The ONE (as it applies to Life) (Vol. 28, Dec. 13)

the One as it applies to Life

The One is a philosophy that can be applied to life itself. In music, players must always come back to the One to keep their groove strong, and to keep that special bond it creates with the other musicians and the audience. It is very natural and the pulse of the song, which becomes the pulse of everyone listening and not only playing, and it takes no effort to feel it, because it is natural. Most of all, everything always has to come back to the One in order for the life of the song to continue.

As a Taoist person myself, this reminds me of a philosophy that everything must come full circle and return to its origins. Everything originates from a natural point, and then progresses outward as it feels so inclined to grow, and then it must come back to its origin in order to continue to grow more. Even when moving away from your One, everyone is always inclined by Nature herself to return to that which makes you what you are. If you do not make this return to the One, you will forget everything and become lost on your path in life.

Straying from your One leads you on the wrong path in life. Without your One, your life is subject to meaningless things, loss, tension, unwanted cloudiness, and being an outcast. If you find yourself off of your One, the best thing is that it will always be making its way back to you for as long as you keep on living, and you can always count on the One. You can always jump right back into the One and all of your problems will disappear and you will again be on the right track! In this way, the One is ultimately the right path in the Universe!

The ONE (as it applies to Music) (Vol. 27, Nov.13)

The One (as it applies to music)

The One as it applies to music, only begins by being the first beat of every measure. No matter what time signature the piece is in, there is always a one. This is the simplest explanation of the one.

To play the One is a science into itself, albeit a simple yet extremely powerful one. When playing the One, you should always make it a priority to hit the one, and then you can worry about any other notes and details you want to play that fit the overall groove. The main factor is that you should always return to the One, just as the song naturally does with every passing measure. The song always comes back to the One, and so should you as a player! The One is like punctuating your sentences when you are writing or talking. If everyone else is playing on the One except for you, you will disrupt the whole song and make a mess out of everything. But, if everyone is playing on the One, the One keeps everything together. Everyone can feel eachother when everyone knows where the One is!

The One keeps not only the musicians together, but it also keeps the audience together. It also keeps the audience in tune with the musicians, forming a powerful connection, or bond, with everyone involved! You do not even need an extensive musical education to know where the One is, anyone can feel it easily, and if you aren't on the One and nobody feels it because of this, you are just saying meaningless phrases with no soul, because noone feels it. If noone feels what you are trying to say, then all is lost and means nothing. The One enables everyone to talk, feel, and listen on the same frequency. The One is the heartbeat of the song, the stage, the whole dance floor, and ultimately the whole Universe all in One!

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol. 26, Jan. 13) "Plato and Arts"

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol 26., Jan. 13)

Plato on Arts

I was reading Plato's “Gorgias” recently, and what started as a political commentary in which Socrates really tears into a few politicians, eventually turned into a critique of what art and sciences really are and how they apply to the mind and body. He begins by disagreeing on their ways of persuading the unknowing masses of things they are ignorant of just for the sake of convincing them to believe anything they say, thus gaining personal power. This sounded to me to be extremely relevant to the modern music industry!

Plato says that anything done for purposes of pandering (merely for pleasing others) disqualifies it as an art, as it will then be done for purposes of pleasure and not for the sake of art itself. Art is something that exists on a higher plain than pleasure. Also, true art can never lead to anything bad while pleasure (as Aristotle will put it for several chapters in “The Nicomachean Ethics”) is one of the most dangerous drives of the psyche in terms of morality. This is because pleasure in its own nature strives only to fulfill itself, whether the source of fulfillment is ethical or not. Pandering, then, is not ethical as it depends completely on the pleasure of masses and not on the higher facets of art itself.

I've heard it said that pop should stand for “pandering on purpose”. When I read the dialogue between Socrates and a politician named Gorgias, Gorgias admitted that while giving speeches (which pander to the masses he is giving them to) it only matters that he can convince them of anything he is trying to say, and that it helps him further if they are ignorant of the topic at hand. He says that educated, professional masses would be tougher to convince of things than an unknowing mass. Finally, he admits to Socrates that his speeches have nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with convincing! Socrates ends saying that it is better to TEACH (true knowledge is involved in teaching) than to convince.

