Sometimes that means I have my bass.

Sometimes I have a guitar.

And sometimes I’m sitting in the car waiting for my kid to get out of school with no instrument at all.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t practice.

Recently, while I was sitting in the car, I decided to run through all 12 major scales out loud.

A Simple Way to Run Through All 12 Major Scales

Instead of going through the keys chromatically, I organize them in groups of minor thirds.

I start with C and move up in minor thirds:

C → E♭ → G♭ → A

For each key, I verbally recite every note of the major scale.

Once I get back to the starting pitch class, I move the starting key up a half-step and do it again:

D♭ → E → G → B♭

Then I move up another half-step:

D → F → A♭ → B

Three groups of four keys gives me all 12 major keys.

There are plenty of ways you could organize the keys. I like this one because the structure gives me a clear route to follow. I don’t have to stop after every scale and decide which key comes next.

I can just focus on recalling the notes.

But the major scales aren’t really the point.

You Can Practice What You Want to Access

Taking away the instrument takes away the familiar shapes, patterns, and physical cues you normally rely on.

So you’re left with what you can actually recall, hear, or imagine.

And it doesn’t have to be major scales. Try chord tones, intervals, changes, melodies, or anything else you want to access more easily.

You don’t need the perfect practice environment.

Because even without your instrument, you can still practice.

More ideas for building a creative life around the time, tools, and circumstances you actually have →

For more than 20 years, I’ve lived with a pinched nerve that causes my fingers to gradually go numb whenever weight sits on a specific spot on my shoulder.

As a bass player, that’s been a problem.

A bass guitar isn’t exactly lightweight, and the traditional way of wearing a strap places the instrument’s weight directly on the area that triggers my symptoms. Within a short period of time, numbness would travel down my arm, my fingers begin to go numb and tingle, followed by increasing discomfort and eventually shooting pain.

Over the years, I’ve tried a lot of things.

I’ve seen chiropractors.

I’ve worked with multiple physical therapists.

I’ve tried acupuncture.

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars experimenting with different guitar and bass straps, including wider straps designed to improve comfort and distribute weight more evenly.

Nothing solved the problem.

Because the issue wasn’t the strap itself.

The issue was pressure on a specific area where the pinched nerve was being irritated.

As a result, I gradually accepted something I didn’t particularly like:

I’d probably spend the rest of my life playing bass while sitting down.

Then I accidentally discovered a workaround.

The Bass Strap Experiment

A few days ago, I decided to see if anything had changed.

Not because I expected a breakthrough.

Mostly because enough time had passed that I figured it was worth trying again.

While adjusting my bass strap, I noticed something I had never paid much attention to before.

Like many nylon guitar straps, mine has two layers because the strap loops back on itself to allow for length adjustment.

Normally, those two layers sit together and function like a single strap.

But while adjusting it, the layers separated.

And I ended up with a very wide guitar strap. But while there was a space in the middle, I immediately felt my symptoms resurfacing.

So then it got me curious.

What would happen if I intentionally separated them even further?

Instead of placing both layers on the same shoulder, I placed one layer on my right shoulder and the other on my left shoulder.

It looked funny.

But the weight distribution of the bass immediately felt different.

Instead of concentrating the instrument’s weight on one shoulder, the load was spread across both shoulders.

And something surprising happened.

For the first time in more than two decades, I was standing with a bass guitar and not immediately experiencing numbness in my fingers.

Why This Might Help

To be clear, I’m not a doctor, physical therapist, or medical professional.

I’m simply sharing an experiment that helped me.

In my particular situation, the problem wasn’t necessarily the total weight of the bass.

The problem was where that weight was being applied.

By changing the way the bass strap distributed the load, I was able to reduce pressure on the area that typically triggers my symptoms.

If your shoulder pain while playing bass is caused by a similar pressure point issue, changing the weight distribution may be worth exploring.

Not a Cure. A Workaround.

I want to be careful not to overstate this.

This isn’t a cure. My pinched nerve is still there.

And I’ve only tested this setup for relatively short periods of time—about fifteen minutes at a stretch.

I’m intentionally taking things slowly because the last thing I want to do is aggravate an old injury.

But what I can say is this:

For the first time in more than 20 years, standing while playing bass feels possible again.

And that’s something I had almost given up on.

Watch the Video

I recorded a short video demonstrating the bass strap setup and explaining the story behind it.

The Bigger Lesson

One reason I wanted to document this experience is because the lesson extends beyond bass guitar, shoulder pain, or guitar straps.

For years, I approached the problem by trying to fix the problem directly.

Maybe I needed a different treatment.

Maybe I needed a different exercise.

Maybe I needed a different specialist.

Maybe I needed a different strap.

Those were all reasonable things to try.

And to be clear, I’m not giving up on solving the actual root cause. The real solution would be finding a way to finally release the pinched nerve that’s causing the problem in the first place.

If I could permanently solve that issue, I absolutely would.

But while continuing to search for that solution, I accidentally discovered something that changed my experience in the meantime.

