The things I don't even notice

Last night when I was recording my parts for the demo I was really aware of my playing because I could hear my parts so very clearly. That's kind of un-nerving in a way, but I sound better than I thought.

Something I noticed was that I worry about the length of notes and about whether they are legato or staccato. So what? I guess I didn't know I was doing that. I never consciously tried to do that. It just happened. During the recording there was this point where I meant to play legato and instead played staccato and the engineer noticed. It happened because I got lost in the repetitive part and was hedging my bets about going to the next section. He was like "you meant those to be longer, right? I'll copy paste the first time you did it." And I was thinking...oh yeah...I DID mean those to be longer.

I remember when I started teaching bass at LRC (which I don't do anymore because it makes me paranoid that I don't know what I'm talking about) being surprised to realize that stopping the notes is as important as starting them. When a beginning bass player plays...they don't stop the notes. So they bleed over each other and create discordant sounds. I couldn't figure out why they sounded like shit and then I realized...they aren't stopping the notes. And that was the first time that I realized that I stop the notes in between...sometimes with my left hand, sometimes with my right hand...I just do it naturally without thinking about it. And that made me realize why I found it hard to play with a pick (at least one of the reasons)...cause I had lost the ability for my right hand to stop the notes (the other reasons are that I needed to practice hitting the correct string with the pick and I needed to practice general up/down coordination...all of this has gotten much better after my experience playing acoustic bass this spring with a pick).

So anyway, not only do I stop the notes without realizing I'm doing it...I stop them musically without realizing it. I let some ring and stop some short...and I'm constantly making those choices without realizing it based on what seems to fit with the music.

I often feel like a hack as a musician. I don't feel like I'm as creative or skilled or knowledgeable as other people. But every so often I realize that I have these intangible things going on. To a beginner...these would seem mysterious and impossible to pick up. And they are...because they've evolved over a lifetime of playing and studying and listening to music. That can feel both discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging because you can't rush it. Encouraging because...if you just put in the time...things do get better. They evolve. It feels like it takes forever...but then one day you wake up and finding yourself knowing instinctively to let the last note of the song ring even before you hear the engineer say "hold it out, hold it out." Yeah, I knew that.