Mark King Master Class
This is from a year ago, but it’s a great interview with Mark King, talking about playing bass and singing. Quick take aways:
- Tap your foot – learn to keep time from day one.
- Sing – even if you aren’t a singer, you have a voice.
- Auto pilot – get your bass lines into muscle memory, so you don’t have to over think your playing on stage
Have a watch – 24 minutes of great discussion.
Oh, go on then… Have a Mark King slap bass solo too…
Thanks for the blog i’m just starting to have a dabble playing bass guitar and this resource has really helped me out cheers.
Great advise!
In my acoustic harmonies band Laurel Canyon (specialize in CSN&Y stuff) one of my bandmates has, up to joining this band, always played on his own. He’s a very good player, and has good meter, but there are times when misses a beat or something, kind of like a timing hiccup. Thing is, he’s used to playing on his own, and those things don’t matter much when there is no other accompaniment.
But it matters now.
During practices, we are coaching him on following step 1 on the list, keeping time with his foot. When we play the Paul Simon song “April, Come She Will”, we are having him count in to get used to setting a tempo for the other players. And it’s funny. Helping him makes me realize I don’t do the same as much as I should, especially when I am playing guitar instead of bass.
PS. Where the heck have you been Benji! I almost took the blog off my links list because I thought you had shut this one down. Absolutely glad to see you’re still around!
Mike aka Sonicfrog.