Next Level Journal for bass and cello - a free online resource

Happy Fourth of July to all my bass friends!

I'm trying to conserve a little energy here in the middle of the day, post-taking daughter to the pool to swim, and pre-playing a late night show for the city of Rochester.  You know, noodling on the computer when....

BAM - there it is - Next Level Journals has their latest issue out and I want very much to call your attention to this great resource.  First - it's free!  Yes, you have to register with the site, but I have been using this for about two years now, ever since it launched, and they have not sold my email address or hit me with even one spam-ish email or advert.

So, what is it?  Well, they feature two magazines, in magazine format when you read it online, which is a little strange for an old fart like me, to have to click a page turn rather than scroll down the page.  But, whatever.  One is for cello, one is for bass.  Because we all know (say it with me) that a bass is NOT a cello (or a violin for that matter).  They interview great players, in all genres, and have deep conversations about practicing, or performing, or what making music means to them.  There is a bit of advertising within the magazine, but it's sustaining them and keeping it free for the rest of us to use.

Jordan Morton is featured this time, along with her most recent teacher, Nicholas Walker.  I met Jordan about two years ago when I was lucky enough to give a masterclass at Ithaca College for Nick Walker's students.  Jordan was one of the four students Colin Corner (our principal bass here in the Rochester Philharmonic) and I worked with that afternoon, and she left a really big impression on me.  I could easily see that she was a dedicated artist and a lifelong student - qualities that I so admire in great musicians.

Head on over to Ranaan Meyer's magazines - Next Level Journals at:
https://2caec3.campgn3.com/View-Next-Level-Bassists-Left-Hand-Issue

I think it will fill you with plenty of practical practice advice for our great instrument.

Gaelen

procrastination and practicing

I came across an article on procrasting "hard tasks" today, and loved it.  Basically, replace "practice" everywhere you see "hard task" and you're up and running.  Now, fair warning, it's from a zen blog I follow, so it may strike you as touchy-feely.  There, you were warned.  But to chime in on one of the biggest things I see happening with my students (and myself), it's the dread of the hard thing we need to work on.  It all seems to big and daunting, and I'd much rather indulge in facebook, angry birds, even washing dishes if it means I can avoid having to practice arpeggios against the drone.

Of course, if I set my mind to WHY I'm doing that drone practice in the first place, it's really not so big and scary anymore.  Here's my personal why's for that one part of my daily practice:
1. to stay loose in my arms, paying attention to where I tend to hold tension
2. to hear/sing my next note well before I shift
3. to maintain a big, open sound in all registers (this is a 2 octave cycle I'm working through, and take this from the open E up to the high D harmonic on G through a progression)

Once I look at what/why I'm doing this, it's really pretty easy.  I use a drone pitch (on iTunes, The Tuning CD) which plays each key for 3 minutes.  Granted, I'm going to go through about half an hour of this if I do the whole thing, but break it down ...... 3 minutes in each key... and my arpeggio cycle has 8 different chords I outline, so there's plenty to focus on, one step at a time.  I play each of those chords several times, each pass asking myself about the goals of loose arms, hearing ahead of shift, big sound.  I keep it simple and keep coming back to the basic questions.

I think that's the part we fail on - breaking it down from Big & Daunting into lots of small little chunks to work through, step by step.  When I was working on my book, my husband asked me why I hadn't published it yet.  I had already had it tested in many studios, but there were soooooo many little edits that just felt like the thing would never be done.  He said, "put it into action steps, rather than focus on the whole block of work."  Boy did that make it a lot easier.  One etude per day, where I knew I had the time to do it.  Of course, work makes for more work as I discovered more and more that I wanted to add or change.  But, even that got put into steps that were "do-able".

So friends, take a minute to read the zen post on procrastinating (now that you're done putting off other work by reading this).

http://zenhabits.net/read-now/

Happy practicing!
Gaelen