Welcome

Welcome to my "Experiencing Groove" website.

Purpose

This site was primarily intended to organize some of the music lessons that I've learned over the years. I wanted to have everything in one place, so my students, colleagues, and I can refer to this list of exercises using the open web.

You are welcome to poke around and use this information as you see fit, but it may be of limited value without face-time with a live person.

The general approach to this list of exercises is based on the work of Victor Wooten, through his Bass / Nature camp and his DVD Victor Wooten: Groove Workshop. I recommend purchase of this DVD over this site as a better interactive experience.

I wanted to post exercises using a consistent format. I first try to explain the purpose of each exercise. I believe that it's important to have an idea why you would want to explore a particular concept. Next, I describe the approach to the exercise. Finally, if applicable, I talk through "tips and warnings", and/or "next steps".

Many of these exercises may seem stupidly simple. This is by design. It doesn't take much to become aware of the critically subtle aspects of music. You should not labor over these exercises, but play with them from time-to-time. A few minutes spent here-and-there should go a long way towards building awareness.

Keep in mind that music is more then the sum of its parts. I'm not suggesting that running through the exercises I posted is the path to being a great player. I'm not even saying I'm a great player (I'm not). These exercises are only tools to help you discover critically subtle nuances to assist in expressing the music inside of you.

Everyone is welcome to post comments. I'll integrate them into the posts. This can be a collaboration. It really is anyway, since it's a reflection of many people who have shared music with me.

Four Ways of Learning

When I learned theory, I pretty much took an intellectual approach. This limited the benefits of the knowledge I gained, so I had to go back and re-learn using Anthony Wellington's approach. Anthony gives the advice to learn every musical concept four ways. Anthony says:

I try to teach students that for every musical concept you know, you should know it equally four ways: physically, visually, sonically and intellectually. If you learn a new concept, or a new scale or new lick, ask yourself, “Of those four ways, which of these ways am I the strongest? And of these four ways, which am I the weakest”, you’ll always know what it is you need to work on.

If I used the example of the A major scale, I need to know that concept physically; second finger on the fifth fret of the E string and so forth, so I can physically play the A major scale.

Visually doesn’t mean with my eyes, it means with my mind. I want to know where that A major scale is with my mind, meaning that if you needed me to teach you how to play an A major scale or you wanted to teach me an A major scale and there wasn’t a bass around, you should still be able to teach it to me. If I asked you to describe your wife or girlfriend to me, you shouldn’t have to have her in the room in order to that! You should know how she looks even if she’s not around and the bass is the same way. If I asked you, “What’s the 20th fret of the A string,” you should know that that’s an F. So that’s what I mean when I talk about knowing musical concepts visually.

Knowing things sonically is self-explanatory: that A Major scale has a certain sound and you should be hyper-aware of that meaning. If you go to finger that A Major scale that we talked and you trust that fingering, if I adjust one of the tuning pegs without you knowing, you should know that what you are hearing is not an A Major scale.

And intellectually means breaking down that A Major scale to the formula of whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. And I’ve found that there’s a cultural divide in learning. A lot of inner city players grow up getting good at the instrument physically and sonically; what we call ‘playing by ear’. And I’ve found that a lot of kids who grew up in a suburb, who grew up playing classical music or who were able to get lessons right away, get good visually and intellectually but they don’t develop an ear because they weren’t forced to drop the needle on a record and learn a part! So, Bassology is about really combining those four things and not having that divide. That’s one of the driving forces behind Bassology, to understand music and what we do on this instrument four ways, equally.

Music is a Language

I've heard Victor Wooten say many times that "music is a language". Here are his own words from the DVD Victor Wooten: Groove Workshop, as published by Hudson Music:

My name is Victor Wooten, and I'd like to start by thanking you for joining us here today. Today we are going to take a look at music -- and an extra-ordinary look at music. And what I mean by that is it's going to be a little bit different. And why do I say that? Well, to me, music is a language, and I haven't met a musician yet that didn't agree with that -- that music is a language.

