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Fear: An Enemy of Excellence
Fear: An Enemy of Excellence… At the beginning of 2012, I wrote a column in which I challenged worship bassists to strive for excellence. Rather than focus on negativity, I suggested that moving toward personal excellence would inject positivity into our own playing. In addition, a “ripple effect” would be created that those around us could sense.
The response has been fantastic! I have truly loved hearing from bass musicians who have taken on the charge to be excellent. Bassists have told me amazing stories about the positive impact that was made in their personal playing, worship, and group interaction. If you haven’t taken on the challenge to be excellent, there is no time like the present to start!
Those that strive to be excellent are not without enemies; however, and it is time to talk about a prominent opponent of excellence: fear.
As I received messages talking about excellence, I was also contacted by a number of musicians who were plagued by fear and anxiety when playing. One worship leader told me about the nausea-inducing stage fright that they felt, even after years of being on stage. A worship bassist asked me what to do when, despite their best efforts, worry dominated their mind when playing. It was clear that by declaring the intention to be excellent, many were being attacked by fear. The fight is on, so let’s take time to talk about this enemy of excellence and to discover ways to fight back!
Before jumping in too far, let’s cover some basics. First, fear and anxiety love targets that have been isolated. If you are finding that anxiety is a problem you are facing, you need support. Prayer with your worship team, working with your private instructor, and talking with your fellow bassists are immediate things you can do to remove yourself from isolation. Fear is more common than you may think and opening up to a trusted source is a critical, proactive step to take. Second, being unprepared or under-prepared to play is an invitation for anxiety. Worrying about messing up is hard to dismiss when you have no idea what you are doing. Make sure that you practice effectively and learn your music well!
When you’ve gathered support and prepared thoroughly, it is time to define FEAR appropriately
False Evidence Appearing Real
I first read this acronym explanation in a book by Tony Robbins, although I believe that the exact origin is unknown. Regardless, this is what fear really is! Fearful self-talk often leads us to believe things that are simply not true. When fear says something to you, it is important to test the truth of the statement. More often than not, you can easily refute the claims before you accept them as “real”!
Here are some examples:
| FEAR says… | The truth is… |
| You’re going to mess up. | There is no evidence of this – you have practiced and prepared! |
| You are going to freeze up when you play. | You are a bass musician and you have done this a million times before. You’ve never frozen before and chances are, you won’t now. |
| Everyone will notice if you don’t play every note correctly. | In 4/4 time, at 100 beats per minute, each eighth note flies by a person’s ear at .3 seconds per note. No one in the congregation is going to jump up and point out the one note that wasn’t perfect. |
| You aren’t good enough to be playing for worship. | You are good enough – people believe in you and you work hard to better yourself every day. |
This list could go on for days, but here’s the important point: FEAR is never correct!
If FEAR is “False Evidence Appearing Real”, let’s implant some Real Evidence! To do this, take time to listen to your weekly music away from your bass and visualize yourself playing the songs correctly. “See” your hand on the bass, “feel” the position shifts, and “hear” your bass playing without error. Do this consistently to build the habit of using your own brain to bolster your confidence. If you can’t visualize a lick or pattern, it is often a sign that you need to practice the passage on your bass until you are truly comfortable with the music. Hit the woodshed and then return to the visualization.
It would be nice if fear and anxiety obeyed polite rules of conflict, but once you’ve started to fight back, the enemy tends to resort to sneak attacks. These attacks are panic and worry that creep up for no apparent reason, at the most inconvenient times. When this happens, you can remain in control and ward off the ambush.
For example, one of the most common symptoms of anxiety is shortness of breath. If you start to experience this, blow out your breath in a steady stream until you feel like there is no air left in your lungs. When you are doing this, imagine pushing every molecule of air out of your lungs you possibly can. The result? When you have exhausted your outward breath, your body will instinctively take a very deep inward breath. The deep breath is just what you need to slow your system down and regain control. Do this a couple of times, visualize yourself being successful at playing, and keep going!
Now, I would be lying to you if I said that everything would be perfect in your playing life. The truth is that wrong notes sound, our minds may get lost for a second, and weird stuff does happen. To the advanced fear-killer, we train for such events! Here’s a simple exercise: take a recording of a song from your weekly set and move to a random point in the track. Hit “play” and catch up to the music as fast as you can. Allow your ears to guide you, along with the knowledge that you have gained from preparation. Knowing that you can work your way out of a jam, before a real problem occurs, does wonders for your confidence!
Being excellent is not about being perfect – no one is perfect. Excellence is about striving to be your very best and working to bring positive change to yourself and those around you. Fear would like nothing more than to short-circuit these goals. With dedication, hard work, and good support, you can make sure excellence wins!