The thing that helped wasn’t fixing the underlying issue.

It was changing the system around it.

My pinched nerve is still there.

The symptoms may still return.

This experiment may or may not continue working over longer periods of time.

I honestly don’t know yet.

What I do know is that for the first time in more than 20 years, standing and playing bass feels possible again.

And that’s something I never expected to say.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn’t solving the problem.

Sometimes it’s finding another option.

If you’ve experienced bass shoulder pain, numb fingers while playing, nerve-related discomfort, or have discovered your own workaround for a long-standing playing problem, I’d love to hear about it.

From practice experiments to creative projects, here’s what I’m working on.

I’m excited to share that Music Phrase Pyramids Version 2 is now available on the Apple App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

But before I talk about what’s new, I want to talk about the problem I’ve been trying to solve.

Hear It

As musicians, inspiration rarely shows up when we’re sitting in our practice room with our instrument in hand.

More often, it happens while we’re scrolling.

Every day I come across incredible musicians on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Spotify. Many of them aren’t famous. They’re simply sharing ideas, grooves, fills, melodies, chord movements, and musical concepts that stop me mid-scroll and make me think:

“Man, I gotta learn that.”

Maybe it’s a jazz line.

Maybe it’s a bass fill.

Maybe it’s a chord progression.

Maybe it’s just a short phrase that immediately grabs your attention.

You know you want to learn it. And you want to learn it now.

Capture It

This is usually where the friction begins.

You sit down with your instrument and try to learn the phrase directly from social media.

You pause.

You rewind.

You replay.

You miss the beginning.

You rewind again.

You try slowing it down.

You accidentally skip past the part you wanted.

Eventually, you start looking for another solution.

Maybe you find a questionable website that extracts audio.

Maybe you download the clip.

Maybe you upload it into another tool.

Maybe you tell yourself you’ll come back to it later.

And that’s usually what happens.

The moment is gone.

Not because you didn’t want to learn it.

Not because you weren’t motivated.

The process itself was just painful.

Over time, I realized that one of the biggest obstacles to learning music isn’t a lack of discipline. It’s friction.

The more steps that exist between inspiration and practice, the less likely we are to actually do the work.

That’s the problem Music Phrase Pyramids was built to solve.

Pyramid It

The inspiration behind Music Phrase Pyramids actually came from somewhere unexpected.

When my daughter was four years old, I taught her to read using Sentence Pyramids.

A Sentence Pyramid starts with a small piece of information and gradually builds upon it, one chunk at a time.

What fascinated me wasn’t just that she learned to read.

Her vocabulary expanded incredibly quickly.

She began recognizing words instantly.

She started combining ideas naturally.

Before she ever learned grammar rules, she was already forming sentences and telling stories.

Years later, after returning to the bass from a long hiatus, I found myself thinking about that same process.

I knew I didn’t want to become the same bass player I was before.

I wanted to develop a deeper musical vocabulary.

I wanted to hear more.

Feel more.

Recognize more.

And I kept coming back to the idea of progressive chunking.

Instead of trying to absorb an entire phrase at once, what if I learned it piece by piece?

What if musical vocabulary could be built the same way reading vocabulary is built?

That simple idea eventually became Music Phrase Pyramids.

Learn It

The goal isn’t to memorize a phrase.

The goal is to absorb it so deeply that it becomes part of your own musical vocabulary.

A phrase you’ve learned thoroughly begins to influence how you hear music.

How you respond.

How you improvise.

How you create.

The phrase stops being something you copied and starts becoming something you understand.

That’s the kind of learning that has always interested me.

Not information.

Transformation.

What’s New in Version 2

Version 2 is a major step forward in reducing the friction between inspiration and practice.

You can now:

• Capture inspiration on iPhone and iPad
• Access your phrases across iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• Sync your phrase library through iCloud
• Continue learning wherever you happen to be

In other words, your phrases are no longer tied to a single device.

You might hear something worth learning on your phone while scrolling social media.

Capture it immediately.

Then later, open Music Phrase Pyramids on your iPad or Mac and continue learning exactly where you left off.

The goal is simple:

Reduce the distance between hearing something inspiring and actually learning it.

The Journey Continues

Building Music Phrase Pyramids has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve worked on.

Version 2 represents a significant milestone, but it also feels like the beginning.

There are still many ideas I want to explore.

Many improvements I want to make.

And most importantly, many musicians I hope this helps.

If you’ve already downloaded Music Phrase Pyramids, thank you for your support.

And if you’re just discovering it, I hope it helps you spend less time fighting your tools and more time learning the music that inspires you.

Hear it. Capture it. Pyramid it. Learn it. Get Music Phrase Pyramids on the App Store.

Not because you’re doing anything wrong — but because listening isn’t the same as ear training.

Passive vs. Active Listening

The moment you engage your ear, listening becomes ear training.

Why This Matters

Most musicians don’t struggle because they lack theory. They struggle because there’s a delay between what they hear… and what they can access.

