Jeff Berlin says - Every Slapper and Rocker at NAMM Is Self Taught

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#101
Acoustic356 said:
The ultimate question should be... does the music move you.

The people that started the blues and jazz were not classically trained, yet somehow now... it has become a requirement.

It was originally about feel and soul... let’s not forget that.

When you listen to music, the last thing you should be thinking is “what school did they study at?” If it is... you’re listening wrong...
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Jazz musicians studied classical music i think, again isnt this too much of a generalisation, i agree that feel is important but technique and theory help in using that feel with more diversity..
 
#102
mobdirt said:
Jazz musicians studied classical music i think, again isnt this too much of a generalisation, i agree that feel is important but technique and theory help in using that feel with more diversity..
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They did. Jazz players of the era were sometimes academically trained black musicians who could not get jobs in orchestras due to race-based hiring practices back then.
 
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#111
I'm a slapper, and have played in Rock Bands. True, my Slap Skills and rock skills are self taught. I did however take lessons early in my life. Many a day with Simandl, and Hindemith :). My teachers couldn't slap so how could they teach me. I actually do slap clinics for beginners and often give informal classes on my approach. It helped that I started on drums. My Drum instructor was the Great Sherman Ferguson. And I will be at NAMM. Jeff knocked it out the park on this one. I would however add that as folks like me exist and develop a course, many bassists are reaping the benefits of guys like me who taught themselves. This was back in the day of wearing out grooves on LPs and needles on my parents stereo turntables.
 
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#112
Bryan R. Tyler said:
Indicating a primary source of learning does not say anything about the potential failings of a different source of learning. If you feel students are spending too much money on something they can learn fairly easily themselves it’s one thing, but claiming that another form of learning doesn’t work or doesn’t provide positive results is completely baseless based on the information you provided us. Given that there are people who teach slap as part of their lesson plan and/or income, it’s disingenuous to throw them under the bus and say that they’re what they are teaching doesn’t work when there’s no evidence showing that whatsoever.
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Hi Bryan. Let's look at this!

I wrote that practically 100% of all slappers including slap teachers are self taught. If this was true, then it seemed wise to suggest that the academic learning of a style of music that almost everyone (even the teachers) learned as self taught players didn't make sense.

I followed this comment by asking if anyone could list slappers that achieved success as players or teachers that did acquired their slapping skills in schools. This would lend credibility to the academic teaching of slap and I surely would have paid attention to what people shared. But, no one did this.

Next, I invited people to research ten top players on any instrument from any time period in music and see how their were taught. I stated that people would discover that they only learned how to play two ways, but if anyone could offer a third manner of learning, I'd be interested in hearing what it was and who was teaching it. But, no one did this either.

Next, I asked people that were going to NAMM to ask any rock or slap player who they saw playing at the show how they learned to play their styles. Did they go to schools for slap or rock? Or were they self taught. I invited people to share what they found out which might lend credibility to the academic teaching of rock or slap.Again, I would have paid attention to people's contributions. But, Again, not one person did this, and some, without asking a question from anyone, wrote how doing some research proved nothing.

I believe that you stated that I didn't prove my views that were contrary to the popular views of teaching slap or rock. I answered that I couldn't prove them but that if people did some background checking, they certainly would acquire a fairly reasonable circumstantial evidence regarding the validity of academic training in these areas. I did this for years which got me to arrive at many of the conclusions that I believe. No one researched anyone.

If a system of learning has neither the history nor musical credibility to be viewed as musically significant, then people should know. If your view is that teachers are losing income from my thoughts, you seemed not to ask if what they teach is worthy of financing in the first place. Anyone is invited to do the same with me. People can state to avoid any bass teacher who only teaches musical content. But, they really have to believe this.

No one wants to see people hurt, but, if students are going to be a part of a flawed system of learning, I feel that they should know about this. I've stated for years, decades evens, my opinion that both rock and slap have no place in any institution of learning, and for decades, I offered my reasons why. Your stating that it is disingenuous of me to outright tell people that they don't need to pay for this kind of training points to two thoughts:

1. Teaching is a service oriented profession. If no one would tolerate a bad auto repair job from a mechanic, neither should anyone tolerate a poor education if the idea of receiving an education from someone is to enlighten them.

And, 2. History is full of industries that couldn't survive due to the poor quality of its goods or services. If the service or the goods aren't worth paying for, then the person providing the service should learn how to provide a quality service or else they get out of the business. This means that slap or rock teachers should work hard on upping their musical skills so that they can qualify to teach quality education to players who need their musical services. Which is more important, that teachers continue to earn money, or that their students get a top flight music education?