I would love to hear about your experiences with fear and, more importantly, how you have overcome this problem! Send me a message at the Bass Musician Magazine Community or catch me on Twitter (@sgregorybass).
Until next time, I hope that your bass playing is blessed and that you can bless others through your bass playing!
Bass CDs
New Album: Jake Leckie, Planter of Seeds
Bassist Jake Leckie and The Guide Trio Unveil New Album Planter of Seeds,
to be released on June 7, 2024
Planter of Seeds is bassist/composer Jake Leckie’s third release as a bandleader and explores what beauty can come tomorrow from the seeds we plant today.
What are we putting in the ground? What are we building? What is the village we want to bring our children up in? At the core of the ensemble is The Guide Trio, his working band with guitarist Nadav Peled and drummer Beth Goodfellow, who played on Leckie’s second album, The Guide, a rootsy funky acoustic analog folk-jazz recording released on Ropeadope records in 2022. For Planter of Seeds, the ensemble is augmented by Cathlene Pineda (piano), Randal Fisher (tenor saxophone), and Darius Christian (trombone), who infuse freedom and soul into the already tightly established ensemble.
Eight original compositions were pristinely recorded live off the floor of Studio 3 at East West Studios in Hollywood CA, and mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald. The cover art is by internationally acclaimed visual artist Wayne White. Whereas his previous work has been compared to Charles Mingus, and Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet with Charlie Haden, Leckie’s new collection sits comfortably between the funky odd time signatures of the Dave Holland Quintet and the modern folk-jazz of the Brian Blade Fellowship Band with a respectful nod towards the late 1950s classic recordings of Ahmad Jamal and Miles Davis.
The title track, “Planter of Seeds,” is dedicated to a close family friend, who was originally from Trinidad, and whenever she visited family or friends at their homes, without anyone knowing, she would plant seeds she kept in her pocket in their gardens, so the next season beautiful flowers would pop up. It was a small altruistic anonymous act of kindness that brought just a little more beauty into the world. The rhythm is a tribute to Ahmad Jamal, who we also lost around the same time, and whose theme song Poinciana is about a tree from the Caribbean.
“Big Sur Jade” was written on a trip Leckie took with his wife to Big Sur, CA, and is a celebration of his family and community. This swinging 5/4 blues opens with an unaccompanied bass solo, and gives an opportunity for each of the musicians to share their improvisational voices. “Clear Skies” is a cathartic up-tempo release of collective creative energies in fiery improvisational freedom. “The Aquatic Uncle” features Randal Fisher’s saxophone and is named after an Italo Calvino short story which contemplates if one can embrace the new ways while being in tune with tradition. In ancient times, before a rudder, the Starboard side of the ship was where it was steered from with a steering oar. In this meditative quartet performance, the bass is like the steering oar of the ensemble: it can control the direction of the music, and when things begin to unravel or become unhinged, a simple pedal note keeps everything grounded.
The two trio tunes on the album are proof that the establishment of his consistent working band The Guide Trio has been a fruitful collaboration. “Santa Teresa”, a bouncy samba-blues in ? time, embodies the winding streets and stairways of the bohemian neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro it is named for. The swampy drum feel on “String Song” pays homage to Levon Helm of The Band, a group where you can’t always tell who wrote the song or who the bandleader is, proving that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Early jazz reflected egalitarianism in collective improvisation, and this group dynamic is an expression of that kind of inclusivity and democracy.
“The Daughters of the Moon” rounds out the album, putting book ends on the naturalist themes. This composition is named after magical surrealist Italo Calvino’s short story about consumerism, in which a mythical modern society that values only buying shiny new things throws away the moon like it is a piece of garbage and the daughters of the moon save it and resurrect it. It’s an eco-feminist take on how women are going to save the world. Pineda’s piano outro is a hauntingly beautiful lunar voyage, blinding us with love. Leckie dedicates this song to his daughter: “My hope is that my daughter becomes a daughter of the moon, helping to make the world a more beautiful and verdant place to live.”
Bass CDs
Debut Album: Nate Sabat, Bass Fiddler
In a thrilling solo debut, bassist Nate Sabat combines instrumental virtuosity with a songwriter’s heart on Bass Fiddler…
The upright bass and the human voice. Two essential musical instruments, one with roots in 15th century Europe, the other as old as humanity itself.
On Bass Fiddler (Adhyâropa Records ÂR00057), the debut album from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and bass virtuoso Nate Sabat, the scope is narrowed down a bit. Drawing from the rich and thriving tradition of American folk music, Sabat delivers expertly crafted original songs and choice covers with the upright bass as his lone tool for accompaniment.
