Jeff Berlin & Dann Glenn talk about Music Education and the state of the Bass…

Jeff on Facebook:

Jeff asked: "Does anyone notice that the word "music" is omitted from lessons these days?"

Dann Glenn answered, "Absolutely. It maddens me that people do not (more like will not) make the direct connection between so-called music education having been dumbed-down to gizmos, chops, et all, and what has become a "day care" mentality at these schools...and the last decade of what is arguably THE worst music ever made by and for a generation. Case closed."

Jeff offered: Well allow me to retort! (Jules Winnfield)

The reason that I keep bringing up the fact that many music students are being B.S.ed in most musical advice that you are getting because I am one of the few guys in music who knows it! But I want to say that your teachers, the music magazines that are being published, music schools, well known musicians who also teach, teachers on the internet and teachers who did DVD lessons aren’t Satan. They only wish for good things to happen in music for you. But, they are wrong, as wrong as can be, when they endorse any methods that doesn’t put music smack in the middle of their lessons.

You don’t improve by watching me play the bass. You get better by practicing what I practiced. This is why most music clinics held in music stores are a failure. They don’t get you to move forward as players because the clinicians rarely know much about music to show it to you. The flaw in groove classes, or getting into your “inner musician” perspectives are that the teachers who teach these things forget that these things are RESULTS. They aren’t worthy of teaching because you have to learn first how to play before you can groove or express yourself on your instrument. It amazes me that the teachers who teach these things don’t know that you have to learn what to do before you can do it. Practically the entire educational community, including known and unknown players, starting as far back as the 1980’s are the people who ruined music for all of you. Not by evil intent, but by stubbornly sticking with principles of learning that don’t work, although they believe that they do. If you don’t know enough about music to teach it, you have to find SOMETHING to show players, and so groove lessons, rock lessons and chops lessons became the rage with learning players. I once asked people if they would allow a doctor to operate on them if the doctor learned medicine with the same attention to detail as they learned music. Most wrote back and said that it was an unfair question because in medicine, you could die if the doctor didn’t know what he was doing. This answer was a common one, and it showed me conclusively that my point went over a lot of people’s heads. Quality in music education is simply a foreign principle to a lot of people and the idea of associating high standards in music ed as one might pursue in medicine is an untenable principle to many people.

To this day, I still can’t get some people who attend my clinics or who read my comments to understand that time doesn’t come from a clicking box and that groove doesn’t come from classroom pursuit. All groove means is to function in time with what you are playing. If someone cannot do this basic principle of playing, then it means that they haven’t learned enough about playing yet. And if they can’t play, they should learn how so that the fringe benefit of an improved player, the groove, can come forth unaffected by poor playing skills. How simple an explanation this is: you have to know how to play before you can play. How can anyone find flaw in it? And why is it that most groove and rock teachers in the country don’t know this?

I can prove that groove, time, and any other principle of performance is never a problem for most players, unless they don’t know how to play. Teachers and schools have gone so far off the mark about what it REALLY takes to groove and play in time, that the industry is permanently damaged, maybe to the point of never being able to recover. The Israelis and the Palestinians will repair their problems long before music teachers discover that they’ve been handing out weak and flawed approaches to improving one’s playing.

Excuses? Everybody has them in avoiding how to improve. The most recent one comes from players who say that they are too old to learn how to play. This is a bogus explanation for lack of interest in music, and I dismiss it completely! I’ve personally known men older than me who have dedicated themselves to learning how to play golf properly. Another silly excuse is that many players say that they aren’t interested in becoming professionals, so they decided not to practice. This is a common explanation statement as well, but it doesn’t explain to me why people bought an instrument but don’t really want to know how it works. Blues musicians offer some of the more silly explanations against learning how to improve their playing. Some say that they don’t need to improve; that they feel that one great note, played with feeling is worth the hundred notes that another player might play. It makes me take notice about the amount of silly excuses that some come up with to avoid working on their playing. The “one-note-with-feeling” advocates might need to embrace this explanation because, many times, one note is all that they know. But, here is some Truth for you all! In music, no one needs to find a thousand different ways to express emotion through simple playing. This is another myth perpetuated by those who decided to halt their growth in music because it is too hard for some to do. The blues is a refuge for players who can function in the easy one-positional approach. It gives its rewards and the work to do it is minimal. Some point to B.B. King by saying that he is still learning how to play the Blues better. No he isn’t! This is a myth because nobody in music needs a half a century to learn how to improve playing three notes.