So, that brings me to the question: "What is a language?" A language is a way to communicate something. It's a way for me to explain to you what I'm thinking or feeling, it's a way for us to converse. We can share ideas through our language.

But, if you think about that, what's most important is not the language, but having something to say. Having something to convey is what's most important. Right? So, music to me does the same thing. It's a way of explaining, displaying, putting out our emotions, and having someone else understand or feel them. Okay? So music and language -- let's start from there that they are one in the same.

Now, we have to think about how did we learn our first language, which for me is English. Alright? I learned English at a very, very early age, and here's the interesting thing. I never practiced it. We never practice English, and were never taught English. We were exposed to it, and we were freely given the opportunity to explore the language.

At about age two, in English, I could already improvise. I didn't have to read what it is I wanted to say - actually, I couldn't read at all. I didn't know any English theory. I never knew what a noun or pronoun was until I was probably five or six years old. I didn't know any scales, meaning the alphabet -- not at two -- but I could speak freely. I could converse with people much greater then I was at that language. And actually, that's how I got so good at the language. Because when I was a baby before I could even say a word, I was forced and allowed to speak with professionals.

Now, let's look at this other language that we call music. We don't allow that in music. The beginners are put into a beginning class. For the most part we're not allowed as beginners to play, and perform, and converse with the professionals. We're told we're beginners. We were never told were beginners in English -- no one ever told us that. In English, if we were a beginner and we said something wrong, we were actually praised for it - to the point where our parents would start saying things wrong with us. If we developed our own language, our parents would learn it -- we wern't forced to change. So, we were always allowed to feel good about however it was we chose to speak, which allowed us to have, and to speak with our own voice.

Now in music after many, many years of playing, we have to try to find our own voice. That's one of the reasons that I say we approach music backwards. We teach music backwards. We think about music backwards. If music truly is a language, I think we should really treat it as one. That's we we're going to do here today.

We're going to treat music like a language and we are going to explore it in a way never before done, never before seen on video. So I hope you are willing to take that journey with us. It's going to be different and it's going to challenge you, but don't we need to be challenged? I think so.

(credits to Anthony Wellington, Joe Sanchez and the other bass players, and everyone involved in the video shoot)

If you're ready to take this journey -- you're ready to go down along different road. Down the rabbit hole, we might say. Going to take the red pill or the blue pill? Here we go, let's do it.

© 2008 Hudson Music, LLC.

Reproduced with permission from the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Technique

TODO: This is a placholder

Tone

TODO: This is a placholder

Style / Feel

All styles of western music have notes in common. The 12 notes in rock are the same 12 notes in country, jazz, and funk. The differences between styles is 2-10.

Music should convey feeling. Music with lyrics should generally convey consistent feeling between the words and the tune. There are many exceptions to this in popular music.

Ex1 - Elements of Style

This is less of an exercise and more of a life-long study. Since notes are all the same between styles, what makes rock...rock? What makes funk funky? There is nothing wrong with mixing styles, but it is good to recognize what defines a particular style in terms of rhythmic sub-division, tone, time, articulation, and other elements

Approach

Listen to songs from leading artists of different styles. Try to pick out what the musicians are doing that defines that style.

For example, most classic rock is based on 8th note subdivision in the bass, and 16th note runs in the lead guitar. The players generally try to take a wide sonic footprint in terms of tone -- distortion on the guitar, mids and treble in the bass, and deep shells on the drums. The time feel is driving, with the guitar runs having a "leaning forward" feeling -- like a train running downhill nearly jumping off the tracks. Playing overly clean may take away from the style -- you may want to slide into and off of notes. The bass and drums may be loosely tied together, with the bass taking a more riff-oriented approach then a rhythmic approach. The choice of notes may center around the chord tones or pentatonic scales, avoiding notes that add harmonic color and tension. Phrases may start before the down-beat of one to give a feeling of anticipation.

In contrast, reggae is often based on a shuffle feel. Time is laid-back, with notes occurring slightly behind the beat. Phrases may start on beat two or later, to give a feeling of being relaxed. Tones are warm and round. Use of staccato or muted notes for moving parts is common. The rhythm shuffles.