The concept was born a decade ago when Sabat began studying with the legendary old-time fiddler Bruce Molsky at Berklee College of Music. “One of Bruce’s specialties is singing and playing fiddle at the same time. The second I heard it I was hooked,” recalls Sabat. “I thought, how can I do this on the bass?” From there, he was off to the races, arranging original and traditional material with Molsky as his guide. “Fast forward to 2020, and I — like so many other musicians — was thinking of how to best spend my time. I sat down with the goal of writing some new songs and arranging some new covers, and an entire record came out.” When the time came to make the album, it was evident that Molsky would be the ideal producer. Sabat asked him if he’d be interested, and luckily he was. “What an inspiration to work with an artist like Nate,” says Molsky. “Right at the beginning, he came to this project with a strong, personal and unique vision. Plus he had the guts to try for a complete and compelling cycle of music with nothing but a bass and a voice. You’ll hear right away that it’s engaging, sometimes serious, sometimes fun, and beautifully thought out from top to bottom.”
While this record is, at its core, a folk music album, Sabat uses the term broadly. Some tracks lean more rock (‘In the Shade’), some more pop (‘White Marble’, ‘Rabid Thoughts’), some more jazz (‘Fade Away’), but the setting ties them all together. “There’s something inherently folksy about a musician singing songs with their instrument, no matter the influences behind the compositions themselves,” Sabat notes. To be sure, there are plenty of folk songs (‘Louise’ ‘Sometimes’, ‘Eli’) and fiddling (‘Year of the Ox’) to be had here — the folk music fan won’t go hungry. There’s a healthy dose of bluegrass too (‘Orphan Annie’, ‘Lonesome Night’), clean and simple, the way Mr. Bill Monroe intended.
All in all, this album shines a light on an instrument that often goes overlooked in the folk music world, enveloping the listener in its myriad sounds, textures, and colors. “There’s nothing I love more than playing the upright bass,” exclaims Sabat. “My hope is that listeners take the time to sit with this album front to back — I want them to take in the full scope of the work. I have a feeling they’ll hear something they haven’t heard before.”
Available online at natesabat.bandcamp.com/album/walking-away
Gear News
New Gear: Esopus Guitars Launches New Acoustic/Electric Bass
Esopus Guitars Launches New Acoustic/Electric Bass…
Esopus Guitars is proud to announce the new “Tailwater” bass guitar, from legendary bass luthier Stuart Spector. This 32” scale bass is handcrafted by Stuart using the only finest woods and components at the Esopus Guitar workshop located near Woodstock NY in the Catskill Mountains.
From its fully carved spruce top (the top is carved on both its exterior and interior surfaces) with a thumb rest that is elegantly carved into the top, to its custom-made Fishman piezo pickup and super hard Carnauba wax finish, every detail of the Tailwater is part of creating the ultimate playing experience.
The Tailwater bass features a fully chambered spruce over alder body (15.5″ lower body bout width, 2.25″ body thickness measuring from the peak of the carved top) that delivers a super comfortable tonal tool for all your low-end needs.
Each Tailwater bass is hand-signed and numbered on the back of the peghead by Stuart Spector. A very limited number of Tailwater basses are handcrafted each year at the Esopus workshop.
“I am proud to present the Tailwater bass, a bass that I have spent the last three years perfecting. The Tailwater is a culmination of all of my 45 years of experience, knowledge, and passion for bass guitar crafting. I am so eager to hear what fellow musicians create with this exciting new instrument.” -Stuart Spector
Direct Pricing : $4995.00 plus options.
For more information about Esopus Guitars and Stuart Spector’s handcrafted instruments, visit www.EsopusGuitars.com.
Bass Videos
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
Ian Allison Bassist extreme…
Most recently Ian has spent the last seven years touring nationally as part of Eric Hutchinson and The Believers, sharing stages with acts like Kelly Clarkson, Pentatonix, Rachel Platten, Matt Nathanson, Phillip Phillips, and Cory Wong playing venues such as Radio City Music Hall, The Staples Center and The Xcel Center in St. Paul, MN.
I had a chance to meet up with him at the Sellersville Theater in Eastern Pennsylvania to catch up on everything bass. Visit online at ianmartinallison.com/
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This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
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Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
New Gear: Spector Woodstock Custom Collection Volume II
New Gear: The Dingwall John Taylor Signature Model
Interview With Bassist Edmond Gilmore
Have Fret Sprout? Sharp Fret Management… a How-To Video
This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
Interview With Audic Empire Bassist James Tobias
New Album: Avery Sharpe, I Am My Neighbors Keeper