This made me think of the music industry! Gorgias seems to be a good representative of every major record industry mogul out there today! The more of the masses that are pleased with the song he is trying to sell, the more sales he will make. Which is why the industry produces formulaic songs now for capital gains and not for art's sake! Plato, just now, has shown me that the entire modern pop industry is NOT an art, it is something far less! Art is to be done for art's sake, which means music should be done for music's sake! It is every musician's higher moral duty to only create music out of love and for music's sake, never to convince less musically educated masses that this is music for purposes of taking their money. (And the industry wonders why musically educated people/real musicians dislike their products?!!?!)

Always remember: “Art for art's sake!” Music is not to be used for convincing everyone to buy it, but it should be made out of love, for it's own sake. The people understand that language too, pandering isn't necessary.

Platonically yours,

Mark McAnaney (composer/bassist)

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol.25, Dec.12) "Music is alive!"

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol.25, Dec.12) “Music is alive!”

Just like everything in the Universe, Music (with a capital M) is alive! It lives and breathes and even has a mind of its own. So, if you want to live within Music, you have to learn to FEEL the heartbeat. With no pulse, there is no life, and without life there is no Music. Now there lies the question of how one goes about being one with this living spirit called Music.

First, how can I prove to you that Music is alive? Did you ever suddenly get a tune stuck in your head and you just could not stop feeling it, even when the notes aren't audible. You know, those notes that are all in your head that noone else can hear? That is the sound of the spiritual entity known as Music communicating with you in some way! It does this because even when the notes stop, the song is still alive!

Now that you know Music is alive, now you have to learn to be in touch with it so that you and Music can strengthen each other into making a great song. Music is like the Force from Star Wars, it surrounds us and binds us and when we learn to become it, we can use it! You must reach out to feel it, your mind is like a radio, you must quiet it and enable it to focus on the frequencies of Life that are all around you, so that you know what Nature is trying to tell you. Use your “radio” to pick up on the Life around you, and focus yourself on trying to make Life even better. When you do this, you will have all the forces of Life backing you, the Music will flow freely through you now! Your job as a musician is to interpret these frequencies of Life and deliver them to the rest of the world, you are the antennae that must pick up the signals! You as an artist have that gift!

The first thing you will notice after you pick up on all Music's signals, is that it has a pulse. Feel this groove! If you stick to this heartbeat, you can never go wrong! Forget how to think for a while and just feel. The signals you feel will think for themselves and they are never wrong! Do not forget, that when you are playing, Music itself has a say in all matters, not only you!

What will you do next now that you feel the pulse? Well, first, let the Music tell you what it wants you to play, it is never wrong, as it is a force in Nature and Nature knows itself better than you ever will! With this said, let all notes come out naturally, do not fight it. You must play your music with trust and with love (it is the most powerful emotion), and the notes will tell you where they want to go. Each note has its own life, listen to it and let it live, let it be YOUR note!

All of these concepts may seem abstract until you do this, but with this all said, I am not saying to forget technique and theory. I wrote this in another article, but as I said in my “Building Techniques” article, your technique should be at a high enough level that you don't have to think about it, it will just happen. With that said, if you really are at a point with some techniques that it is a part of your playing truly without having to be forced, Music will know and it will use these skills you acquired! Just remember to keep it as natural as you could, you are an artist and you have this purpose in life! You are there to serve Nature and Music in the end!

Your brother in Nature,

Mark McAnaney (composer/bassist)

Notes from a bass guru (Vol. 23, Jan. 12)

"Counterpoint"

The study of counterpoint is comparable to an artist's study of perspective. Compositions using counterpoint become an aggregate of parts rather than an entity conceived in depth. In simpler terms, counterpoint is the science of putting several parts of a piece together! Before we start our study on counterpoint, we need to go over a few things.

Consonance- a sounding of tones that produces a feeling of rest.

Dissonance- a sounding of tones creating a feeling of tension or unrest, feels like further resolution is needed.

Intervals- the distance between notes. (half step, whole step, several whole or half steps)

Cantus Firmus- the note you are working off of when choosing your other notes to put against it.

With all of those ideas in mind, you can draw the conclusion that when using counterpoint, you are starting with your first note, or cantus firmus, and putting your other notes against it to create a consonance or a dissonance. The notes you can choose are based on interval relations from the cantus firmus.

The intervals you can choose to create a consonance are the unisons (1st), octaves (8th), fifths (5th), major and minor thirds (3rd), and major or minor sixths (6th).

The intervals you can use to create a dissonance are seconds (2nd), sevenths (7th), ninths (9th), diminished, augmented, and it is debatable still, but fourths (4th). The reason it is not clear whether fourths create a dissonance is that a fourth creates a minor sound, and not all minor sounds are a dissonance.