A couple of guys wrote and told me that they practice scales, arpeggios, things like this. They felt that these things were helping them to grow in music. No they aren’t because these things are often clichés of music education and have a termination point in practicing them. Usually self taught players don’t know what they are doing and often review musical exercises that they already learned, sometimes years before. They are stuck in neutral but still step on the gas pedal by reviewing fairly insignificant musical information. As long as untrained players drive their own bus, little can help them get out of neutral because (as the Bible says) They Know Not What They Do!

Music is messed up, Baby! Your favorite players, your favorite schools, your favorite magazines, your favorite artists are messing you up big time because they aren’t telling you what you need to hear; you won’t get better unless you learn how to play! This doesn’t take a decade to do either. I only wish for some colleague who teaches to recognize that music comes first, always first, in academics. Then maybe together we can change the view that many have about improving as players. I can only hope so! Thanks for reading.

Thank you Joe for the kind words. And Jeremy, I've often asked the very same question. My opinion? Fame. When a player becomes super-famous, there is expectation of wisdom and knowledge. "You became famous so you MUST know." I admire greatly those well-known players, when asked about things they have no true expertise in, that just give it up and say so. The fame drug is a two-way street. These guys could put out videos with blinking Yo-Yo's dangling from their fingerboards, telling people that it's a great learning tool...and Duncan's stock would soar. Sadly...I'm serious. Jeff and I have more or less backed this entire community into a corner, (if you will) and the only way they can survive is to chew their own leg off and come out swinging...or just roll their eyes and discount Jeff as an egotist, and myself as an unstable, eccentric. Wrong on both counts. Just for the sake of argument, let's say this BS was true...it STILL wouldn't change the fact that the truth...is the truth.

Understood Paco, however my point is that these guys use certain aspects of Jeff's and my well known ill-perceived personas. Dig? If you speak to people on the street that know music, but have never interacted with Jeff or I, some will make the standard, "Yeah Jeff's a great player, but what an ego, and Dann's a great player but what a scary unstable nut," comments. I've heard it for years. Jeff makes no apologies for his brilliant playing, and if someone threatens me, I will neutralize that threat...but again...the truth is the truth about music education.

Jeff on Facebook:

Greg Geeza said, "Isn't the whole point of music is to emotionally move and connect with the common man, not to impress someone who is fluent in music theory?"

Jeff answered: Sure! But if quality of art doesn't come with some standards to do it, then why are there schools for music, acting and painting?

Greg Geeza also said, "I think the key word here is standards. High, low & none along with quality. Not best ,better & bad."

Jeff answered: This makes sense! If one's standards are in a certain direction, then, hit or miss, you are aiming for something consistent. I like this comment because we all have bad days in music. But the standards that I, for example, aim for, are always of a certain kind. So I am rarely so far off base as to really sound awful anymore. Others could also find something significant in their playing if they would dismiss the fluffy notion that music is only there to either move one or whatever they like is OK no matter the musical quality.

Jimmy Miller quoted, "Most people do not want to think on their own, and either want or need to be told what to think, like, and believe." Then Jimmy commented, "That's not offensive?"

Jeff answered: Truth can offend sometimes. But it is still the Truth. In my case, I don't ignore the Truth simply because the Truth doesn't make me feel good.

Mark Martin said, ¨Thank you, Jeff. I am just amazed that this (commenting about the low standards of playing) irritates so many people.

Jeff answered: I´m a guy who notices things and, unlike a lot of other people with way more tact than I have, I bring it right to the table. TV entertainment doesn´t mean that these people are good actors. But in music many people can´t make the distinction between entertaining musician s and musical ones. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, but not often. If people would raise their standards about what is good music, then maybe we would hear from better players instead of what I heard about some of the players at the London Show. Low quality playing ability is alive and well in the music industry (and it sure is alive in music education) and I wish that these things would stop.

John Nania said, ¨Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Music is in the ear of the belistener.

Jeff answered: This means that standards and quality of music are rarely to be found because standards and quality don´t exist for some people in the arts. The belistener often doesn’t know what they are belistening to and often can´t tell a good player from a bad one. This is the result that comes when beauty and music don´t include any standards to go with them.

Ciao from Jeff

Adrian O'Callaghan said, "So you do admit that 'great' music has been made, by musicians with disregard for the rules? Even if just by a "few people"

Jeff answered: Sure! I admit this as I admit that there are people who live long lives who smoke packs of cigarettes a day for decades. But most people who smoke like this do not live long, and the rule of good health is that you don’t smoke. Having a good healthy diet is a rule not meant to be broken. And yet some people eat indigestible, even deadly things such as Michel Lolito has done for years.