If it came down to siding with teachers that might lose some money for not providing a benefit to the community of often naive bass wannabes, then I feel that I have to side with the bus. But, ultimately, I'd rather see bass teachers work hard to improve their own musical thing as this would be a great lesson to share with their students
 
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#113
JeffBerlin said:
Hi Bryan. Let's look at this!

I wrote that practically 100% of all slappers including slap teachers are self taught. If this was true, then it seemed wise to suggest that the academic learning of a style of music that almost everyone (even the teachers) learned as self taught players didn't make sense.

I followed this comment by asking if anyone could list slappers that achieved success as players or teachers that did acquired their slapping skills in schools. This would lend credibility to the academic teaching of slap and I surely would have paid attention to what people shared. But, no one did this.

Next, I invited people to research ten top players on any instrument from any time period in music and see how their were taught. I stated that people would discover that they only learned how to play two ways, but if anyone could offer a third manner of learning, I'd be interested in hearing what it was and who was teaching it. But, no one did this either.

Next, I asked people that were going to NAMM to ask any rock or slap player who they saw playing at the show how they learned to play their styles. Did they go to schools for slap or rock? Or were they self taught. I invited people to share what they found out which might lend credibility to the academic teaching of rock or slap.Again, I would have paid attention to people's contributions. But, Again, not one person did this, and some, without asking a question from anyone, wrote how doing some research proved nothing.

I believe that you stated that I didn't prove my views that were contrary to the popular views of teaching slap or rock. I answered that I couldn't prove them but that if people did some background checking, they certainly would acquire a fairly reasonable circumstantial evidence regarding the validity of academic training in these areas. I did this for years which got me to arrive at many of the conclusions that I believe. No one researched anyone.

If a system of learning has neither the history nor musical credibility to be viewed as musically significant, then people should know. If your view is that teachers are losing income from my thoughts, you seemed not to ask if what they teach is worthy of financing in the first place. Anyone is invited to do the same with me. People can state to avoid any bass teacher who only teaches musical content. But, they really have to believe this.

No one wants to see people hurt, but, if students are going to be a part of a flawed system of learning, I feel that they should know about this. I've stated for years, decades evens, my opinion that both rock and slap have no place in any institution of learning, and for decades, I offered my reasons why. Your stating that it is disingenuous of me to outright tell people that they don't need to pay for this kind of training points to two thoughts:

1. Teaching is a service oriented profession. If no one would tolerate a bad auto repair job from a mechanic, neither should anyone tolerate a poor education if the idea of receiving an education from someone is to enlighten them.

And, 2. History is full of industries that couldn't survive due to the poor quality of its goods or services. If the service or the goods aren't worth paying for, then the person providing the service should learn how to provide a quality service or else they get out of the business. This means that slap or rock teachers should work hard on upping their musical skills so that they can qualify to teach quality education to players who need their musical services. Which is more important, that teachers continue to earn money, or that their students get a top flight music education?

If it came down to siding with teachers that might lose some money for not providing a benefit to the community of often naive bass wannabes, then I feel that I have to side with the bus. But, ultimately, I'd rather see bass teachers work hard to improve their own musical thing as this would be a great lesson to share with their students
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Hey Jeff,
We’d actually gone over this before, but there’s no harm in doing it again. You’ve repeated that folks should be asking all these players if they learned slap from a teacher in hopes that it would provide circumstantial evidence that learning this technique from a teacher makes no sense. The issue is that this is fallacious thinking; it would not provide any evidence of this at all, circumstantial or otherwise, so there’s no point to asking. Not having learned something is not a corollary to it not being useful to learn. If you asked those same groups of random players if they took lessons from Jeff Berlin, nearly 100% of them would also say no to that. Does that mean there’s no benefit to learning from Jeff Berlin? Of course not.

The only people whose opinions on the validity of learning slap from a teacher would be relevant is those who actually did. Given that so few according to your beliefs have done this, you’re not going to get an accurate answer on its validity even if you did only ask those who had learned from a teacher as the sample size will simply be too small. This is also why it’s poor form to accused teachers of wasting students money by teaching them slap- you simply do not know if they are doing them a disservice or not. This is particularly true when teachers don’t force this kind of technique lesson on student; teachers should be allowed to offer any kind of teaching to students if the students want to learn it from them. And there’s always benefit to learning from those who know better. If you had a student who couldn’t slap at all and for some reason had to play Victor Wooten’s “Classical Thump” in one week, would he be better off learning directly from Victor or trying to do it himself? Clearly he’s better off with Vic. There is nothing that anyone teachers, including you, that cannot be learned on your own. That’s not the point though and doesn’t invalidate the learning process; teachers can show a quicker route to learning, no matter the subject.

