Improvisation From a Copycat

Being a good copycat when you’re learning will help you create better original ideas.

When I was in high school I spent hours learning bass lines from all genres of songs and artists. Memorizing and internalizing those lines gave me a foundation of shapes, licks and progressions that still influence my playing 40 years later. 

Maynard Ferguson’s 1972 album features “Give it One” with a ripping bass line from Dave Lynane right up front. I remember in 1976 working on that in the high school band room when the jazz band drummer, a senior, opened the door to the rehearsal room to lean in and say, “I had to see who was playing that line.” It was a cool line and made me feel a tad cool for playing it well. 

In my youth I played a lot of percussion and piano, but I gravitated towards playing the bass because I just loved the lines I would hear. In those formative years, I could memorize bass lines from whatever songs and artists hit me, but the really informative ones, those that I would go back to time and again, were from Maynard Ferguson, Tower of Power, James Taylor, and the Doobie Brothers. I learned from many others, but those are the short list: Dave Lynane, Rocco Prestia, Leeland Sklar, and Tyran Porter respectively.

At the time, I was focused on copying those lines and getting my playing to sound like those players. Over the ensuing years, I realized that familiarity of those lines gave me a foundation that allowed me to improvise more freely and effectively with others. Being able to improvise, to make a song your own by responding to the other players in the room, is one of the most rewarding things about playing music with others. I couldn’t do that without learning so many parts exactly as they were recorded. But once you’ve got it down. Let that give you the confidence to let go and add your own, original spin. It’s much more fun.

That lesson has touched my professional and personal life too. I followed the same principle doing improvisational comedy and as a creative contributor and leader collaborating in my advertising and marketing career. 

Who were your Lynane, Prestia, Sklar and Porter?
Drop me a line and let me know at john@joinsoundunion.com