Sometimes just taking the most logical next step is best

By Jon Liebman
July 7, 2023

Now that you’ve decided to learn bass, where should you be focusing your efforts?

You figure it would be a lot of fun to play your favorite music. As you get into it, though, you realize there’s more to learn than you realized. 

So what do you do first?

You might take some inspiration from this week’s FBPO interviewee, Jim Fielder, founding bassist of Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Jim went to high school in Southern California during the early days of rock and roll. He played guitar in a band with some friends, doing surf music at the school’s sock hops. 

It didn’t take long till he was bitten by the music bug. “Hey, I kinda like this band business,” he remembers saying. “This is a lot of fun!”

With the end goal in mind, Jim set out to learn everything he needed, one step at a time, so he could pursue his passion.

Start here

When Jim and his friends would go see the local acts of the day, he noticed he’d been paying more and more attention to the bass than any of the other instruments. In fact, he liked the bass so much that he went out and bought himself an upright and began learning to play it, first on his own, then under the guidance of Ralph Peña, Frank Sinatra’s then-bassist.

Broadening his scope beyond rock and roll, Jim listened to, studied, and practiced other styles too, including jazz. “I’d bought Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album and learned all those tunes,” he recalls, “and just started looking for opportunities to play jazz.”

Then, when the music he and his buddies were playing required electric bass, Jim readily made the switch. “A lot of the technique that I learned from (Peña) I transferred to bass guitar and went out and bought myself a Rickenbacker bass.”

Think on your feet

Before BS&T, Jim did stints with Stephen Stills and Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Those experiences exposed him to a wide variety of musical styles, all within a short time, which turned into an invaluable learning vehicle for learning bass.

“It taught me how to think on my feet,” Jim says. “I found that by learning to identify intervals in a song, I could translate those intervals into fingerings on the bass.”

That’s a skill that’s extremely valuable for any musician, especially a bass player. When you do a lot of listening and start to analyze songs, you become familiar with a lot of the common chord progressions, making your playing almost telepathic.

“From a pretty early time,” says Jim, “I was able to sit down with someone who was playing something I’d never heard before and be able to play along with just about anybody. I got a reputation as someone who could learn stuff quickly.”

That reputation opened more doors for him, most notably, Al Kooper inviting him to join a new band he was forming, Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Give it your best

When he joined BS&T as the founding bass player, Jim was entering uncharted waters. He quickly realized he’d had to give it his all.

“It required my best,” he says. “I had to be able to learn quickly and figure out some bass lines that would catch the attention of the listener but not cancel out everything else that the other guys were doing, particularly the horns.”

Through all the performing and recording experiences, Jim eventually hit his stride with the band, discovering just what was required of him as the bassist.

“Definitely by the time we made that second album, I knew what my part was,” he says. “I knew exactly how to approach these things.”

Sometimes only the next step is obvious

It’s interesting to look at the path Jim took that led his joining the band. At first, he was a guitar player who “kinda liked the band business,” and thought it was fun. 

It’s not likely that his goal was to be the bass player for a major jazz/rock band. He just kept taking the most logical next step to advance and to learn what he needed to know.

Let’s look at Jim’s sequence of events:

1.   He learned guitar and played surf music;

2.   Drawn to the bass, he bought an upright and took lessons;

3.   Switching to electric, he applied what he’d been learning;

4.   He studied song forms and learned how chord progressions typically move;

5.   Known as a quick study, he was able to join some high profile acts, like Stephen Stills and Frank Zappa;

6.   Taking the knowledge and experience he’d acquired, he was invited to be the inaugural bass player in Blood, Sweat & Tears, where he figured out how to craft bass lines that work well with both a rhythm section and a horn section.

The last step may be pretty far removed from the first step, but that’s usually the way things happen. One thing just leads to another until one day you back and realize there’s an imaginary thread weaving everything together in a way that makes total sense.

What about you?

Do you want to learn bass but you’re not sure what to learn or how to practice?

Start with the basics – like building technique, finding your way around the bass, learning some simple grooves – then take it one step at a time. 

Go for steady, incremental progress. Soon you’ll look back and you’ll be amazed at the results you’ve gotten.

When you’re ready to get started, I’d love to help you get where you’re going. 

The lessons and courses in the Bottom Line Club will have you building a strong foundation as a bass player, with specific action plans and milestones that will bring you steady results. 

Sound good?

Let’s get you started. Get all the info and join the Bottom Line Club here.