The problem with exceptions is that you and other people take them as proof of principles that shouldn’t be violated, weren't meant to be violated. The rules were designed to be used, not broken, and practically the entire musical world functions within these rules. But, if you feel that the few names that you mentioned show that rules are not the center of function, then you have a choice to make in regards about how you will proceed as a player.

Rick Robins quoted me saying, “Even my mentioning the very word “music” confuse some people.”

Rick commented “I think most people confuse your intent of topic with genre or category when they read your typed word.”

Jeff answered: Here is a repeat of my typed words that I have said for a long time: You won't get good time by practicing with a metronome. Avoid using them and avoid going to groove classes, rock lessons, or rock schools. Get into jazz studies for academic reasons and also learn how to read music. These are my words and I've said them for years. If people are confused with my typed words, then they are deliberately acting confused. It is a choice! They simply choose to act confused so that they can reject my comments by pretending that they don’t understand them!

Dann Glenn said, “I received an unsigned email at my website not long ago, that stated: "You and Jeff Berlin are victims of your own standards! I replied: "No, actually we are volunteers."

Jeff answered: This was an interesting comment that this made to Dann. I certainly don’t feel like a victim of anything because I do what I do with both eyes wide open. Dann does the same! I know the consequences for speaking against the majority who are not happy with me in for sabotaging their approach to teaching. I really do understand; I’m messing with their income and with their belief system. Of course people will be offended by me; I knew this years ago and I know it today!

But, a surgeon cuts cleanly and so do I! Pushing people to think in a new perspective isn’t always a nice thing to do or to experience, but whoever said that replacing old perspectives with new ones was easy for the person doing it. You could squeeze water out of a rock faster than you could get a non-music music teacher to upgrade to a different perspective of teaching. Change is a bitch and I know this first hand! One man comes to mind who forced change on people not ready to do it. I once read about Huey P. Long that when he was governor of Louisiana, he installed policies to modernize the state and for doing this, he was referred to as the man who dragged the entire state of Louisiana, kicking and screaming, into the 20th Century.

I think that I can prove right now that fact and detail, not expression or "finding your inner musician" should be the core in any academic setting. Maybe this next question might even lay to rest once and for all any questions about learning content and music instead of performance and groove, let's say! Here’s the question:

Name me any subject in the world other than music where academics AREN’T at the core of those lessons being taught.

No extra comments please! No “but what about…” entries. Just list things other than music where academics aren’t the core of those studies. I bet that nobody can make any real contribution and there is a reason for this, which I will disclose. But, let's see what you come up with. You can take this question and post it everywhere on Earth to find out what others contribute as well. Then we can talk afterward. Thanks.

Best regards from Jeff

Dann on Facebook:

The Abstract Truth By Dann Glenn

Back in the seventies while I was in my twenties, the bass world was exploding with one amazing breakthrough artist after another.

This period was the holy grail of electric bass guitar. Yes I know there were rungs in the ladder prior to this. Great players. Absolute monsters of the craft. Icons if you will. I know there were great ones that have come after as well...but this epoch was the most critical time in bass; before and after. There's no denying it...unless you're an idiot of course. But more about that later.

As I was saying...

Stanley Clarke just freaked everyone out, Jaco Pastorius set the world on its ear, and Jeff Berlin just proved that trouble indeed came in three's. Not a month went by that we weren't being showered with still yet another jaw-dropping series of playing, composition, and technical ideas set forth in a brave new world. You could just feel the electricity in the air. It was wonderful. We had arrived.

Bass players were walking around like human sponges, soaking up everything that was going on, and ultimately either shamelessly copying the big three, or finding our own way. What a choice. Door number one or door number two. As I said...it was wonderful.

There were no computers, email, websites, multi-stringed basses, digital technology, Rock schools, instructional videos, touchy-feely Bass Camps,(contemplate that E string, let's sing around the campfire and then we'll tell ghost stories) instant advice columns, bass magazines, bass clinics, handgrip squeezers, and chord changes in a box etc. Hell...an onboard preamp was like some sort of anomaly or something. I can remember being in my snowed-in motel room on tour somewhere in Fart-torch South Dakota speaking with Rex Bogue over the phone, eyes wide with amazement as he told me what the preamp he was sending me would do for my tone and power output. It was so new I could taste it.

I forgot the part about having to take my bass to some guy and have a cavity routed out while he tried to figure out his next move. I almost fainted when he slipped, shut off the router lifting his goggles turning to tell me he had, "Just routed a hole all the way through my bass." Huh?

He pulled the goggles back down and told me it was no problem because he could just put Bondo in the hole...and off he went routing away into oblivion. Well that's another story for another time perhaps.

