Not Your Ideal Setup? Practice Anyway.
Practice doesn’t always happen under ideal conditions. Right now, that means sitting on a bench with a guitar while my kid runs around the playground. Guitar isn’t my primary instrument. But…
You Can Still Practice Without Your Instrument
These days, a lot of my practice happens wherever and whenever I can fit it in. Sometimes that means I have my…
A Workaround for 20 Years of Bass Shoulder Pain
If you’re dealing with bass shoulder pain, numb fingers while playing bass, or discomfort caused by a…
Music Phrase Pyramids Version 2 Is Here
Hear It. Capture It. Pyramid It. Learn It. I’m excited to share that Music Phrase Pyramids Version 2 is…
How to Train Your Ear Without Extra Practice Time (Using Spotify’s Mix Feature)
You listen to music every day. But almost none of that time is actually training your ear. Not because…
How to Get Back Into Bass (After a Long Break) — Start With 12 Seconds of Real Music
There are 12 seconds of Doreen Ketchens playing “When The Saints Go Marching In” that I’ve had…
What Losing Your Music Feels Like (And How to Get It Back)
There’s a version of you that played bass every day. Maybe it was rehearsals in someone’s garage. Late nights at…
I’ve been gone for a month. Here’s what I’ve been working on.
I want to start by showing you something. No talking, no explaining. Just watch what’s possible now. Watch…
Sentence Pyramids — But for Learning Music (Music Phrase Pyramids Walkthrough)
A lot musicians are taught music backwards… Myself included. I learned my scales, what chords to apply…
What Art Fundamentals Taught Me About Developing Musical Fluency
A few days ago, I did a drawing session with my daughter. We made it more fun by adding a simple restriction: we…
The Internet Archive for Musicians: A Hidden Goldmine of Rare Recordings to Inspire Your Practice
Two decades ago, before I ever thought I’d be transcribing bass lines from bootlegs, I came across the Internet…