Teach your children the bass well

In order to be a good musician, or a good anything for that matter, one must have a great teacher. In my early adventures with the bass guitar, I was very fortunate because I had the best bass teacher there ever was. He was the Mr. Miyagi of bass playing. \nIt's not that he is the world's greatest bass player, and he's no Mr. Holland's Opus, but simply put, the man loves to play. And he made me love playing. I remember he would end every lesson by saying, "Doug, keep on rocking like you know you should." \nSo I did just that.\nAfter learning a few tunes on my bass, I did what most up-and-coming young rockers would do: I joined a rock and roll band. \nIn the beginning it was all fun and games. The band was too inexperienced to know that we really sucked, and the people who came to see us didn't seem to know we sucked, or at least they didn't say anything, so we had a good time rocking out and playing music. \nThe band kept on playing and improved with every performance. We played shows all around the state, met new people and even got to play a show on the other side of the world in the Netherlands. \nBut our crowning achievement came early in our career when we were given a chance to open up for the ska band Buck-O-Nine. Well, almost.\nWhen we arrived on what was to be a momentous evening, we were informed that Buck-O-Nine would be unable to make it to the show. The crowd was almost as upset as we were, but we played the show nonetheless. \nThat night taught us a valuable lesson about being in a band. We learned that nothing would be handed to us on a silver drum throne, and we knew from then on that we had to work our way up from the basement. \nThe band practiced, recorded a few tapes and CDs, and we played any show we could book. You have never really been in a band until you have played a show in front of an audience of four people. Every rocker that has ever been in a serious band has gone through it. Unless of course you happen to be the Backstreet Boys or *NSYNC (not to single out the boy bands), and you are assembled for the sole purpose of selling a million albums and making your record label truckloads of money. \nBut where are those bands now? \nNo matter how small the crowd was, when our band rocked out, nothing else mattered. Every time we got up on that stage, we were there to rock the house, and that is what we did. \nNothing compares to the sensation of playing on stage in front of an audience because at least in our band, it brought out the best in the musicians. During the course of our band's career, there were several brilliant and humorous concert moments.\n As a homage to Green Day singer/guitarist Billy Joe, our overweight guitar player played an entire show completely naked with only his instrument to conceal his shame.\n At a local outdoor festival, we dressed as Boy Scouts and arranged for a hot dog and water balloon fight, which managed to piss off several angry vegans.\n The band, minus our lead singer, was warming up the crowd with an instrumental number when out of nowhere, our vocalist came to the stage wearing nothing but a pair of Froot of the Looms and a Canadian flag draped over his back. He had just been elected class president of our high school a few weeks before the show.\n Then one day, all the time and hard work spent toward the band started to catch up to us. We wanted more. We wanted to make it big. But our goal was simply too unrealistic and it would end up destroying the band.\n Live performances stopped being about the music and the fun times. Instead it was all about playing flawlessly and attracting the attention of record labels. We pushed ourselves too hard, and in doing so we forgot our roots. We forgot how to have fun. \nPlaying in a band is like nothing else. The thrill of trying to master your instrument, playing your own music and hearing your band on CD cannot be explained in words. It was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. \nI saw my bass teacher play with his band a few weeks ago. He asked me if I was still rocking. "Of course," I told him. "I'll never stop"