Tips and Warnings

Listen to as much music as you can. Make a point to learn music that you don't like or don't normally listen to. Switch stations on the radio.

Ex2 - Emotional Content

This exercise seeks to get past using 2-10 as a cheap manipulation, and truly connect emotionally.

In my college communication class, I was taught that 70% of communication is non-verbal. Written communication is somewhat dangerous, because people can assume the worst if they don't see facial expressions and body language, and don't hear the tone of voice being used. Emotion can be faked in face-to-face communication, but even then, the intend of the communication is clear, even if the motivation is not. In English and music, the emotion is a key part of the message.

Approach

Play a song, groove or lead -- something somewhat repetitive. At some point, focus on an emotion. Observe how your playing changes in terms of 2-10 -- tone, articulation, dynamics, etc. At another point, focus on a different emotion. Try to lose focus on your playing and focus on the emotion. Hopefully the loss of focus on playing results in an improvement.

Next Steps

Focus on the lyrical content of the music you are playing. What feelings are being conveyed by the words? Try to get in touch with those feelings, and let them come out with your music.

Listening

In both music and English, listening is the most important element. In music, people don't care how fast you can play -- they care how fast you can listen and pick up on what is going on.

When you are doing a sound check, what is your main concern? Is it being able to hear yourself, or to hear others?

Ex1 - Singing Intervals

This exercise helps to internalize intervals between notes. The goal is to be able to quickly pick up melodies or chord changes just by hearing them. You can't always rely on a chart or individual practice time. Sometimes you have to pick up tunes on-the-fly. If you've been practicing a supporting part, and the band leader asks you to take the melody, you won't be asked again if you tell him "no".

Approach

Start with the root note of a major scale. Play the note, then sing the note out loud. Think of what the 2nd degree of the major scale sounds like. Sing that note, then play it. Correct the pitch if necessary. Move on by playing the root and singing the 3rd, 4th, 5th, up to the octave. Repeat for the minor scales. Also repeat for scales descending

Next Steps

Use an On-line interval trainer for when you have your computer, but not your instrument.

Put together spontaneous melodies. Be able to sing them and play them at the same time. Make sure you are playing what you sing -- don't sing what you play.

Ex2 - Dropping the Needle

Before the Internet, people used to learn music by playing to records. Because it was difficult to "drop the needle" in the right spot, it was necessary to develop really good ears. Even today, I find that many, if not most, chord charts that I download need modification.

Approach

Make an effort to learn tunes without the benefit of a chart. As a minimum, work out jingles and popular melodies. Don't try to memorize them. Try to hear them in your head and play what you hear.

Next Steps

Play along with the radio. Make sure you are turned down enough so you can hear what is going on in the song.

Ex3 - The Parrot Game

This is a listening exercise to do with a friend.

Approach

One person plays a lick, and the other person tries to play it back. Normally you want to do this over a groove, and keep it fun. The goal doesn't have to be exactly matching note-for-note. You can match the general feel.

In English, if I say "My friend Jonathan plays bass and has long blond hair", someone can legitimately repeat me by saying "Todd has a long-haired friend that plays bass".

Along these lines, I can repeat someone musically using different notes, different rhythms, different articulation, etc.

Dynamics

Dynamic are an effective way to help people to listen, both in music and English. We often think we need to speak up or play loud to be heard. Often the opposite is more effective. When we speak or play softer, people tend to lean forward and make more of an effort to listen. When we scream or play loud, people often tend to back off. When we scream or play loud all the time, people tune us out and stop listening altogether.

Ex1 - Dynamics as Scales

This is a technical and listening exercise as well an exercise in developing dynamics. The goal is to be aware of your dynamic range.

Approach

Play a note as softly as possible, then repeat it, increasing in volume. Count how many times you can repeat the note at increasing volume before hitting max volume. Repeat decreasing in volume.

Tips and Warnings

Go slow. You might want to record your efforts, so you know that you are increasing/decreasing in volume and not cheating. Watch out for sudden changes in volume.