Whatever you choose to do with your counterpoint, whether it be to create an elaborate congregate of parts that make a large chord, to create a large well orchestrated sound of many pieces, or to create multiple melodies layered on top of one another, you must keep in mind that your counterpoint notes must be in the same scale or mode as the cantus firmus!

There are three ways that notes can move in relation to one another. Direct motion is when the notes both move up together, or down together. Contrary motion is when the notes move away from eachother. They move apart. One note moves up and the other moves down. Oblique motion is when one note moves, while the other remains stationary! In the following example, the top line displays direct motion, the middle shows contrary, and the bottom shows oblique.
















There are five species of counterpoint. The first one is Note Against Note. In this species, each note is of equal duration, such as a whole note to a whole notes, or halves to halves. This species can only consist of consonances.

The second species is Two Half-Notes Vs. One Whole Note. In this, the rule is that the first half note must be a consonant. The second note may be dissonant if and only if it moves away from the first half note stepwise! Dissonance may only occur by Dimunition, which is the shortening of note values in a theme (to alter the melody) without changing the original pitches. For Three Notes Against One, these same rules apply, So that would fall under this species of counterpoint as well! In this, the middle notes may be dissonant because all three notes move stepwise!









The third species is Four Quarters Vs.One Whole. The quarters are either ascending or descending. The first note must be consonant, while the second may be dissonant if you choose, the third must be consonant, and the fourth may be dissonant. The exception to the rule is that the third may be dissonant if the second and fourth are consonant.









The fourth species is the most difficult, and is called Ligature and Syncopation. Ligature is when you use longer duration tones and have them fall upon time units that are normally weak. Syncopation is the deliberate upsetting of a composition's normal accent, rhythm, or pulse of meter. You are creating delay effects essentially! Notes are held over to create retardations of the notes following.













The fifth species is merely a recapitulation and combination of all the proceeding species! It is called Florid Counterpoint.









Now to review, simply as possible, start with your cantus firmus (treat this line as the bass line even when it is not!). Choose the species of counterpoint that would best suit your needs for your piece, and place your notes in your other lines based on the species! The song and art of counterpoint may write itself! But no matter what, you will come up with a beautiful and elaborate and multi-dimensional piece, as counterpoint is the musician's equivalent to the artist's perspective!

Consonantly yours in music,

Mark R. McAnaney

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol. 20, Nov. 11)

"Orchestration Tips For Bass"

A full orchestra is one of the largest and most astounding and epic things the human ear can pick up. But, what most do not know is that to compose music for such a large body of varying instruments is actually a science unto itself entirely! Orchestration goes well beyond simply designating parts to certain instruments or groups of instruments. One must learn to use instruments to compliment instruments that you would like featured, and then take it another step and narrow it down to using some instruments to bring out many varieties of colours as well. As you can tell, each type of instrument brings about colours and textures and timbres all of its own, and then in combination with other instruments, it will take on all new worlds of colours. It is up to the composer to select the instrument that is at the centre of the desired effect, as well as the more difficult task of selecting the complimenting instruments to strengthen what is happening. In this way, all instruments are supporting instruments. But how does bass play into the big picture?

First, one must look at the individual instrument's qualities on their own. A bass has a relatively quiet and powerful range to it, also a limited range. This limited range is very important, as the bottom range alone can only be reached by certain instruments, and not very many. Also, if the lower notes of the overall chord the orchestra is producing is wrong, the whole piece will be in shambles. A bass in the orchestra is best used as a bottom end supporting instrument for this reason: because it can and was designed for this ability. But a supporting role does not stop in this very quaint and simple area. A supporting role must make everyone sound better than they really do, and also bring out the best in all instruments that it supports. Great bassists in all genres, styles, and groups must be able to handle this task! In the orchestra, the bassist must fill in the lower piece of the puzzle as well as bring out the best colours int he instruments playing higher parts than it.

Next, we must look at what other instruments can handle the same range and how they can effect the bass. We have the bassoon in the woodwind section, and the tuba in the brass section. A rule of thumb is that strings and woodwinds have the strongest relationship of all combinations of groups. They just mix so easily, in fact, they mix the best of all! So the bassoon and bass will blend extremely well with little contrast in colour. Just as well, the brass and string sections blend least well, creating much contrast between colours. Brass is the least versatile section in the orchestra, and they are usually used in loud and powerful segments, so the mixture of bass and tuba will be overwhelmingly powerful unless it is meant to be that way. You would generally be very careful in mixing the two, especially if the trombone is already backing the tuba to begin with. In that case, give the bass a different part or rest it. Tuba and trombone can be very very strong and to add the bass will blow the whole low end sky high!