It’s also contradictory that you keep saying nearly 100% of players learn slap or rock (odd that you keep lumping these together as one is a technique and the other a genre) without a teacher, but then keep bringing up how all these teachers are doing students a disservice by teaching slap. If almost no one learns this technique from a teacher, then there’s almost no teachers teaching it. If there are enough teachers teaching it for you to actually be concerned about it, then your estimate of nearly 100% of players would be far, far off.
 
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#114
You can learn slap technique from your teacher in about an hour. It's the continuing hours of regularly practicing the techniques and integrating them into bass lines that make them useful or not.
 
#116
Bryan R. Tyler said:
Hey Jeff,
We’d actually gone over this before, but there’s no harm in doing it again. You’ve repeated that folks should be asking all these players if they learned slap from a teacher in hopes that it would provide circumstantial evidence that learning this technique from a teacher makes no sense. The issue is that this is fallacious thinking; it would not provide any evidence of this at all, circumstantial or otherwise, so there’s no point to asking. Not having learned something is not a corollary to it not being useful to learn. If you asked those same groups of random players if they took lessons from Jeff Berlin, nearly 100% of them would also say no to that. Does that mean there’s no benefit to learning from Jeff Berlin? Of course not.

The only people whose opinions on the validity of learning slap from a teacher would be relevant is those who actually did. Given that so few according to your beliefs have done this, you’re not going to get an accurate answer on its validity even if you did only ask those who had learned from a teacher as the sample size will simply be too small. This is also why it’s poor form to accused teachers of wasting students money by teaching them slap- you simply do not know if they are doing them a disservice or not. This is particularly true when teachers don’t force this kind of technique lesson on student; teachers should be allowed to offer any kind of teaching to students if the students want to learn it from them. And there’s always benefit to learning from those who know better. If you had a student who couldn’t slap at all and for some reason had to play Victor Wooten’s “Classical Thump” in one week, would he be better off learning directly from Victor or trying to do it himself? Clearly he’s better off with Vic. There is nothing that anyone teachers, including you, that cannot be learned on your own. That’s not the point though and doesn’t invalidate the learning process; teachers can show a quicker route to learning, no matter the subject.

It’s also contradictory that you keep saying nearly 100% of players learn slap or rock (odd that you keep lumping these together as one is a technique and the other a genre) without a teacher, but then keep bringing up how all these teachers are doing students a disservice by teaching slap. If almost no one learns this technique from a teacher, then there’s almost no teachers teaching it. If there are enough teachers teaching it for you to actually be concerned about it, then your estimate of nearly 100% of players would be far, far off.
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Well, this is sounding more and more like a word game sparring session. We've said our piece and I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. Wishing you well. P.S. You were the guy that got me readmitted to TB and I am always grateful for this.

Cheers, Jeff
 
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#117
Bryan R. Tyler said:
If you had a student who couldn’t slap at all and for some reason had to play Victor Wooten’s “Classical Thump” in one week, would he be better off learning directly from Victor or trying to do it himself? Clearly he’s better off with Vic.
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Listening to CD's and imitating what you hear without any visual benefit or demonstration provides one distinct benefit; people have to translate what they hear on CD's and find a physical way to play it. This is the greatest benefit of being self taught. Remember the expression "Necessity is the Mother of Invention?" Putting in a slap video has removed the need to create, to invent an ability to play something heard by ear. Creativity and industry are gone from slap education; "Let me show you what to do" has replaced industry and investigation, the cornerstones of a great self taught introspection.

Eddie Van Halen completely redefined guitar playing by hearing Allan Holdsworth records having no idea how Allan played those lines. Not realizing that Allan was playing one handed legato lines, Eddie created his own two handed tapping system to represent the musical sound that he heard on early records of Allan. It was the denial of the academic teaching of the playing of Holdsworth that literally forced a curious Van Halen to invent a method to do this. If, as you suggested, Eddie put on a Holdsworth video and saw how he played, the two handed approach that Van Halen pioneered might never have happened. Why should it have if a video could have answered Eddies questions in an hour. While we are on the subject, have you heard any original Holdsworth-style guitar player that separated themselves from Allan's sound and special touch?

Bass players are into instant gratification and these videos fill this need. Imagine if fans of slap bought several slap recordings and, denied of visual or other suggestions on how to play what they were listening to, were now forced to figure out over time how they could play what they heard. Imagine the new approaches to bass that might have been created simply by encouraging people to enter into a self taught introspection of slap, to seek ways to represent this music that they were listening to instead of being given the "thumb down, thumb up, pluck pluck" slap approach that now must be entering its 30th year of teaching literally the exact same physical approach to slap. In my opinion, your views regarding the helping of young interested bass players (shared by others, I should add) explains why new slap bassists barely have any chance at creative new ways to slap. People are given the quickest way possible to learn the style; pop on a Wooten video.

