People // Joel T Johnson // Blog

I have been looking at a lot of bass playing videos on You Tube lately. I learned some new techniques and confirmed some things I had already suspected, like how Victor Wooten (bass player extraordinaire for Bela Fleck) plays those lightening fast thumb licks. I starting working on some of these things in earnest but tonight when I practiced I was reminded of my own secret techniques and how I need to be spending more time perfecting and refining those. There are thousands of bass players that saw the same videos that I did and have more time to sit and work it all out. I don't know for sure that my technique is exclusive to my playing just because I thought it up without watching anyone. I just know I've never heard anyone do it. Jimi Hendrix isn't a legend because he could play faster or cleaner than anyone. Technically speaking he was just a little sloppy, as am I. But he approached the guitar, felt about it, the way no one else could. He saturated his feelings into every single note. And his feelings were deep baby. Tony Levin has made a career of being a highly sought after bass player not because he could produce any sound or style a producer asked for. He got called because he didn't sound like anyone else. In 1972 he recorded the live album "Alive" with the Chuck Mangione. Now don't laugh, I know "King of the Hill" tells us all that Chuck is a joke but if you heard this album you would agree it's just straight hot. Tony Levin used a pick for the whole performance on round wound strings through an overdriven (slightly distorted) tube amp… on a jazz album! The most valuable product I have to offer is me because I'm the only one; a most rare commodity. The key is, I believe, to develop and demonstrate enough belief and confidence in my self, my sound and those 'deep' feelings not quite like anyone else's, that listeners and producers will hire me for what only I can do. Even if I never get quite the chops of Victor Wooten or Billy Sheehan (considered the 'Eddie Van Halen' of bass guitar). I may still work on Victor's tricks--and there's a Mark King video I've been meaning to check out--but only after I've poured enough sweat and my own soul into my own tricks to truly own them.