Fluency = speed of access to sound

Passive listening gives you exposure.

Active listening builds access.

If you can’t recall it without the song playing, you don’t have access yet.

Practice Anywhere (Turn Listening Into Training)

You don’t need more time. You need better reps.

Here are ways to turn everyday listening into real ear training.

1) Test the Key (Spotify Method)

• Play a song.
• Pause.
• Guess the key.
• Then check.

I started doing this with my daughter on walks with my headphones in, song on, then I’d pause and we’d guess before checking. It became a game before it ever felt like practice.

If you have Spotify Premium, open any playlist and tap the Mix button — this is how to see the key and BPM of songs directly inside Spotify.

The key won’t be shown as “C major” or “A minor.”
It appears as a code (like 8A, 9B, etc.), which comes from the Camelot system — a circular map used by DJs to organize musical keys.

I keep a screenshot of the Camelot Wheel on my phone so I can quickly translate the code and check if I was right.

You don’t need to memorize the system right away. Just use it as feedback.

You’re not trying to be right. You’re training recognition.

That’s the whole point of ear training: building the reflex, not just the knowledge.

2) Hear the Progression (Numbers / Solfege)

Don’t chase chord names. Hear function.

• Think in numbers (1–4–5, etc.) → see the Number System in Music
• Or use solfege (do–re–mi)

You’re mapping what you hear to a system you can recall.

This is interval recognition in practice.
Your ear learning to measure distance — not just name chords.

3) Sing the Roots (Speed = Access)

Find the tonic (the “home” note of the key) as fast as possible.

Preferably without your instrument.

Slow recognition isn’t access yet.

Make it a game:

• Song starts → find the root immediately
• Stay with it as it moves

4) Sing Guide Tones (Hear the Movement)

Focus on 3rds and 7ths.

• They define the chord
• They show you where the harmony is going

Learn more about Guide Tones and go deeper here: Guide Tones – The Key To Melodic Direction In Your Solos

This is where harmony starts to feel inevitable instead of random.

It’s also where your aural skills make a real leap — from identifying isolated chords to hearing harmonic function in motion.

5) Isolate Parts

Don’t just hear the song. Pick a part and stay with it.

• Bass line
• Melody
• Inner voices

If you can’t isolate it… you don’t actually hear it.

This is transcription by ear at its most accessible — no staff paper needed, just attention.

Now It’s Your Turn

Next time a song comes on:

• Don’t just listen
• Test yourself

Guess the key. Sing the root. Follow the movement.

You’re already listening to music for hours every day.

You might as well train your ear while you’re at it.

But, keep in mind, ear training alone isn’t so much the destination. These practices all help to reinforce your musical vocabulary.

Put This Into Practice

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Try Music Phrase Pyramids

I wasn’t planning to transcribe anything today. But here we are.

Her phrasing sounds like a bird chirping — light, natural, deceptively hard to play. The way she places her embellishments makes every line sing. I was lucky enough to catch her live in New Orleans once. Never heard anyone swing like that.

And it’s moments like this that keep pulling me back to my bass.

If you’ve been away from playing for a while, this article is about that pull — and how to use it to actually get back into it… and STAY with it.

(If you want the full picture first, start here: What Losing Your Music Feels Like)

Why Getting Back Into Music Feels So Hard

If you’ve been away from your instrument, you already know:

Life happened.

It could’ve been your career, family, responsibilities. Either way, time disappeared.

And even if you still think of yourself as a musician… actually picking up your instrument again feels different.

Heavier.

Not physically — the other way.

The longer the gap, the harder it is to start.

Which is why most advice doesn’t work.

The Problem With Traditional Practice Advice

When you search “how to get back into bass”, you’ll usually hear:

• Start slow
• Practice scales
• Rebuild technique
• Work through fundamentals
• Transcribe “essential” solos

And don’t get me wrong, none of that is bad.

But it misses something critical: It assumes motivation will come after you start.

In reality, it’s the opposite.

You don’t start because you’re motivated. You get motivated because something pulls you in.

Why Transcribing “Important” or “Must-Know” Music Often Fails

A few years ago, I tried to get serious about transcription.

I picked a solo by Miles Davis — something I had been told was essential.

So I did the work:

• slowed it down
• picked out phrases
• wrote it out

Technically, I was doing everything right.

But something was missing.

• No pull.
• No curiosity.
• No reason to stay with it.
• I honestly didn’t care for it.

I sill learned the solo that day.

But within a few days, it was gone.

Like, I didn’t remember a single phrase.

Here’s what I understand now

I transcribed music I respected — but didn’t necessarily feel from an emotional level.

Respect is not enough to make something stick. You gotta’ feel it from a deep emotional level in order to care for something long enough for it to stick.

Start With Real Music (Not Exercises)

If you’re trying to get back into bass, this is the most important shift:

Start with music that actually moves you. Music that you actually like.

Not:

• exercises
• routines
• “important” or “must-know” solos

But something that makes you stop and replay it.

