Victor Wooten, George Duke, Jeff Coffin, Prasanna, Tommy Sims, and Ken Reynolds just to name a few. He's also toured with Marvin Sapp, the Dynamites, Stacie Orrico, SMV (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten), and the Derico Watson Group, which has appeared with James Brown, Spyro Gyra, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Watson also has presented drum clinics and master classes at Berklee College of Music, PASIC, the Montreal Drum Fest and the Mexico City Drum Festival.
Where will I eat and sleep?
Applicants who are 15 and older will be sent information and an application for residence hall housing once accepted to the program. Most program participants elect to stay in the Berklee residence halls; however, space is limited. To optimize your chances for on-campus housing, you must return the housing application immediately upon receiving it.
To be eligible to live in the residence hall, you must be 15 years of age by the start of the program. If you apply to the program after mid-May, call the Housing Office at 617 747-2292 to find out if residence hall space is still available.