[This was delivered to my inbox from a web-based bass instructor who I have not done any business with. I self-taught myself 80% of what he's talking about. Indeed, I purchased BiaB for this very purpose. The other 20% I'll probably explore as time permits. Thought somebody here would be interested in this. Bracketed text is mine.]

Back in the 30s the US Postal Service had a massive problem - the death rate among their pilots due to crashses when landing was through the roof. A guy called Edwin Link had invented a machine that he swore could be used to train pilots...but no-one believed him and he had to cart this machine on a flatbed truck to fairs and circuses around the US to make ends meet.

He was invited to a meeting with the US Postal top brass...which they tried to cancel because the airport he was due to meet them at was fog bound. He said he was coming...and to their amazement executed a perfect landing in the fog (which was considered nearly impossible at the time.)

The advent of World War 2 shortly afterwards and the necessity to train thousands of pilots quickly (and safely) accelerated the use of flight simultors as required training aids.

You might be wondering why I'm talking about flight simulators? The reason is I want to talk about a tool I use nearly every day - and when anyone asks me to describe it I use a metaphor and say that it's like a flight simulator for bass.


The tool I'm talking about is called Band In A Box (made by PG Music).

If you're serious about practicing on the bass this tool is nearly as important as your bass guitar! (And I'm not joking)

Off the top of my head here's some practice activities you can use it for:

1. Generating chordal environments with realistic sounding backing where you can change tempo or key at the touch of a button.

2. Working on your time - part 1. You can set up styles very quickly in Band In A Box (BIAB) to play on just the 2 and 4 of the bar. Or just the 2 of the bar. Or just the 4. Or just the 2, every other bar. And so on. (My favourite variation of this is practicing grooves ranging from funk to walking bass with guitar skank on beats 2 and 4 and nothing else! A harmonic metronome!)

3. Working on your time - part 2. You can set up an 8 or 16 bar repeating chord pattern in band in a box - and then set it so that the last 2 beats are silent. So you have to play over those and come back in on the downbeat. And then make the last 4 beats silent. Or the last 6 beats silent. or 8 beats. And so on. (G

4. Learning tricky riffs and melodies. You can program a tricky riff into Band In A Box (or import a midi file with the riff on it) and then use a feature called the Woodshed Feature. You set a start tempo, tell Band In A Box how many beats per minute to increase on each repetition and then set your pattern looping. This allows you to play the tricky piece at say 60 bpm, and then 61 bpm, and then 62 bpm and then 63 bpm (or any incemental increase you desire). It's a great way to internalize and nail those tricky riffs that you need to for your band.

5. Practicing creating bass lines on the fly. Band In A Box has a feature where you can choose own paraments, press a button and Band In A Box will generate a set of chord changes with a melody and immediately count you in. If you've muted the bass...then you have to create the bass line.

6. Sight Reading Etudes. One of the biggest problems for practicing sight reading is the relative dearth of song like etudes. Problem solved. You can create a style (which is quite simple with a bit of midi experience - or co-opt your keyboard player to help) and then apply that style to a set of chords or common chord progressions in specific keys that you need to work on, click generate and then print out the resulting etude. As a bonus you can then mute the bass and sight read the etude in real time.

And there's much much more.

The thing is....learning to use Band In A Box SPECIFICALLY for bass players isn't that obvious and requires a little bit of tweaking and playing around. [I disagree, it was obvious to me, but it did and does require playing around.]

More about this plus practicing tomorrow.

Cheers

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For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.