The 12-Second Rule

When I heard those 12 seconds of Doreen Ketchens, I wasn’t thinking about practice.

I just needed to understand it.

That’s the signal.

If you replay something without thinking — that’s what you should learn.

Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s correct. But because it pulled you in.

Why This Works (And Sticks)

When music moves you:

• You listen more
• You stay longer
• You notice details
• You absorb feel, not just notes

You start internalizing:

• phrasing
• rhythm
• timing
• articulation

All the things that don’t come from exercises.

That’s why 12 seconds of the right music beats 30 minutes of the wrong practice.

How to Start Playing Bass Again (Step-by-Step)

If you’ve been away and don’t know where to begin, do this:

1) Find Your “12 Seconds”

Scroll, listen, explore.

When something makes you:

• stop
• replay
• lean in

That’s your starting point.

Not your instrument. Not your genre.

Just something that hits.

2) Loop It (Don’t Rush It)

Before you touch your bass:

• listen repeatedly
• feel the rhythm
• notice where it breathes

Let your ear grab the shape first.

3) Sing It, BEFORE touching your bass

If you can’t sing it, you don’t have it yet.

But singing like a singer isn’t the point. Just try to emulate the sound with your voice. Because this is the first-step toward internalizing a sound BEFORE you get caught up with the mechanics of it all on your bass.

Singing = internalizing.

4) Find It on Your Instrument

Now translate it:

• don’t aim for perfection
• aim for the feel
• try to catch the contour of the phrase
• get close enough to recognize it

This is where the connection starts coming back.

5) Keep It Short

A few seconds is enough.

Seriously.

One phrase you own is more valuable than a full song you barely remember.

Why Most Musicians Get Stuck (And Stay Stuck)

Most players try to come back by:

• doing what they think they should practice
• forcing discipline before interest
• starting too big

That creates friction.

And friction kills consistency.

And when you’re much older and have a lot going on in life already, the last you need is more friction.

The Real Shortcut Back to Playing

The fastest way to get back into bass isn’t:

• more structure
• more theory
• more exercises

It’s this:

Follow what you can’t stop listening to.

Your taste isn’t a distraction.

It’s the engine.

Where Music Phrase Pyramids Fits In

This exact process — looping, isolating, working small phrases — is what I built Music Phrase Pyramids around.

Because the biggest problem isn’t knowing what to do.

It’s removing the friction between:

• hearing something
• isolating it
• actually practicing it

If you’ve ever tried to loop a tiny phrase manually… you already know how clunky that gets.

MPP just makes this process instant:

• capture audio from anywhere
• split it into chunks
• loop exactly what you need
• stack phrases so they stick

No files. No setup. No friction.

The Fastest Way Back to Bass

If you’ve been away from your instrument, start here:

Not with discipline. Not with a plan. But with one moment of music that pulls you back in.

For me, it continues to be musicians like Doreen Ketchens playing the clarinet on a street corner.

For you, it might be something completely different.

But you’ll know it when you hear it.

Because you’ll hit replay… and not want to stop.

Ready to Go Deeper?

This article expands on Step 1 from my pillar guide:

What Losing Your Music Feels Like (And How to Get It Back)

If you’re navigating a longer break from playing, that’s the full roadmap.

Put This Into Practice

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Try Music Phrase Pyramids

Maybe it was rehearsals in someone’s garage. Late nights at clubs. Or maybe it was quieter—just you, your instrument, and an hour carved out of the evening.

Either way, that version of you existed.

And at some point, without any big decision, it got harder to find him.

If you’re trying to get back into playing bass after years away, this is the part no one really explains:

You didn’t lose your musicianship.
You lost access to it.

And those are two very different problems.

How You Drift Away From Playing (Without Realizing It)

In 2014, I took a job in IT.

I needed stability. I’d been playing professionally for nearly two decades, and the physical strain had caught up with me—tendonitis that made me reconsider everything.

The money was better. So I took the job.

At first, it felt temporary. I’d practice on weekends. Make up for lost time.

But I was on-call every week.

Interruptions became the rhythm of my life.

You know the story about the frog in slowly boiling water?

That was me.

I didn’t make one decision to stop playing bass. I made a thousand small ones.

Skip practice. Work late. Try again tomorrow.

Five years later, I had barely touched the instrument.

That realization didn’t arrive loudly. It was quiet. Almost embarrassingly quiet.

The thing I’d done every single day of my adult life had just… stopped. And I hadn’t even noticed it happening.

What It Actually Feels Like to Come Back

When I finally picked the bass back up, I expected it to feel natural again.

It didn’t.

Instead, my hands felt slow. Weak. Unreliable.

Things I used to play without thinking—phrases that used to live in my fingers—felt foreign.

If you’ve experienced this, you’ve probably thought:

• “I lost my chops.”
• “I’m not as good as I used to be.”
• “Maybe I just don’t have it anymore.”

But here’s what’s really happening:

Your ear is still intact. Your access is not.