To mix bass with brass, the best choice would be to mix it with french horn, as the horns are the best bridge instrument between the strings and brass. Horns are delicate and poetic as are strings, and they relate best between the groups. If you want to mix bass and the trumpets above or the trombones below, it is best to try to relate to the horns first, and by doing this, bass can colour the trumpets nicely. You will also get a nicer, fuller sound!

Some more tricks with woodwind mixtures are also apparent! First you will want to note that to always back the bassoon all the time can be a bad idea when the bassoon is already doing the job in those situation where the woodwinds are playing alone. Try not to overshadow the bassoon, just let it do its job if the low end is too strong! What you can do though is play a part below or above it slightly to fill in space! Or even play a simple counterpoint line off of the oboes! Mixing with oboes makes for a nasally quality, so make sure this is what you want first.

Bass solos in an orchestra are rare, but when it does happen, it is best to quiet the accompanying parts. Brass can be too strong, so be careful in your employment of brass! Horns may work well to give it a slight brass flavour, and if you'd like some low end brass, use the trombone lightly. But the low end of solo bass parts would be best taken over by the bassoon, as it is a light bass instrument suited for light composition well. You can even designate a second contrabass part at the low end. The rest of the strings should be fairly quiet, if existent at all. The violins and violas may drown your bass solo, so give them a rest. The cello should have a lowend supporting part, if anything at all. And since woodwinds blend extremely well with strings and are delicate, you can be more liberal with the use of those! Just keep it soft.

Now strike it up maestro!,

Mark McAnaney

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol. 19, Aug. 11)

"Building Technique"

Unless you've been in a coma your whole life, you know that to become a great player, you need to have crisp technique and a full bag of tricks. Everyone who has ever played an instrument knows that some techniques definitely come easier than others. How then can you build your reportoire further?

First off, it can very well be your approach to practicing the technique. If you tend to practice very dryly, just doing your technique in question over and over again until you're blue in the face (and red in the fingers), you will only achieve frustration and boredom. The best way to practice is in a musical way. Throw yourself into a song, an improv will do! When you hear the music in your head, and you come to a part where you feel the new technique you want to work coming right at you, THEN do it! You need to develop technique out of neccessity, not out of technique itself. Let the music teach you! You use technique, never let IT use you!

Think of it this way: In ancient China, several styles of martial arts were developed out of need, because clans and dynastys were constantly at war with one another and people in certain clans wanted to have an advantage over their adversaries. Martial arts were developed out of NEED for them, and so should your techniques that you use to play!

Another way to think of it: Whenever you exercise, be it for strength, flexibility, speed, weight loss, mass building, or endurance, you can never meet your goals if you do not tailor your exercise program to your desires. You need to specifically see yourself as being what you want to become in order to figure out how to get there. Once you are working out, your body has to adapt to what you're doing to it out of need to get itself through the workouts you are doing. Notice, you never once told your body to do anything, you are simply exercising and letting your body do the rest!

I remember a time in my life where I was lucky enough to meet the great Victor Wooten, and at the time I was working very hard on his style of double thumping. I was very very close, as I could do it in short bursts, but it wasn't quite there yet. I talked with him on it and he simply told me a new way of what I thought I knew already, and his advice was to practice it in a musical way (which I always have), but the one way of practice I was missing was that I shouldn't be gearing my practice specifically toward technique, but to the music itself, and when I hear the sounds that this technique will produce, THEN go for it and it will come much easier! He made me think, "all this time, I've been practicing musically but not musically enough, because just having a technique in mind isn't enough. You need to do it because you feel and hear it, and because you need to!" I went home that night and played for endless hours, and it came to me within maybe two days just like that! I had to NEED it, not only want it!! Before that day, I had forgotten the true meaning of "practice in a musical way.' It is a very pure meaning! ALWAYS put the music first, the rest will fall into place! Whatever you hear in your head will make it happen easier!

After all, an oak tree has DNA, the instructions for building a tree. How then, does an acorn know how to grow into a tree without thinking at all? It grows an entire tree because the instructions are there already! The acorn really doesn't have to do anything but what nature intends! So the musician should do what music intends in the same way!

Technically Speaking,

Mark McAnaney