Beginners’ Lesson

I hope you’ve had a fun month of creative exploration. This month we’re going to have a look at an area of musical practice that we bassists often overlook—or at least over-simplify. We’re going to unpack the whole area of dynamics, and dynamic control.

When we’re starting out on bass, depending somewhat on the kind of music we play, we are often steered towards focusing on consistency: That is, playing everything at the same volume level, or ‘velocity’. This is because in many modern pop and rock scenarios, that’s what’s most likely to be at the top of the priority list. ‘Solid’ is one of the first compliments we hope for when we start playing bass, and indeed solidity is an appropriate early aim.

However, solidity and consistency are just part of the broader aim of developing dynamic control—the ability to decide just how much variation there should be in the dynamics of a line, to choose which notes need emphasizing, and which drum hits need supporting with a little extra oomph. So this month, we’re going