You still:

• recognize good phrasing
• hear when something is off
• remember how music should feel

But your ability to execute what you hear is disconnected.

That gap—between your ear and your hands—is the real problem.

Not talent. Not potential.

Access.

The Moment That Changed Everything

When my daughter was born, I barely played at all.

She didn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep. Music disappeared.

When things settled down, I started sneaking in time in the middle of the night, while everyone else slept.

But something unexpected was also happening during the day.

I’d notice her walk over to a small keyboard and just… play.

No frustration. No rules. No hesitation.

She’d also hear a melody once and sing it back accurately. And sometimes when I would play music with her, she’d call out any wrong notes immediately.

And here’s the thing: No theory. No training. Just her ear.

That’s when it clicked:

This is how music is actually learned.

Ear first. Everything else second.

And I also realized something else: Even when I was playing at my best years ago… my approach wasn’t fully right.

I had technique. I had knowledge. But I wasn’t always playing from what I heard. I was often playing what I thought.

This time, I wanted it to be different.

Why Playing Bass Feels Harder After a Break

If you’re trying to get back into bass after years away, here’s what no one tells you:

The problem is physical—but the frustration is mental.

You’ve lost:

• finger strength
• calluses
• stamina
• accuracy
• execution speed

But you haven’t lost:

• your ear
• your musical taste
• your internal sense of phrasing

So what happens?

You hear a phrase you’ve played a hundred times and you reach for it. But it’s not there. Instead, your hand goes to the close spot, and the execution is clumsy. Your fingers also move like molasses.

And that’s the part that can be really tough. Because you know exactly what it’s supposed to sound like. But you just can’t get there yet.

That disconnect is enough to make people quit again.

The Real Goal: Rebuilding Access

Most advice tells you to:

• practice scales
• rebuild technique
• run exercises

That’s not wrong.

But it misses the point.

The goal is not just to “get better.”

The goal is to: reconnect what you hear… to what you can play

That’s access.

And the fastest way to rebuild it isn’t through isolated drills.

It’s through phrases.

How to Get Back Into Playing Bass (Without Burning Out Again)

If you’re returning after a long break, here’s a better way to approach it:

1. Start with real music (not exercises)

Play songs you actually love.

Your ear needs something meaningful to chase, not abstract patterns.

2. Work in small phrases

Don’t try to relearn entire songs at once.

Take short musical ideas:

• 2–5 notes
• one small phrase
• one moment you like

This is how you rebuild control + clarity.

3. Slow everything down

Your ear is faster than your hands right now.

Let your hands catch up.

4. Use repetition—but make it musical

Not mindless repetition.

Repeat phrases:

• forward
• from memory
• slightly varied

This builds real access—not just familiarity.

5. Expect the mess

Missed notes. Sloppy timing. Frustration. Your kid in the background announcing every wrong note.

That’s not failure.

That’s the rebuild.

And it will be humbling.

Why This Time Is Different

Here’s the part most people overlook:

You’re not starting over.

You’re returning with:

• better taste
• more life experience
• a clearer sense of what matters musically

You don’t need to become the player you were.

You can become a better one—because your approach is different now.

You Didn’t Lose It

You didn’t lose your musicianship.

It didn’t disappear.

It’s been there:

• in the songs you noticed
• in the basslines that stood out
• in the moments you felt that pull to play again

What you lost was access.

And access can be rebuilt.

Where to Start

If you’re serious about getting back into playing bass after years away:

Start simple.

One song.
One phrase.
One session.

If you want structured guidance, the Practice Library is designed specifically for returning players—focused on rebuilding the connection between your ear and your hands.

And if you want a tool that lets you:

• capture audio from anywhere
• break it into phrases
• and practice it in a way that actually builds access

That’s exactly why I built Music Phrase Pyramids.

Because this isn’t about playing more.

It’s about being able to play what you hear.

Put This Into Practice

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Try Music Phrase Pyramids

No talking, no explaining. Just watch what’s possible now.

Watch first — demo (no commentary)

That clip you just watched? That guitarist is Justus West — a songwriter and producer I came across on TikTok. I heard something in those few bars that I immediately wanted to learn. And what you saw me do next is exactly the thing I’ve spent the last month building the ability to do.

Here’s the honest truth about why I disappeared: I got frustrated enough to build something.

“It’s a pain to constantly have to rewind from whatever source it is.”

You know that feeling. You’re watching a video, you hear a phrase — a lick, a chord voicing, a rhythmic idea — and you want to learn it. So you start rewinding. And rewinding. And every time you’ve nearly got it, you have to go back to the source and manually reselect the same little region again, just to get one more pass at it. Every transcribe app I’ve ever used works that way.

I wanted something different.

I wanted a way to capture audio from anywhere — a TikTok, a YouTube clip, a Spotify track, anything — and immediately start breaking it into chunks I could loop independently, progressively. A pyramid. Start with the first piece, get it, add the second, stack them. The way you’d naturally teach yourself something by ear, but without the friction.