Next Steps

If you play an wind instrument, play through your dynamic range on a single note. Work on maintaining a steady tone throughout the note. One approach would be to start soft, grow to a peak, then taper off. See how long you can hold the note with this approach before running out of air.

Ex2 - Dynamic Phrasing

This exercise helps you to incorporate dynamics into a spontaneous jam.

Approach

This is like soloing over a scale, except that you are also changing dynamics as well as changing pitch. Play over a track and improvise over the top. Create phrases and repeat them at different volume levels. Observe the emotional effect.

Ex3 - The Yardstick of Volume

This exercise helps you to develop a baseline for how loud you play. This is especially effective for amplified plucked instruments, such as the electric bass.

Approach

First of all, be sure that you are comfortable with exercise one, and are aware of your dynamic range. Now, think about where your normal range is. Let's say you have 10 levels of volume, where level 10 is sustainable only in short bursts, level nine is sacrificing tone for volume, and level eight is the max you can play with a steady tone. Where do you normally play? If it's six or seven, you are not leaving yourself room for increasing in volume. You should be shooting for about level four or five. Level four leaves room for three steps down and four steps up before sacrificing tone for volume.

Tips and Warnings

Make sure you are hyper-aware of the other players. If you set your amp expecting to play at level four, and actually play at level seven, you are going to drown out others.

If you can't hear everyone else, you are probably too loud.

Articulation

Articulation in music generally refers to the use of staccato, legato, and accents (attack). It can also refer to vibrato. In spoken language, articulation refers to giving sounds the proper shape, so the listener can better understand what is being said. I think there is a correlation here. In music, articulation can help the listener better understand the feelings that the musician is trying to convey.

Ex1 - Staccato / Legato Scales

I call this the "crazy train" exercise, from the bass line of the Ozzy Osborne song. The goal is to become aware of how many degrees of long or short notes you can create in a particular context. It's also a listening and technique exercise.

Approach

Playing a scale is just cycling through pitches. We can apply that concept to other elements of music. At a given tempo, play a series of quarter notes. Play the first note very short (staccato). Play the next notes successively legato, until the notes are separated only by the attack. You don't have to change the pitch of the notes. Count how many degrees of staccato / legato you can play. Make sure every note is different in length. This is as much an exercise in controlling technique as it is an articulation exercise. Repeat the exercise going from legato to staccato.

Tips and Warnings

You may want to play this over a click track, to make sure that you are only changing the space between notes, and not the total length between notes.

You may want to record yourself, to make sure that you are not cheating, and also to make sure that you are only varying the duration of the notes. Make sure you can play even dynamics and even attack.

Ex2 - Patterns of Articulation

This exercise is a "teaching yourself things you already know exercise". It's possible to come up with fresh ideas by applying specific concepts to known lines or patterns.

Approach

Start with a known pattern, such as a major scale. Play the pattern with notes of equal duration, such as quarter notes or eighth notes. Apply a pattern of articulation to the pattern of notes. For example, play a major scale eighth notes using the articulation pattern of legato, legato, staccato. Repeat with a pattern of staccato, staccato, legato. Listen critically to the feel of landing on the notes with a different articulation.

Ex3 - Adopting Rhythmic Patterns

This exercise involves starting with a known rhythmic pattern, and using articulation to create a new rhythmic pattern, while retaining the feel of the original pattern.

Approach

Start with a known pattern, such as dotted-quarter, eighth, half in 4/4 time. Observe the eighth notes sub-divisions that are emphasized by the pattern. In this case, we have the downbeat of one, the upbeat of two, and the downbeat of three. Replace the original pattern with a pattern of all eighth notes, but make the emphasized notes from the original pattern legato, and the the rest of the note staccato. So, for this example, you would have an eighth note pattern of legato, staccato, staccato, legato, legato, staccato, staccato, staccato. Observe how the feel of the original pattern is preserved in the new pattern

Next Steps

Repeat this exercise, but change the pitches of the eighth notes to create a groove or melodic line

Time / Rhythm

Time and rhythm are critical for every musician. Many times people think that time is a conductor's or drummer's job. That way of thinking is limiting. In order for a group to sound tight, every musician must have a great sense of internal time. You can develop tightness with experience, but you don't have time to develop tightness in many performance and recording situations. You have to have it internally.

