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 you’re doing anything wrong — but because listening isn’t the same as ear…
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…
How to Transcribe Bass Solos (And Internalize Them): My Step-by-Step Workflow & Tools To Get The Most Out Of Each Note
I used to spend hours figuring out every note of a bass solo, only to forget most of it a week later.…
How to Transcribe Jazz Solos (Without Losing the Music)
When I first started transcribing jazz solos, I did what most players do — I’d pause after each note and…
How to Practice Transcription on Bass (Without Burning Out)
When you first start transcribing, it’s easy to think you’re bad at it. You loop the same two bars, slow it…
What My Kid Taught Me About Practice and Patience
My kid has this habit. She’ll hear a song she likes, and that’s it — that song becomes her entire world. She’ll…