No, no, it's not me, it's Dave Blood, from the Dead Milkmen. But I was thinking about that, and flipping through Bass Player, and listening to Jaco, and I thought, since I haven't blogged in a while (for shame!), that I'd ramble a bit about bass playing, if you'd indulge me.
I can credit my experiences with Elevator Cops and Seastar NT for the increases in my speed and dexterity, as well as my progress in making up interesting, expressive basslines (and solos). My appreciation for and understanding of music have picked up. I've noted improvements in my ear, and I can learn to play songs more quickly. (Now if only I could practice six hours a day, I might really have something here!)
All that is great. But what's more important to me, in a largely selfish way, is that through bass playing I really think I've come to understand what people mean when they talk about a feeling of one-ness with something. I'm not naturally attuned to such things, so it caught me off guard at first. I didn't know what to make of it...a moment, a few seconds at most, when I just stopped existing, but instead of a blackout, it was the polar opposite, the feeling that this one moment was the whole point of life. And it was so startling that it threw me, and I fucked up the line. It was gone before I knew what it was, and though it was indescribably beautiful, there was no sense of loss: just a feeling of having been briefly blessed by a force hitherto unknown.
But it kept happening, again and again, and I began to understand its nature, to feel it coming on, and to accept it without distraction, that moment when the equation of bass + bassist ceases to exist, and you're left with only the sum. A brilliant feeling, though it's really no feeling at all...just total peace, total happiness, total tranquility. English may lack the word...something like bliss. Bliss squared, maybe. I'm too unaware to know it as it happens, but I can feel it before and after. To be and not to be.
Like a smile over a telephone, this feeling can be heard in the music, which (I try to convince myself) makes it not entirely selfish. You can hear it when Jaco Pastorius plays, especially lead. Victor Wooten seems to have harnessed it for the past 15 years straight. Outside the bass realm, I think of Jimi Hendrix, Thom Yorke, and Jerry Garcia.
I have the sense that much more is wrapped up in that feeling. It's difficult to study, for as I say, I cannot perceive it as it occurs. I must make guesses based on the dissipating vapors left behind as I regain consciousness. I'm betting this feeling touches everyone, sooner or later, more or less often. We may or may not recognize it for what it is. But it's something.