That’s Music Phrase Pyramids. And below is me walking through the exact same Justus West clip, this time out loud, explaining the problem and showing how it gets solved.

The full walkthrough — with my commentary

What I’m most excited about is the capture part. You hear something on social media, you hit capture, play the audio, and now that phrase lives in the app. From there, you’re not just looping it blindly — you’re slicing it, stacking it, slowing it down, zooming in. You’re building a vocabulary, one phrase at a time.

I keep thinking about this idea of amassing a vocabulary. Every musician I admire has spent years collecting phrases — from records, from sessions, from things they overheard and had to work out.

Music Phrase Pyramids aims to make that collection process as frictionless as possible, wherever you happen to hear something worth learning.

It’s not in the App Store yet — that’s still the goal, and soon. But the website is live, and the best thing you can do right now if this resonates is get on the mailing list. You’ll be the first to know when it drops.

Want to know when Music Phrase Pyramids is available?

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Visit: musicphrasepyramids.com

Explore more tools and creative resources in the Creative Life & Tools archive.

I learned my scales, what chords to apply those scales, arpeggios, different ways to embellish my scales, and techniques for combining concepts to create my own language.

But that’s not how we naturally learn language. And it’s also not how we actually experience music.

When we speak, we don’t assemble sentences letter by letter. We learn words. Then short phrases. Then full thoughts. Over time, those chunks become fluent speech. And what’s even more fascinating is that we learn to do this all before we learn any grammar rules.

Music works the same way.

It’s this exact approach to learning (focusing on meaningful chunks of vocabulary instead of theory) that led me to build Music Phrase Pyramids.

In this article (and walkthrough video below), I’ll show you what “sentence pyramids” look like in a musical context, and how this approach can change the way you practice and internalize real music.

What Are “Sentence Pyramids” in Music?

In language learning, sentence pyramids are a way of building fluency by expanding from small units to larger ones:

You start with having the kid read the first word, then the first and second word (short phrase), and so forth, until they finally end up reading the full sentence.

Each step stays connected to meaning. You’re never practicing fragments that feel detached from real communication.

I believe music can be learned the same way.

Instead of learning notes (which you can relate to the alphabet), scales, or exercises…

you work with melodic chunks, combined melodic chunks that form a small phrase, and finally a complete musical idea (a big musical phrase).

This is phrase-based music practice — learning directly from real musical language rather than abstract building blocks. You’re absorbing timing, articulation, feel, and contour all at once, the same way you hear them in recordings.

Over time, those learned phrases become part of your musical vocabulary. And that’s what improvisation and fluency are built from.

What Is Phrase-Based Music Practice?

Traditional practice often focuses on raw materials: scales, arpeggios, finger patterns. Those are useful, but they’re one step removed from actual music.

Phrase-based practice flips the order.

You start with real phrases from recordings, actual lines played by musicians, and learn them in digestible segments. Instead of memorizing notes, you’re internalizing gestures: how the phrase moves, where it breathes, how it sits in time.

This approach naturally develops:

• phrasing
• timing
• articulation
• feel
• musical vocabulary

It also mirrors how ear-based musicians have learned for generations: listening, imitating, repeating, and gradually expanding. Almost every musically fluent musician I’ve come across focused heavily on vocabulary over theory. I wish I started out this way!

But here’s the real challenge, and that’s been the workflow.

Finding phrases, isolating sections, looping them, and organizing practice steps takes time and cognitive energy.

That’s exactly the friction Music Phrase Pyramids is designed to remove, so you can spend more time absorbing as much material as possible and less time scrubbing audio.

Related: Why Ear Training Doesn’t Work

Music Phrase Pyramids: Turning Recordings into Practice Stacks

Music Phrase Pyramids is a simple idea: take any recording and turn it into a structured, progressive phrase-learning stack.

You import audio, select a musical phrase, slice it into smaller chunks, and then practice it in a gradual order — from smallest to full phrase, just like a sentence pyramid.

So instead of confronting an entire line at once, you climb it step by step (Chunks, then a partial phrase, then finally the full phrase).

That’s the “pyramid.”

This reduces cognitive load dramatically. Your ear and hands stay focused on one manageable musical unit at a time, while always staying connected to the full phrase context.

New in v0.3.2: Visual Flags for Phrases and Chunks

Yesterday I released version v0.3.2, which adds a feature suggested by an Early Adopter: visual flags for marking multiple phrase and chunk locations in a recording.

This makes phrase-based practice faster and more flexible.

You can now drop markers anywhere you hear something interesting (possible phrases, sections, or chunk ideas) and return to them later when you’re ready to build a pyramid.

Instead of constantly searching the waveform or exporting multiple files, you can map out musical material directly inside the recording.

I love this addition because it reflects exactly how musicians actually listen: noticing moments, bookmarking ideas, and coming back to them. Huge thanks to the Early Adopter who suggested it.

Why Phrase-Based Practice Builds Musical Fluency

When you learn music in phrases rather than isolated notes, several things change.