Ex1 - Playing to Tracks

Playing to tracks is a good way to make sure you are capable of at least following steady time. It's also a good way to develop your ear

Approach

Put a track on and play over the top of it, either doubling a part, or improvising your own part. Pay attention to any tendency to speed up or having to catch up.

Ex2 - Playing to a Click

For the purpose of developing a sense of time, playing to a click (metronome) is a step up from playing to a track. When playing to a click, every beat subdivision has a very definite point, so this is a good way to check that your time is precise.

Approach

The approach is like playing over a track, except that the other instruments can no longer cover any inconsistent time issues. You want to be able to "bury the click" by having your notes exactly match the click - boom, boom, boom, not bloom, bloom, bloom.

Next Steps

For a real challenge, use your mind to move the clicks from downbeats to upbeats. This forces you to use your internal sense of time for the downbeats, and the upbeats are only a check.

Ex3 - Removing Clicks

It's possible to be overly dependent on a click-track. If you are depending on the click, you are not depending on your internal sense of time.

Approach

The assumption with exercise 2 is that each click was on the down-beat. For the first part of this exercise, cut the speed of the clicks in half, while keeping the tempo consistent. So, instead of getting clicks on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 - you only get clicks on beats 1 and 3. Once you are comfortable with this, use your mind to move the clicks to beats 2 and 4. Once you are comfortable with this, cut the speed of the clicks in half again. Practice with the click on beat 1, then use your mind to move the click to beats 2, 3, or 4.

Tips and Warnings

when you remove clicks, make sure you are hearing the missing clicks in your head.

Next Steps

With 1-click-per-bar, use your mind to move the click to the upbeat of 1, 2, 3, or 4.

Ex4 - Removing Measures

You want to be sure you can groove with or without a drummer. This exercise helps you to maintain your groove when the drummer stops.

Approach

If you have a rhythm machine, program a drum track or click track to repeat a four-bar phrase. Make sure you can groove to the track. Now, program the track so the drummer or click is silent for the last measure. Make sure you can groove to the track, and flawlessly hit beat one every time it comes around. Program the drummer or click to play 2 out of 4 bars, then 1 out of 4 bars.

Tips and Warnings

Make sure you can hear/feel the drummer or click during the silent bars.

Next Steps

Program the drummer or click to play one beat out of four measures

Ex5 - Looping 16

This exercise helps you to tune up your beat placement of the 'e' and 'a' 16th notes. Most people count 16th notes as 1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a. Our placement of 'e' and 'a' is typically not exact, but more of a rough mid-point between the downbeat and upbeat.

Approach

You need a loop station for this one. Set up your loop station for a one-bar loop. You can have a click on each downbeat. The goal is to record 16 perfect 16th notes - perfect both in duration and placement. The trick is that you are not allowed to record 16th notes back-to-back. You need to play one 16th note per measure for 16 measures, shifting the note by one subdivision at-a-time.

Tips and Warnings

This is still really hard for me. At first I tried to do it by feel, but I kept getting lost by about the 9th 16th note. The easiest way for me is to think of groups of four 16th notes. When I'm on a down-beat, make sure I'm feeling down-beats. When I'm on an upbeat, make sure I'm feeling both upbeats and down-beats. When I'm on an 'e' or 'a', make sure I'm feeling all four subdivision of the quarter notes.

Next Steps

Victor does this as part of his live show. He changes the pitches to create an interesting run. Once all 16 are recorded from the downbeat of 1 to the 'a' of 4, he layers over them backwards, starting from the 'a' of 4 and working back to the downbeat of 1. This allow him to lay down a track of counter-moving 16th note runs.

