The Music Lesson Victor Wooten
Ariel Wascom
I have found a book written by one of the best bass players on the planet about how to study Music and Life. I capitalize Music and Life because Victor L. Wooten does so in his book, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, first printed in 2006.
Victor uses his experiences with Michael to articulate all the elements, each with their own Measure. Michael uses nature, a cast of characters all very Michael-like but each with a different message, and the occasional jam session where Michael would play guitar with Victor following on bass. The deep dive into each element has lessons in Music but are also about Life. I am beginning to believe the two cannot be separated.
Michael then discussed how creatures could hear; after all the nocturne cacophony is all about them singing and talking to each other. But they could feel his Music as well. Feel is one of the elements and musicians immediately identify that with their feel on an instrument. It is also about the feel of the Music around you, not just with a band but all around us every day. All band musicians have had moments when something snaps in a tune and a zap flows through the band. Everyone feels it and looks at each other in awe. The misguided believe their talent causes that, but Michael will tell you it has nothing to do with talent. One must be ready for the moment.
The American School for the Deaf is the oldest such school in the country and still in West Hartford, CT. Apparently, the entertainment director had caught us playing somewhere and contacted David. We were certainly skeptical, but a gig is a gig.
I discovered this gold nugget of a video this morning while drinking my morning coffee and perusing around Youtube to see what was new today. Victor Wooten is an amazing bass player and musician and in this video he teaches some core truths about music in an amazing way! Check it out!
Steve Neff has been playing and teaching saxophone and jazz improvisation around the New England area for over 30 years. He is the author of many best selling jazz improvisation methods as well as founding the popular jazz video lesson site Neffmusic.com.
I have been on a mission for quite some time to read as many books on music education or music as a whole. As I frequently do, I ask all of you for some recommendations, however, this time I stumbled across this book by pure chance. As book stores continue to become rarer and rarer, I found a small local bookstore with a respectable music section. As I combed through the offerings, one book stood out immediately, The Music Lesson by Victor L. Wooten.
I had grown up listening to Victor Wooten as part of the band Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, a virtuosic mix of jazz and bluegrass that were both amazing to see play and listen to. If you have not heard any of their music, do yourself a favor and check them out.
Victor Wooten was a musicians musician. What I mean by that is that he not only plays wonderfully but also spends quite a bit of time teaching and passing on the love of music to new musicians. Inspiring a new generation of musician is something that I too am passionate about and appreciate when I see other musicians doing the same.
My favorite part of the book is that he begins by explaining that music has distinct areas that need to be focused on in order to truly connect music to life itself. These areas include groove, notes, articulation, emotion, dynamics, rhythm/tempo, tone, phrasing, space/rest, and listening.
There is no lack of instructional books, techniques and lessons that we can take in order to learn and instrument. Wooten, however, talks to us about really diving deep into why music is so important to us in the first place. One concept that resonated with me the most was learning music as we learn any language growing up.
When we try to learn a language late in life, the act of learning itself, gets in the way of using the language and may quit in frustration. However, no one gets frustrated with their native language. Why? They just learned it by being inside of it. That is how music should be approached as well.
There is a lot more to this book that can be mentioned about The Music Lesson by Victor L. Wooten. The chapter on Rest and Space dives into the importance of space in music and how it is just as important, if not more important than the notes themselves. Very interesting and eye opening concepts.
All of the chapters sparked in me the original fire I had when I first learned how to play the piano and my love for music as a whole. I firmly believe that music is more than learning one instrument. It is connected to our life in ways that speak to just about everyone that I have ever met. Music is not one thing, but many things.
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