Bassiste Magazine numéro 99

Never before have we had so much access to knowledge, technical tips, complete transcriptions, all directly accessible with a click of the mouse. Being self-taught is often a source of pride that we tend to show off like a patent of virtue. Besides, didn't the greatest learn on their own? This is the case for many of the bass stars interviewed in this issue, including Gail Ann Dorsey, a pillar of the rhythm sections of David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz or more recently of -M-. Didn't Paul McCartney himself learn on his own?
However, we shouldn't go too far in glorifying self-learning. On the one hand, we always inherit a culture, social animals that we are, and to boast of doing everything alone is often vain and illusory. The myth of the self made man (or woman) is hard to believe: let's not forget that we live in a society that values the hero, the individual, rare and monetizable, while neglecting the environment that created him.
Learning alone often involves hours of listening to and transcribing songs, bass parts, solos, and it is certainly not being alone to spend a day or a week in the company of Jaco Pastorius, even on a record. Even Gail Ann Dorsey goes back to theory and tries to fill in the gaps that may have held her back in her otherwise impeccable career. The greatest moments of learning are often revelations during concerts or hard rehearsals where several people try to find the right chemistry. What all these great musicians have in common is their ability to go out and find others and their thirst for learning songs, which are the only motors capable of taking them through the stages, well beyond simple technical exercises. The passage by the ear remains an invariant of the equation: beware of scores and ready-made tablatures which risk isolating you from the source of the music itself. Go back to the original versions, listen, transcribe...
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Have a great summer!