Notes

The element of "notes" is the primary focus of conventional music theory. In The Music Lesson, Victor's character describes "music theory" as "note theory".

Since so much has already been said about notes, it doesn't make sense to replicate that here. It makes more sense to encourage people to study music/note theory, and to offer suggestions to get beyond theory and explore the concept of groove.

My favorite book on theory is Harmony and Theory as published by The Musicians Institute. I also like Writing Hit Songs by Jai Josefs. The title strikes me as corny, but the content is very good.

Having a good foundation in note theory is important. Many people think that learning theory will interfere with their creativity. I've only experienced the opposite. There is no reason a musician can't be both very creative and very knowledgeable. As a minimum, be sure you have a good understanding of major diatonic harmony. Major diatonic harmony is very foundational, and very easy to learn. It's too useful and simple to not know. You should know how to build triads and seventh chords that are harmonized with any degree of the major scale. TODO: Find a decent source in the internet

By now, hopefully the idea of learning theory makes sense. Victor likes to point out to bass players that even after studying theory, we still have problems grooving.

I think of groove is a feeling of "rightness", where everything fits together. A big element of groove is time and rhythm, but groove goes deeper into the other elements of music. Some people define groove as "a feeling that makes your body want to move". That's not a bad definition, but to me it is somewhat superficial, since it depends on the listener's personal preferences.

Victor stresses that you feel the groove of the song before you place your hands on the instrument. That way you know that the first note you are going to play is going to groove, whether it is in key or not.

Here are some exercises to get beyond "note theory" and work on "groove theory"

Ex1 - Chromatic Scale

This exercise helps to tune your ear to the tension and release achieved by playing and changing various tones. By using the chromatic scale, you open up the possibility of using notes outside of diatonic harmony. You ain't gotta use perfect English to make a point. Likewise, you can play "wrong" notes to create a mood or convey emotion.

Approach

Lay down a track to outline a one-chord groove in a particular key. Use a major 7, dominate 7 or minor 7 chord. Play a chromatic scale over the groove. First, pay attention to how each note makes you feel, then think about how that note relates to the underlying chord structure. Finally, think about how changing to the next note makes you feel. Does it feel like it creates or releases tension? The chord tones should have the greatest feeling of releasing tension. Notes on either side of the chord tones (other than major7 to root) have the greatest feeling of creating tension. Note that 1/2 step up or down from any out-of-key note is an in-key note. Have fun, and make the chromatic scale a groove.

Tips and Warnings

Take it slow. The goal is not to make great music, but to open your ears to the possibilities created by playing outside of harmony.

Make it groove. Go back and forth between notes, especially if it sounds wrong to your ears. Note how the notes sound less wrong as they repeat. This is called "massaging the notes".

Next Steps

Repeat this exercise over major 7, minor 7, dominate 7, and minor 7 b5 chords. Note how different intervals work against different chords.

Ex2 - Note Minimalization

This exercise gets you away the idea that you have to play every note in a particular scale or key. Even when trying to be free from the idea of "right" notes, we can still get tripped up on thinking we have to play every note.

Approach

Solo over a groove or drum track. Limit yourself to 2 - 5 notes, or even just one note. Explore the possibilities offered by 2-10 (i.e. dynamics, space, articulation, tone, phrasing, rhythm, etc.). As an example, limit yourself to the root, 2nd, and 3rd of the key. As you progress, add or remove notes as you please, but keep the total number of notes minimalized.

Ex3 - Sound Check

This is a sneaky way to get in some groove practice. Life is busy, so we need to take the opportunity where we can. This exercise assumes you are gigging regularly, so much of your playing time is consumed by running your repertoire, so there is not a lot of opportunity for spontaneous playing.

Approach

Be the first to the gig and be ready to set up quickly. As the other guys are setting up and checking their gear, listen to what they are doing and try to groove with them. You can also groove with the Jukebox if there is one playing.

Tips and Warnings

The other guys are probably not thinking groove, so they probably won't stick with an idea for long.

You may annoy other people.

