Refocusing

I made the decision to leave the band I have been in for about the last year: Hellbound Billy.  My last show was on May 23rd.  It was a hard decision, but what it came down to was that I don’t want to travel, and if you are going to have a successful rock band–you absolutely have to go on the road (unless you are in a cover band.)

After thinking very hard about what I want to do I have decided to jump in with both feet and focus on getting my Jazz chops together.  Jazz is a very different beast.  I don’t have any desire to be the next Christian McBride, but I would like to be able to throw down some nice walking bass lines.  I also want to study more on the production and sound engineering side of things too.

I have signed up for an online Jazz bass class through the “International Institute of Bass“.  I am very skeptical of online music classes, but I have taken a music history class through a local college and it was actually quite fun.  I will post my impressions as the class progresses, keeping in mind that with something like this you can only get out what you put in.  I figured with a the price being so low ($25 for a 12 week class!) I had very little to lose.

Next up is back to lessons, locally I have found a very talented Bassist Robin Ruscio, who excels at Jazz.  The one on one coaching is very useful.

I found an audio production class through Colorado Free University (no, it isn’t free though) hosted at Helmet Room studio in Denver.  I am pretty sure they use pro-tools (and I am a logic user) but you can’t learn unless you step outside your boundaries.

In a month or so I will work on getting some time in an ensemble, probably in a classroom setting before I start sitting in in public.  I will keep posting back here with my impressions of the various classes and groups I run into.