Getting back on track...

As the seventies began threatening to turn into the eighties I can't help but remember how I would just gasp thinking of what was going to come from the next two or even three decades in terms of advancement for the bass guitar and music in general.

So...what the hell happened anyway?

No I'm dead serious...what happened? You would think with the advent of computers, and all the things aforementioned that a cornucopia of unthinkable and inconceivable new ideas, approaches, and a host of other aspects just slathered in neo-subharmonic attitudes, latitudes, and some sort of extrapolation if you will; would have finally launched us into the next level of unforeseen wonders of the lowend. Well...it didn't happen.

To take it a step further...

Not only did this not happen, but after seeming to sit dead in the water for quite some time bass playing has been sent spiraling backwards in a most arrogant and steadfast digression; tumbling out of control from the sublime to the subslime. The stupider the better. You notice I didn't say simpler. Simple is wonderful. Knowing when and where to use it is even more awesome. No, I said stupider.

For some unknown reason the big three have been transformed in the Rodney Daingerfield's of bass; they can't get any respect. Now it's Stanley who? Jaco bashing has recently become a real trend everywhere from the letters to the editor of bass mags to the bass chat rooms, while maligning and showing egregious disrespect for Jeff Berlin has almost become a sport played by the self proclaimed "bass community" as they cower in anonymity behind their computer monitors spewing things NONE of them would ever gather the balls to say to Mr. Berlin's face.

All the while...

The minions of political correctness and bass mediocrity have no impetus whatsoever into what's really going on in music, let alone can any of these assholes play. And so we have the bookends of the times, both negatively charged. The young kids who want to play like Fieldy, and the computer eunuchs, so very pissed off because they can't be the very people they are claiming to disagree with if not hate altogether. Hell, at least the kids have the excuse of wild unbridled youth on their side. The bass eunuchs should be ashamed of themselves. What a hateful hobby they have. So much fun. Well, for them anyway.

And so it goes...

All part and parcel of the times. In the fifties if you fled from the police they could open fire on you, and at the very least you'd have the living crap beaten out of you and be thrown in jail forever and a day. Now...it's a pastime to watch police chases and toss our hands in the air if the police so much as ruffle anyone's clothes. After all, those silly criminals were just scared right? That's why they flee isn't that right?

Wrong.

They flee for the same reason the minions of doom slag Jeff Berlin on a daily basis...because they can. Yep. Because they can. I can't wait for a time when it'll be about because they can't, or because they wouldn't even dream of it, and the same level of respect is shown and distance is given to players that have earned their stripes. You know...like back in the bad old days. It's now very trendy for people to turn their heads in disgust and roll their eyes knowingly when talking about how robotic and cold Fusion music was. What a load. Bass eunuchs putting down something because they know they don't have the goods to get the job done.

Hey...aren't Eunuchs supposed to guard the royal door? How times have changed.

More jealous ramblings...

From those that find it so much easier to discount Fusion as a viable art form, rather than use the invaluable lessons and inspiration that it was supposed to give for the generations to come. I'm not talking about pop music and you damn well know it. That said, I will be glad when hip hop burns itself out. No I'm not talking about pop music. Pop music has become some type of Karaoke/Dance phenomenon that the masses can't get enough of.

With the disproportionate amount of computers and morons that can't tell you where the Capital of their home state is, it's only right that people get their fix of slime Dujour. After all, they earned it. They crave it. They love it. Yummy...oh look...you can see her tummy.

Don't get me wrong now...I don't suffer from the allusion that everyone should be wearing space helmets playing futuristic bass operas while reciting poetry. I'm just saying that somewhere along the line things went down a lazy river.

Actually, more like over the falls of mediocrity. In a time when political correctness is more about fear and cowardice than respect, patriotism is more about guilt than pride, and art is more about numbness than having the courage to feel what is all around us and react to it openly...we sit mesmerized in front of the box watching scripted emaciated excuses for entertainment and call it...reality television.

Reality indeed...

If we watched true reality television we'd all be horrified vegetarians who actually retaliated against criminals without giving it a second thought, occasionally reading a decent book, and yes...raising the bar on what we call music as an art form. Bass playing is in there too you know...

And that's....the Abstract Truth

My friend Chris Willcox, CEO of LightWave-Systems ( the basses I endorse and play) sent me this, and said it reminded him of my work. This is directed towards gallery art...but could just as well apply to music or literature. Thanks Chris!

"Great art has dreadful manners. The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to rearrange your sense of reality."

-The Power of Art, Simon Schama