Space / Rests

Space is more than the time you are not playing. Space allows the listener time to get ready to hear what is coming next. When speaking, we often pause to allow the listener time respond, to think about what has been said, or to give special emphasis on the next thing we say. When we speak loud, fast, and continuously, it often comes off as annoying or boring. We tune people out when they speak this way, and don't listen to what they are trying to communicate. The same holds with music.

Ex1 - Dropping Notes

This exercise helps you to get comfortable with space in general. It can also be an effective way to add variation and interest to repeated phrases. This can especially be useful if you are playing an instrumental lead to a part that is normally sung by a vocalist

Approach

This is another exercise where it may be useful to record and listen back objectively. Play a known melody over a track that you can loop. As you get to the top of the loop, repeat the melody, but replace some of the notes with rests. Observe the feeling as your ear fills in the rest.

Victor Wooten likes to show this by using the song "Pop Goes the Weasel". When the melody comes around to "Pop!", he plays the note as a rest. Now, he's used the rest as an effective transition to whatever he wants to play next.

Another application of a rest is to start a phrase late, then build the phrase by later adding to the base melody. This prepares the listener to hunger for the phrase that is coming next

Ex2 - Rests as Scales

This exercise helps you to utilize space in a free form solo. It helps you to get over the feeling of "having to play". By not peppering the listener with notes, you can allow them to develop a hunger for what you are going to play next.

Approach

This is like the previous exercise. Rather than a known melody, improvise a free-form solo. As you progress through the solo, progressively add space. See how much space you can put into your solo before the urge to play is overwhelming. Then, progressively remove space until you feel you've achieved a nice balance of notes and space.

The concept of playing a scale is progressively increasing or decreasing pitch. We can apply that concept to other 2-10 elements.

Next Steps

Just as we can apply the concept of scales to rests, we can also apply the concept of modes to rests. When we apply the concept of modes to a set of notes, we start and end at different notes within the same scale. You can repeat exercise one (Dropping Notes), but this time deliberately move where rests are played in the melody. Observe the feeling that rests give in different places in the melody

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Phrasing

Phrasing gives shape to music. Phrasing is what allows an improvisation to sound like composition. Rather than just flailing around and displaying technique, effective phrasing gives shape to music.

When we speak or write in English, there is a method for grouping together words in a phrase. If we are over-excited, we can lose our ability to communicate effectively by speaking too fast and running our words together. We do the same playing music. Just as effective speech should sound composed, effective musical improvisation should also sound composed.

Ex1 - Sing and Play

This exercise helps you to think melodically, rather than technically. It's good for people who want to get over playing a lot of notes, and want to play more interesting spontaneous lines. It can also help if you tend to play the same techniques and ideas across solos.

Approach

Improvise over a track. Then over the same track (without your solo), sing a melody without playing your instrument. Observe the difference between what you actually play and what was in your head when you did your free-form improvisation. The next step is to sing over the track and finger your instrument at the same time. This step helps to break the dependency between your instrument and your muscle-memory. It's OK if the actual pitches played do not match the pitches sung. The final step is to limit the phrasing on your instrument to what you sing. If you play a wind instrument, you will have to sing the phrases in your head, otherwise you can sing the phrases out loud.

Tips and Warnings

Make sure that you play what you sing. Don't start singing what you play. If this is a problem, go back to the step where you sing and finger the instrument without playing.

It may help to record yourself so you can listen objectively to your work.

Next Steps

Work on your listening skills to match the pitches you sing to the pitches you play.

Ex2 - Jingles and Melodies

This exercise is like "Sing and Play", but forces you to be more restrictive and simple in your lines. This can also be helpful to get ideas on variations of melodic lines, in case you are stuck on trying to figure out a good improvisation line to sing. It can also help if you tend to fall into "singing what you play", rather than "playing what you sing".

Approach

This is identical to the "Sing and Play" exercise, except you are using established melodies, rather than making one up on the spot.

Ex3 - Thematic Approach

This exercise allows you to take a simple idea and embellish it though the solo. This allows you to create solos that consist of cohesive phrases, developing an idea over time.

