I did not grow up as an only child; I had sisters and a younger brother around me. My two older brothers were old enough to be out and living on their own by the time I had discovered my interest in playing the bass. I have two older sisters closer to my own age, and one younger sister. I speak of them lovingly here because of their unknowing involvement in my musical development, in my bass playing.
My two older sisters were the ones to go out and buy all the new recordings of the day. Back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s music spoke loudly to the masses, and if a person wanted to be in touch with what was considered cool, they had to know about the latest release of certain songs, or more specifically, the messages contained in the latest releases. My older sisters brought home so many records during this time; we listened to 78RPM, 45RPM, and 331/3RPM discs as often during the days and nights as possible. My sisters were quick to point out the message in the music to us younger ones; they were trying to get us in touch with the times that we were living in, trying to bring us up to date in a way.
As the love of music by my older sisters unfolded in front of me, there was all kinds of music that they brought home from the record stores; it was every genre, and they did not discriminate. Lots of soul and funk music, lots of r&b, lots of rock, lots of Latin soul, lots of blues; even Caribbean and Reggae music, found its way onto the turntables in the house. It helped to have a couple of inexpensive turntables in a couple of different rooms in the house. I remember the Christmas that my older sisters received a new turntable setup for their records; they were ecstatic, and that was when an intense musical education began for me.
The year that I got my first electric bass guitar and bass amplifier, I began to learn how to find the bass notes that I heard being played on the many records in my older sisters’ large record collection. I was taking electric bass guitar lessons from a neighborhood music teacher, he was great, and he taught me the fundamentals of playing the bass that stay with me to this day. But at the time, those fundamentals were also helping me to understand the role of the bass guitar in a group or band setting before I had even joined my first real band. In the school system that I went to at that time, I was also playing the upright bass in the school orchestra, and reading scores with bass notation printed on them. I used to think at first that this was the way that I was going to interpret music during my lifetime, by reading scores and playing in orchestras.
But learning to listen by ear and to try to copy the bass line that I was hearing on all of these different records was a huge revelation to me. I learned so much; that all the recordings were not recorded and mastered at the same level; the fact that all of the recordings were done to analog tape, and thus the overall tuning pitch would vary from record to record; the fact that the bass track on the record could be sitting either very forward or very far back in the overall mix. Before playing along to some of my favorite LP records, I would have to play a sample of a song to get a reference note to tune my bass to, and after I had re-tuned my bass, I would then play along with the entire record.
I learned so many different songs in those earliest years of my bass playing, and it turned out to be a real gift to me later on. Sometimes on weekend nights, when me and my sisters and brother had time, I would get my bass and small bass amplifier out and set it up to play along with the favored records of the day. We all loved to dance, and when I was playing along on my bass to a really popular song, the low end was much more fun to dance to; everybody wanted to dance to that record. My sisters began to marvel as I learned so many songs note for note on my bass, and after doing this for a couple of years, they couldn’t tell if I was playing along or not, especially if my bass amplifier’s level matched the stereo’s volume level. We would all laugh at that experience; it was fun for us all.
I found that all my sisters became my first fans, and when the adults would gather at the house on weekends and during the summers, my sisters would tell me to go and get my bass and amp to set up and play along with their favorite records. It turns out for most every musician that your family is your first audience, and to play my bass in front of the adults was as much a thrill to me as it was for them. They responded well, and they gave me encouragement to continue to play the bass. Because of the kindness of all of my sisters, I had a positive start to my early bass playing life. It is because of them that my mind was opened up through music to the times that we were living in. They showed me that there is a message in the music that we hear. They tried to get me to listen for a message each time I listened to music, and that sometimes I would have to listen a few times to a song before I really understood it. That there is a message in the music. And there is.
Thank you, my sisters, I love you.