as i do every year, in january i write up a brief description of my year-long goals. a year is certainly long term so i break it down further into medium and short term goals. it's a thing i do.
before i write up the new goals i make a summary of the previous year's goals and if i stayed on course, how much i completed, thoughts, etc. needless to say each year starts out positive, i have some goals in mind and i'm certain these are the things that are going to have a big impact. every year when i review my goals i'm always surprised and not at all at how far off i had gotten.
there's always a feeling of bummedness having failed to achieve the the things i had set out to do with good intentions. i mean, i do the work but ultimately it becomes unfocused and in many cases ditched for something else i'm positive will be more effective. fuff.
this year though, it feels like it was different. towards the end i really got onto something good. something that truly is worthwhile. i've spent the last year and few months working with my teacher Todd focusing on the fundamentals of bassing the harmony, ie. walking bass lines. lots of triads and specific ways to address particular intervals and the such. though, a few months ago he's like "okay, i think it's time to move onto melody and melodic impov", which, fine, but never have i though about doing melodic improv. i mean, i think at some point in my life i've probably said "i have no interest in doing melodic jazz improve now or at any point in the future" and likely had witnesses, a notary public, and a goalkeeper to initial my scorecard. litigation may be in my future because well shit, here i am.
in his words this will help make me "a complete musician" and not just a bass player... his words, not mine. but also mine. and it makes sense... complete sense. as bass players, certainly in a jazz context, our function is to state the harmony for everyone else to play on top of. just state the harmony, no funny business, and everyone will be happy and i'd imaging you might get a call back. so venturing into the realm of the melody is not something we often get it do or even pay attention to so it's a deficiency that i'm sure is an epidemic among bass players.
having a functional knowledge of walking bass lines and harmony in general, melodic improv will be a way to bring a voice to the instrument where there wasn't really one before. i've spent so much time living in a work of quarter notes and just sticking to what works that certainly other aspects have taken a backseat this past year. as soon as i started working on this material i knew it was going to be a whole thing and was going to be critical to opening up the instrument for me.
so this year i'm doubling down on it. i feel like i've gotten enough under my belt that i can start doing the heavy lifting and this seems to be it. i've doubled the frequency of lessons i'm taking so that i can have that constant pressure and an experienced objective eye keeping me on the path. after all, i would have been perfectly fine sticking with walking basslines for the rest of forever but as an experienced teacher, Todd knew i was ready to move on.
we'll see how things turn out on my next year-end wrap, but i think i'll be in a really good place regardless of how far i get.