• Your ear connects directly to your hands. Although, it will be clumsy at first. Keep at it!
• Your Timing and feel develop organically. Your fingers will start moving as a single gesture instead of note-for-note.
• You’ll internalize real musical language on a deeper level instead of abstract concepts.
• And your improvisation starts to emerge from learned vocabulary rather than theory recall.

In other words, you move closer to how musicians actually play.

Phrase-based practice doesn’t replace theory or technical work — it anchors them in sound. And for many players, especially improvisers and ear-oriented learners, it unlocks a level of fluency that scale-first practice alone rarely reaches.

Don’t get me wrong. I love theory and still study it. But, I’ve learned to prioritize vocabulary before theory.

Try Phrase-Based Music Practice Yourself

If this approach resonates with you, you can explore it directly with Music Phrase Pyramids.

The walkthrough video above shows the full workflow, and the current Early Adopter beta is available for macOS. I’m actively refining the app based on musician feedback, and it’s been incredibly encouraging to see how players are already using it to learn real phrases from recordings.

If you try it, I’d genuinely love to hear how it fits into your practice and what would make it even better.

Because ultimately, this project is about one simple idea:

We don’t learn music note by note. We learn it phrase by phrase — the way we actually hear it.

Explore more ideas and tools that shape how I learn and create.

Frequently Asked Questions

Put This Into Practice

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Try Music Phrase Pyramids

What surprised me wasn’t how clean the drawings were. Some proportions were definitely off. But what stood out was how recognizable they still were. Sonic looked like Sonic. Knuckles looked like Knuckles. The essence was there.

That experience sparked a realization that carried far beyond drawing—and straight into how I think about music.

You Can Always Lean on the Fundamentals

I don’t really draw much anymore, and I certainly don’t practice drawing. But over twenty years ago, when I was studying to become an art teacher in college, I spent a lot of time drawing from observation. I learned how to break what I was seeing into basic shapes.

What’s interesting is that even after all these years—without regularly picking up a pencil—I can still get close to drawing what I see. That’s not because I retained some advanced technique. It’s because I’m leaning on fundamentals I internalized a long time ago.

Music should work the same way.

We should be able to play what we hear with a reasonable level of accuracy—even after a long break.

But when I returned to the bass after a long hiatus, I realized I had learned music somewhat backward. I had prioritized theory and technique far more than my ear.

Coming back with a fresh lens, it became clear that my ear needed to be the center of everything. Now, as I reconnect with the bass, my entire practice is focused on hearing—especially recognizing simple musical shapes quickly and accurately.

In art, any complex object is really just a collection of simple shapes. In music, lines and phrases are built the same way.

Why Simple Shapes Matter in Music

When I was drawing those Sonic characters, everything started with the same thing: a circle. The head, the body, the hands, the feet—all circles. Once that foundation was in place, the details almost placed themselves.

It’s no different with music.

What we often think of as “complex” or “sophisticated” musical lines are usually built from very simple elements. Triads. Arpeggios. Scale fragments. Short melodic ideas like 1-2-3-5 (often called a tetrachord).These are the musical equivalents of circles, squares, and triangles.

And there literally is endless combinations. When they’re connected, they can sound incredibly expressive and sophisticated. But at their core, they’re simple.

The better you get at hearing these shapes—and recognizing them in real time—the easier it becomes to play what you hear and to figure out what you’re transcribing.

How This Shows Up in My Practice Today

This idea shapes how I practice every day.

When I transcribe music now, I’m not trying to decode every note as quickly as possible. I’m listening for shapes. I’m paying attention to familiar fragments, intervals, and movements that I recognize by sound—not by theory labels.

Transcribing has become the center of my practice because it develops so many things at once. It sharpens my ear, yes—but it also improves my technique, articulation, dynamics, phrasing, and time feel. It’s a complete form of musical training.

Instead of asking, “What scale is this?” I’m asking, “What shape am I hearing?”

That shift has changed everything.

Perception Matters More Than Perfection

None of my drawings were perfect. Some proportions were clearly off. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the characters were recognizable.

The same applies to transcribing and improvising music.

If you aim to capture the essence of a phrase—its shape, its contour, its feel—you’re doing meaningful work. Getting every note perfectly aligned can come later.

This is where perception really comes into play.

The question isn’t, “Can you execute this flawlessly?” It’s, “Can you perceive what’s actually happening?”

If you can hear the shape, you’re already most of the way there.

Rebuilding Musical Fluency as an Adult

When I came back to the bass after my hiatus, I had to be brutally honest with myself. I had to look at the habits I’d built, the shortcuts I’d relied on, and the reasons my progress had stalled.

Shifting my focus toward ear-based learning has given me something I didn’t have before: freedom. Each day, the instrument feels a little more intuitive. A little less forced.

Rebuilding musical fluency as an adult isn’t about starting over—it’s about reconnecting with what matters most. And for me, that’s been hearing simple shapes clearly and letting everything else grow from there.

