I was fortunate enough to have a gig in Cleveland this weekend and it just so happend that Vic Wooten was in town and did a clinic at Sam Ash around 2pm before his show later. I just wanted to share some notes I took from it and since I rarely get a response when I post something in the bass forum I figure I would post it in the drum forum.
Vic opened the clinic with a question to the audience.."Why are you here?" He received several responses such as..."You are my idol", "I love your music", "I'm here to learn" and "I'm here to be inspired." After he heard the responses he then asked another question..."How many people brought notepads or something to write with?"...maybe 3 of us raised our hands and then Victor said he really questioned if the majority of people were really there to learn or just see a show, because the majority of the people that rambled on and on had nothing that would enable them to take home what was taught and practice. That set the tone 100%!!! His point was if you have the opportunity to learn from your inspiration, a great musician or someone you really look up to then you must come prepared to learn, bring notepads and if you just want a show then go to the show. I think that really changed the mindset and opened peoples minds to see how serious he takes what he does and how serious musicians should be.
It was awesome seeing and speaking Vic again after being to various concerts and clinics he's done in the past but this was different and very informative because I never got to sit down and learn from him until today. He brought the groovemaster J.D Blair with him and they just grooved for a few minutes and then he answered questions on timing, influences, approach to various styles of music with Fleck Tones, Chick Corea and others.
Vic did let a drummer from the audience come up and jam with him and gave very sound advice about listening first and establishing the groove and pocket first to get people to feel what you are playing rather then just hearing what you are playing. You could notice when Vic told the guy to listen to what he was doing on bass his playing became more pocket oriented and the volume came down a lot. He even talked about his initial experiences playing with Derico Watson for the first time and how he thought Derico overplayed at times, the advice he gave him and how he has advanced so much as a drummer since as well as somethings he also learned from Derico.
One of the questions that came from the audience is..."What do you think of the things bass players and musicians in the gospel genre are doing?" The guy who asked the question seem to echo a lot of what I hear today from a lot of the bass players in gospel today by saying..."I'm the type of player that likes to just play pocket and only groove." Mr. Wooten said he has no problem with what gospel musicians are doing today as long as it stays musical!! He said he doesn't like the things some guys do just because they can do it, but he appreciates what they do as long as it remains musical. He said bass players as well as drummers are getting the opportunity to play a lot more notes and fusion type of sounds in gospel and he encouraged that you should not fight change, but instead learn how to incorporate the current up to date styles as well as the groove and pocket in your playing. He said change will always happen so that is something you will always deal with so there is no reason to be bitter about it but just learn to grow with it.
Victor also let a young bass player come up and play his Fodera and I promise I thought the dude was going to pee his pants
He did the same thing with him as he did with the drummer and told him to listen to who he was playing with and he let the guy play with JD and then everybody was feelin the groove! JD was awesome the whole time and spoke about his experiences with different types of music including the award he won for country music.
Victor and JD both spoke about hitting a wall musically and that you should continue to press forward and know that a wall shows progress. They expressed that if you could play everything off the top of your head then you would probably get bored with music quickly and quit. Victor said when he would run into walls that he would go take a break go get his mind off the music and then come back and get whatever he couldn't do immediately because it was all mental. He spoke of practicing off of successes rather than failures and once you learn something new you need to use it in order to allow it to grow to where it's second nature.
I don't want to make this post any longer so I will bring more at a later time. One of the most fascinating things I took away from the clinic was learning to take his approach to listening, the importance of improvisation, the importance of taking notes and JD and Vic also taught me how to play in
17/8 and other time signatures and was phenominal what they did with that for a few minutes. Look out for the SMV music! Stanley Clarke/Marcus Miller/Victor Wooten music coming soon.
God Bless
Phil
