The Ed Friedland Method
Many, many years ago I took lessons with somewhat-famed bass teacher Ed Friedland when he was living here in Austin. I had been a by-ear, self-described punk rock playerāwhich we all know what that means: youāre just not very good, but youāve got a little feel.
I was taking lessons from him and he totally broke me down. I couldnāt even get through a 12-bar blues properly. We went through probably a third of his walking basslines book, and when Iād go in for lessons, he would not let us turn the page until I mastered that particular page. Iād always just kind of breezed my way through these kinds of books and obviously never finished one, and that really hit home with me: if youāre gonna do this, you have to do the page right before you turn the page.
Iām going through a method book right now, seeing if I can do it, and Iāve adopted what Iām calling the Ed Friedland method: really going through. This is a folk-blues bookāJerry Silvermanās Folk Blues, Iāve probably mentioned it hereāand youāre learning the song, getting the key right, playing it like he says to play it, playing through the whole thing. He also says āpick out the melody,ā which is really, really good for bass players or anybody in the world. Any instrumentāknowing the melody on the instrument is great.
Iām learning it with the chords and itās just such a valuable thing thatās stuck with me forever. I was such an idiot, but this is how we learn. Weāre all idiots at one point, and of course Iām still an idiot about way more things than Iām not an idiot about, so Iāve always got that to fall back on.