This method has watered down slap to where there hasn't been any original players of the style in years although it might be the second most popular approach to bass playing. Where bass slap educators have failed their students is that slap never needed teaching in the first place. Students are "saved" from thought or work by being led by the hand into slap lessons that rarely if ever created good slap players who didn't learn this style on their own. Slap motivated players needed exactly what top jazz or classical players needed. They needed time to investigate the style, to practice and create for themselves out of need what they heard on CD'S, working and honing their playing over months and years. This is the source of originality, or, at bare minimum, capability. I feel that slap students will never be given a chance to flower in the style if they keep being treated that they can't learn how to slap just as all slappers and slap teachers have done.
 
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#119
JeffBerlin said:
Listening to CD's and imitating what you hear without any visual benefit or demonstration provides one distinct benefit; people have to translate what they hear on CD's and find a physical way to play it. This is the greatest benefit of being self taught. Remember the expression "Necessity is the Mother of Invention?" Putting in a slap video has removed the need to create, to invent an ability to play something heard by ear. Creativity and industry are gone from slap education; "Let me show you what to do" has replaced industry and investigation, the cornerstones of a great self taught introspection.

Eddie Van Halen completely redefined guitar playing by hearing Allan Holdsworth records having no idea how Allan played those lines. Not realizing that Allan was playing one handed legato lines, Eddie created his own two handed tapping system to represent the musical sound that he heard on early records of Allan. It was the denial of the academic teaching of the playing of Holdsworth that literally forced a curious Van Halen to invent a method to do this. If, as you suggested, Eddie put on a Holdsworth video and saw how he played, the two handed approach that Van Halen pioneered might never have happened. Why should it have if a video could have answered Eddies questions in an hour. While we are on the subject, have you heard any original Holdsworth-style guitar player that separated themselves from Allan's sound and special touch?

Bass players are into instant gratification and these videos fill this need. Imagine if fans of slap bought several slap recordings and, denied of visual or other suggestions on how to play what they were listening to, were now forced to figure out over time how they could play what they heard. Imagine the new approaches to bass that might have been created simply by encouraging people to enter into a self taught introspection of slap, to seek ways to represent this music that they were listening to instead of being given the "thumb down, thumb up, pluck pluck" slap approach that now must be entering its 30th year of teaching literally the exact same physical approach to slap. In my opinion, your views regarding the helping of young interested bass players (shared by others, I should add) explains why new slap bassists barely have any chance at creative new ways to slap. People are given the quickest way possible to learn the style; pop on a Wooten video.

This method has watered down slap to where there hasn't been any original players of the style in years although it might be the second most popular approach to bass playing. Where bass slap educators have failed their students is that slap never needed teaching in the first place. Students are "saved" from thought or work by being led by the hand into slap lessons that rarely if ever created good slap players who didn't learn this style on their own. Slap motivated players needed exactly what top jazz or classical players needed. They needed time to investigate the style, to practice and create for themselves out of need what they heard on CD'S, working and honing their playing over months and years. This is the source of originality, or, at bare minimum, capability. I feel that slap students will never be given a chance to flower in the style if they keep being treated that they can't learn how to slap just as all slappers and slap teachers have done.
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Learning slap in an academic fashion will not limit the creative potential of new players in any way. Why? As a great bass player one said, “Nothing whatsoever that you practice in an academic setting is meant to replace anything about playing the bass that makes you happy. Learning well is an addition to your musical lives, not a replacement for anything. Only if you decide to change something will this take place.”

Your entire post is literally making the same argument that lots of young players have as to why they don’t want to take music lessons; that they will limit their creativity, that they will make them play just like their teacher, etc. All things you have argued against. It’s not true with either scenario. As you’ve also said, “Does reading English kill anybody's creativity to speak or express themselves? This is pure nonsense and you should dismiss this foolishness at once!” It’s true here as well.

You also keep making the contradiction of saying that nearly no one learned slap from a teacher then saying that all these students are being done wrong by learning slap from teachers. You can’t have it both ways. Slap has been around for 50 years. Either a whole lot more people than you think have learned slap from someone else or no one has been disserviced by their teachers as no one is learning slap from them.
 
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#120
The thing with slapping technique(and many other techniques as well) is that if you want to play fast, or even sound a certain way, the variations on available technique to accomplish that quickly dwindle. It's like saying you are going to become a pro tennis player by reading about technique and experimenting. Without reviewing the past, you repeat it needlessly. I'm all for innovation, but reinventing something needlessly is just foolishness. Of course we are all guilty of this to some degree, and the result are sometimes novel, but technology and education are now so tightly bound that we really should be changing our ideas about the learning process in general.
I understand that JB is saying something like hardship and constraint breeds creativity and innovation, and I agree, but you can apply those constraints anywhere in the process and get the same benefit.
 
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