Approach

The hardest part of this exercise is to avoid an over-complex theme. An example of a simple theme might be three eighth-notes on the same note, followed by an eighth note on a different note. Phrases lasting more than a couple beats may restrict your ability to tie ideas together.

Now that you have your idea, play with it over a track. Don't be afraid to use a lot of space. Apply different pitches and 2-10 elements to your theme. Add space where you think it makes sense. For example, you might play your theme once, then after a rest do it twice or more, either changing pitch/2-10 or not. You can also weave in spontaneous lines, and return to your theme.

Tips and Warnings

Try incorporating rests as part of your thematic idea. For example, your theme could be a sixteenth note, followed by two sixteenth notes of rest, followed by a sixteenth note and a quarter note. You can also incorporate other 2-10 elements as part of your thematic idea. For example, your theme could be three eighth notes, with a heavy accent on the third eighth note.

Next Steps

Pay attention to songs you play and hear. Learn to pick out themes and adopt them. This can add a fresh element to a song, while retaining a central theme or idea.

Ex4 - Over and Under

This exercise is similar to the thematic approach. It is a variation to help you to add and resolve tension in your solos, rather than playing everything safe. This is really easy if you play a string instrument, since patterns repeat across the neck. This may apply to wind instruments in some form.

Approach

The idea is to think of notes in the theme as targets. There are other notes on either side of each target note. For example, if my target notes are C, E, and G, I have three notes above this pattern - C#, F, and G#. I also have three notes below this pattern - B, Eb, and Gb. This allows me to derive nine notes from three. The notes C, E, and G yield the notes B, C, C#, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, and G#. These nine notes are outside of conventional music theory. The reason this works, however, is because a pattern repeated in a pattern will sound right.

Playing the nine notes in ascending in order as I previously listed probably won't sound right, unless I have yet another target note after the G#. One possible "pattern of patterns" would be to play the three-note phrase over, under, and on the target notes. The sequence here for targets C, E, G would be C#, F, G# (over), B, Eb, Gb (under), C, E, G (on-target). Another pattern would be under, over, and on. The sequence for C, E, G would be B, Eb, Gb (under), C#, F, G# (over), C, E, G (on-target). These pattern work, because when you follow "wrong" notes with "right" notes, it makes the "right" notes sound more right. This is because the tension created by "wrong" notes are released with the "right" notes. Transitioning from a "right" note to another "right" note might sound ordinary, but transitioning from a "wrong" note to a "right" note might give the listener a big relief.

It is also possible to invert the "pattern within a pattern". The previous examples had an inner pattern of C-E-G applied to an outer pattern of "over-under-on" or "under-over-on". We can invert the pattern by making the inner pattern "over-under-on", and making the outer pattern C-E-G. The sequence for this pattern is C#, B, C (target C), F, Eb, E (target E), G#, Gb, G (Target G). Changing the inner pattern to "under-over-on" gives B, C#, C (target C), Eb, F, E (target E), Eb, F, E (target E).

Starting with a pattern of three notes yields (at least) four patterns of nine notes.

Next Steps

The above examples applied the concept of "over/under" to notes. Try applying the concept to other 2-10 elements such as dynamics, tone, and articulation.

Elements of Music (2-10)

Victor Wooten teaches that if you were to divide elements of music in 10 pieces, there would be many ways to do it, but one way would be:

1. - Notes
2. - Phrasing
3. - Space / Rests
4. - Time / Rhythm
5. - Articulation
6. - Dynamics
7. - Listening
8. - Style / Feel
9. - Tone
10. - Technique

Most conventional music lessons focus on Notes -- #1 on the list. This includes concepts such as pitch, melody, harmony, scales, modes, and chords. The 12 notes are something that all musicians have in common across styles and levels of accomplishment. The notes in a Cmaj7 are the same for the beginner and professional. The notes in Cmaj7 are the same in classical, rock, pop, funk, and country. The differences between styles of music and proficiency of players are the elements 2-10.

The bulk of this site are observations and exercises for exploring and experiencing 2-10.