Here’s a 10-step guide, courtesy of the Groovemaster, Jerry Jemmott
By Jon Liebman
August 11, 2023
When learning bass, do you ever feel like there’s just so much stuff to know that you’re not sure what to do first?
Play in time, play with a good feel, lock in with the drummer, set the foundation for the band, make the music feel good…
“Okay, okay, give me a break!” you say.
Well, everything’s okay, friend. I’ve been where you are and there are other ways to look at this seemingly endless list of must-dos that aren’t nearly as daunting as they seem.
I had a super enjoyable conversation in July with the Groovemaster himself, bass icon Jerry Jemmott, published as this week’s FBPO interview.
With more and more people joining my Bottom Line Club membership at For Bass Players Only, I asked Jerry what advice he had for someone who wants to learn bass.
A passionate educator himself, Jerry chimed right in without batting an eye. He’s helped a lot of people learn bass and has come up with a list of things he deems most important.
“I have an acronym called “F.A.D.E. S.T.R.I.P.P.,” Jerry says. “It’s in my books. It highlights the things that I feel that every bass player needs to know, every musician needs to know.”
Without needing any encouragement from me, Jerry gladly gave me an overview of F.A.D.E. S.T.R.I.P.P., one letter at a time:
Feeling: F stands for feeling, the feeling of the music, whether it’s going to be half-time, space time, full time, double time… These relate to the feeling.
Approach: A stands for approach, whether it’s going to be harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, technical, simple.
Direction: D is for direction, whether it’s going to be (an) ascending line, descending line, a mixture of both… It’s the direction of the music.
Effects: Pickups, lead-ins and fills are our most basic effects as bass players. And then you add things like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slurs, glissandos. These are effects that we use, the effects you might employ.
“That’s F.A.D.E.,” says Jerry. “Then we go to S.T.R.I.P.P.”
Style: S is for style. The style of music, or genre of music.
Technique: T stands for technique, whether you’re playing with your thumb or your fingers, using a bow, two-handed tapping… anything that you view as viable technically that’s going to set you apart, basically, in terms of how you play something. Even how you study is a technique.
Relationship: R stands for the relationship of the music to the purpose, or the reason why you’re making the music. You need to have a reason to make it viable.
You can just start playing off the top of your head, but then again, eventually you’re going to say, “What is this for?” “What can I use this for?” “What does it apply to?” That’s the idea in developing a groove, based upon the reason why you’re making the groove.
Inspiration: I stands for imagination, using imagination while going through this process. And then you have inspiration also, so there’s two “I”s [Laughs]
[I added “interaction” to the ‘I’ words, which Jerry welcomed heartily.]
Interaction! Yes, exactly. Certainly! Everything is meant to be expanded upon. I mean we have letters and things that are meaningful to us. That’s another. Beautiful. Interaction, inspiration, imagination. Go on, Jon!
Patterns and Phrasing: And you have two P’s: Patterns and Phrasing
Putting it all together
So how do we implement this stuff? How do we use it to make music?
“It’s basically having access to what’s in your toolkit that you can access,” Jerry explains, “and these happen in milliseconds. You can go through all of FADE STRIPP in the course of a bar of music basically, in terms of what you’re going to use in creating music. These are the things that we have available.”
That’s great for professional musicians, I said, but what about someone who’s just learning bass? How do they get their head around that list? Should they take on each element one at a time?
“Well, you break it down, letter by letter,” says Jerry, “how the feeling relates to the style, how the feeling relates to a pattern you might be playing, the phrasing, the imagination you might be having.”
So each element functions first as a single entity unto itself, after which it gets combined with the other elements?
“Everything is really existing within one,” Jerry says. “But to isolate them and be able to grasp them and say, ‘Okay, I want to work on the feeling. What is this supposed to feel like and how am I going to achieve that feeling?”
Going deep
As I was listening to Jerry explain FADE STRIPP, I started to think about how you can drill down about as deep as you want into any of these elements until you’ve found what you were looking for. Then you can do the same for the other elements and eventually combine them all into a finished work.
“We have choices to make,” says Jerry, and if you make a choice, believe me, you can build a product, just based on a product description. This is what you want in it. You want these elements in it. And before you know it, you’re creating a beautiful piece of music. Or a beautiful bass line.”
How about you?
Do you have a seemingly endless list of things you feel compelled to accomplish in your quest for learning bass? If so, how are you handling it? Leave a comment below and share your situation. In the meantime, watch my interview with Jerry here.