Whether you’re drawing, transcribing, or improvising, the pattern is always the same. Fundamentals reveal structure. And no matter how complex something looks or sounds, fundamentals are something you can always lean on.

Explore more tools and frameworks I use to design clarity and make progress inevitable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Put This Into Practice

If you want to actually close the gap between what you hear and what you can play, you need a way to work with real musical phrases — not just concepts.

Music Phrase Pyramids is a tool I built to help with that.

It lets you take any audio and break it into progressive steps, so you can internalize, map, and build phrases in a structured way.

Try Music Phrase Pyramids

At the time, I was deep in the world of WordPress websites and SEO. Back then, the Wayback Machine was my secret weapon for reverse-engineering how brands grew their online presence. I’d type in a competitor’s URL, scroll through snapshots of their older websites, and study what had changed — copy, layout, tone, and structure. It was like a time machine for strategy.

Fast forward to today. I recently reopened the Wayback Machine to find some old web copy from a site I’d written years ago. But something new caught my eye — an Audio section.

I clicked it, and suddenly I was staring at a treasure trove of live recordings, bootleg performances, and forgotten broadcasts. Within minutes, I was listening to performances I didn’t even know existed — fiery takes full of human imperfection and spontaneous energy. It hit me: this isn’t just a web tool anymore; it’s one of the best free resources musicians have for learning by ear.

What the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine Actually Are

For anyone unfamiliar, the Internet Archive (at archive.org) is a nonprofit digital library that preserves websites, books, audio, video, and more — all in the spirit of digital preservation. The Wayback Machine is its time-travel feature, letting you view old versions of websites and content that may no longer exist.

Most people use it for nostalgia or research. But inside its Live Music Archive, Audio Collections, and Old Websites, there’s a wealth of rare music waiting to be rediscovered — including out-of-print jazz albums, unreleased bootlegs, and vintage radio shows.

Before I ever used it for music, I relied on the Wayback Machine to study SEO patterns. Now, I see it as the same thing through a creative lens: a database of musical evolution.

Why Musicians Should Care — Especially Jazz and Bass Players

If you’re a jazz musician, bassist, or anyone who learns by ear, the Internet Archive is pure gold.

Studio recordings are often cleaned up, polished, and mixed to perfection. But live recordings and bootleg performances capture something different — phrasing that breathes, grooves that push and pull, risk-taking that shows a musician’s real time-feel and intuition.

When you listen to these performances, you’re not just hearing notes; you’re hearing decisions. The bass player reacting to the drummer. The horn player stretching over the bar line. The pianist comping with tension. It’s the raw data of musicianship — and it’s all sitting, often untagged, in the corners of the Internet Archive.

How to Use the Internet Archive to Find Hidden Recordings

Here’s a quick walkthrough to start your own discovery session:

1. Visit archive.org and use the search bar to look up your favorite musician or band — try phrases like “Jaco Pastorius live,” “Bill Evans Trio bootleg,” or “Miles Davis concert.”
2. Filter your results by Audio or head straight to the Live Music Archive for thousands of community-uploaded shows.
3. Want to find old blogs or fan sites that shared recordings or transcription PDFs? Use the Wayback Machine at web.archive.org and enter the old URL.
4. Download reference tracks for transcription practice (educational use only).
5. Create a Listening Library — a folder or playlist of your favorite finds — and treat it like your personal archive for ear training and inspiration.

You’ll be amazed at what surfaces: forgotten performances, backstage interviews, audience recordings, or early demos that never made it to Spotify.

What You Can Find — Hidden Treasures for Musicians

Some of the gems buried inside the Internet Archive include:

• Out-of-print jazz albums and bootlegs
• Entire festival sets uploaded by fans
• Old radio broadcasts and interviews
• Scanned issues of DownBeat, Bass Player Magazine (this , and other vintage publications
• Recordings of legendary musicians during their formative years

When I stumbled upon these, it reminded me why I fell in love with learning music by ear — it’s like hearing the history of music unfold in real time. These aren’t polished performances; they’re snapshots of artistic process.

Turning Archive Finds into Practice Inspiration

After spending years analyzing websites and algorithms, it’s ironic that the same tool I used for SEO now fuels my music practice.

Here’s how I use it now:

1. Discover something that moves me — maybe an old Chick Corea recording or an unreleased Weather Report show.
2. Transcribe just one idea — a bass fill, a phrasing choice, or even a rhythmic motif.
3. Analyze how it works: tone, timing, articulation, interaction.
4. Apply it in my own groove practice or improvisation session.

Live recordings have an energy that can reignite your curiosity. They train your ears to focus on nuance — not perfection. And they remind you that music isn’t about flawless execution; it’s about feel.

Conclusion — Don’t Sleep on the Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive isn’t just a digital museum. It’s a creative playground for musicians who learn by ear, who chase feel over flash, and who understand that studying music means listening deeply.

If you’re looking for new inspiration, start your own Listening Library tonight.
Pick one artist. Find one live recording.
Listen. Transcribe. Feel.

You might just uncover something that changes how you hear forever.

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