Old Dogs and New Tricks - Part 2

In "Old Dogs and New Tricks" I talked about learning new things as a way to stay young at heart. My wife Trudi took up drawing and painting. For me it's the electric bass...

I've played acoustic guitar since the mid-60s. Mostly folk, country and pop. About 10 years ago, three of us were leading music for the children's program at church, all on six-string acoustic guitar. We agreed that we could take the music and the energy up a notch if we created a band. I volunteered to learn bass, and it's been a great journey of discovery for me.

One thing that's cool about learning a new instrument is that you get to re-listen to all of your favorite music with a fresh perspective. I rediscovered bass players like Paul McCartney and James Jamerson. Paul's bass lines are wonderfully inventive but always work. Check out his playing on "Something." James Jamerson played bass on virtually every Motown hit and helped create the Motown sound. He, too, was known for his creative bass lines. Listen to Marvin Gaye's and Gladys Knight's versions of "Heard It Through the Grapevine." That's Jamerson on both songs, and the bass lines are like night and day.

Bass also gave me the chance to explore new areas of music. For example, I'd never listened to much jazz. Thanks in large part to my good friend, Kent Reed, I got exposed to a lot of great jazz music, and steeped myself in the playing of bass greats like Jaco Pastorius and Marcus Miller. Can I play like any of my bass heroes? Oh, not even close. But they inspire me in countless ways.

For me, bass is a really good fit in every respect. I've never been a virtuoso on the guitar. Never could solo. But I've always had a good sense of rhythm, and could set the feel or groove of a song. And bass is all about groove. Musically, it's both a tonal instrument (like guitar and piano) and a rhythm instrument (like drums and percussion). It's part of a band's "rhythm section" and occupies a unique musical space between the drums and the other instruments. The bass's role as a supporting instrument perfectly suits where I'm at these days. I've done my share of up-front song leading. Right now, I like nothing better than being at the back, where I can lock in with the drummer and just groove for days.

I've been pleased with the progress I've made, particularly in the last few years. But there's still so much to learn. And that's a good thing!