Met some bass players

[Chris P.]

Last two weeks I was at Warwick's for it's yearly Bass Camp with around 100 students and 17 professors. Among them were Victor Wooten, Stu Hamm, Lee Sklar, Alphonso Johnson, John B. Williams, John Patitucci, Dick Lövgren, Andy Irvine, Regi Wooten, Victor Brandt, and drummer Chester Thompson. Later they were joined by Divinity Rocks, Guy Pratt, Stuart Zender, TM Stevens, bass players from Florence and The Machine and Lamb and many many more, for the open day.

So I had dinner and luch each day, exchaning jokes with Lee Sklar, exchanging quotes from mafia movies with Patitucci, talking about Genesis with Chester, talking basses with Stu, talking about cats with Dick, playing the bass with sliding pickups of Guy, going to the pharmacy with John B. as translator and introduce him as my father, and so. Very strange...

Victor Wooten has a twelve year old son, called Adam. He's already an awesome drummer and got to play with al those names this week...

I had an awesome week:)

[Basvarken]

Looks like a great experience to me!

[Chris P.]

It was. Of course I didn't play myself;)

[Dave W]

Sounds like a lot of fun.

What do you mean, you didn't play yourself? Were you there only as a reporter?

[jumbodbassman]

sounds awesome.    ditto with not playing?

[Highlander]

With that amount of talent on show and with that much experience to gain from listening...

[Chris P.]

Every night there were jam sessions. I saw Patitucci, Sklar, Hellborg, Hamm, Alphonso, Bailey, .. play together on one stage at the same time. I just not go on stage and jam with one of those guys. Maybe a missed opportunity, but I'm much too shy and a too lousy bass player:D

[Dave W]

Oh come on now, we've seen you play, you have no reason to feel inferior.

[Chris P.]

I enjoyed watching them and learned from millions of great stories!!

[Dave W]

That's fine but don't sell yourself short.

[nofi]

put yourself in chris postion;

"you wanna get on stage with those guys young man, says the producer. just hop up there
between victor and stu and show us what you got!"

i'm with chris on this one. a daunting task indeed. as dirty harry said, "a man has got too know his limitations".

[Basvarken]

+1

Come on Dave.
I would be quite reluctant to join in with world class players like the names Chris mentioned too.

In fact I hate to join jam sessions with average players too  

[Highlander]

[Dirty Chris] In all this excitement, I can't remember just how many Grammy award winners there are up on this stage, so, do I feel lucky, punk...? [/Dirty Chris]

[Dave W]

Don't misunderstand me. I dislike jam sessions, they're typically pointless and inane. And I despise the "show us what you've got" mentality, music is not a competition.

But just because Chris doesn't do fancy pyrotechnics like Victor Wooten or complex solos like Helborg doesn't mean he should consider himself a lousy bassist. I'd just as soon listen to the music he's made with his bands than anything any of these other players have done.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I'm not a technical player by any stretch, but I think I would enjoy getting to play with those guys, if only to experience musical osmosis. If anyone else has the stupidity to tell me that I'm no good, they've missed the point of the camp... and the fact that hauling around full SVT rigs makes one pretty strong.