Bloggers, bassists, and human beings!

I don't post this enough, but thank you for all the positive comments and feedback you guys give me!  As this website continues to get it's facelift. I will be posting new music from Nostros and all my other projects so you can listen, get ideas, and connect!

At this time, I would like to remind everyone of where you can find me!

My Twitter is:

www.twitter.com/andybowersbass

Contact:

Andrewbowers.bassist@gmail.com

Nostros is:

www.nostros.bandcamp.com

www.twitter.com/nostrosmusic

www.facebook.com/nostrosmusic

nostrosmusic@gmail.com

Dear Readers,

There are seldom times where I come on this blog to allow access into my brain, or simply update the world with what is going on in the human aspect of my life.  But that is the most important thing when it comes down to it, right?

 I'll save the witty exposition and get right to the point...

2012 so far has been an amazingly hectic year.  So far within the first one and a half months of this year's existence, my eyes have been opened a great deal and have led me to focus and reshift a lot of my priorities of musical and non-musical nature.  The highlights of the year have been working, recording, and tour planning with my band Nostros, working as a sideman for a myriad of acts in a multitude of genres, getting my feet wet as a producer, arranger, and composer for music that is not my own, and learning how to be an effective bandleader when confronted with a plethera of obsticles varying in nature and severity.  So... to the elaborate, yet hopefully informative point.

A lot of times as working musicians, we become so obsessed with idea that we are successful at what we do, we forget that we as human beings have our limits.  While most of the time these limits are merely technical or scheduling issues, they are often easily fixable... ...there comes a point in time where we face the limitations that we may be too stretched thin.  So I've spent many nights reflecting upon how busy the first two months of this year has been, and how I am mentally going to prepare for playing over two hundred dates this year.  I've come to this conclusion.

We are only as stretched out as we allow ourselves to be.  The minute we stop being a musician and start computing our next move is the minute that our brain has engaged in auto-pilot and we stop being valuable to our own music or the people that hired us.  I recently faced this issue when scheduling rehearsals between an R&B group, Nostros, playing for a dinner theatre, mixing and producing new tracks, working as a session bassist, and trying to spend time with my dog and do maintenence on my new house.  There simply weren't enough hours in the day to bear gracious commodity to each activity.  So when this usually happens with me, the things that are non musical in nature tend to fall by the wayside, practicing can fall by the wayside, and just because you're playing, does not necessarily garuntee that you're becoming a better player, or a better musician. I have to remind myself of that often.

As I was sitting between numbers in this most recent musical that I am playing for, I couldn't help but take some mental inventory of all the positive things that I had going for me.  I have a great band with musicians who I wouldn't trade for the world.  I have a roof over my head and people that love and admire what I do.  Not to mention those who support it and ecourage it's growth and exploration.  I get to wake up every single day and log on to the world, promote my band, my story, my brand, and advice!  For some strange reason, being that I am only twenty-three, people take it and use it.  

So basically... what this all translates out to is...   I love my job as a bassist, bandleader, composer, and arranger.  All the other titles associated with my position.  I mentally had to let go of my laundry list and just focus on backing up every single gig, person, or situation with the solidity and uniqueness of what it is I do.  These people hired me for my fingerprint. Who was I to give them something different than what they wanted....?

Needless to say, the rest of that rehearsal went incredibly well, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of this year is going to bring.   Anyway, now to go play with my dog.  

As always, like, comment, tweet, and contact me!

www.twitter.com/andybowersbass

www.nostros.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/nostrosmusic

andrewbowers.bassist@gmail.com

PS.  This website will be undergoing a massive facelift soon.  Much more user friendly and will faciliate media, video lessons, and easier methods of contacting me and allowing me to get back to you faster and more efficiently! 

Greetings readers and followers,

This has been an intersting last several weeks and has warranted much time meditating both with the instrument and without...

...To the point...

The whole point of this blog is to talk about change, on and off the musical field, on and off the pencil-thin line between cerebral musical growth and emotional centeredness. Experiencing and taming the balance between personal growth as a musician and the furnance of personal human growth that catapults us into uncharted waters in our career, both as a musician, and the inherent need to fulfill our obligatory artistic sense to purvey emotional meaning behind tonal mediums accurately. So now that Webster's Dictionary had a shit-fit spell checking these words. I'll kindly translate.

We all have moments where we plataeu in our development, and we experience the ever-growing frustration that comes from the yearing to push forward, and the inability to correlate appropriately.  But let us ponder for a second, how we react when we have our breakthroughs. Do we spend a moment reveling in our small victory, or do we analyze twenty steps down the road before even realizing and appreciating the days, weeks, months, and maybe even years that it took us to experience the proverbial lightbulb moment? I can bet several quid that most people are experiencing the latter.  

As musicians and perfectionists (because we can't be one without the other), we don't ever take a moment to embrace and fully become concious of what we achieved.  If you learned Jaco's bassline on, "Teen Town," did you automatically starting thinking that, "Portrait of Tracy" was next? Did you think about all the diatonic and substituted chord changes you just had painstakenlylearned to improvise earlier, or did you thinking about buying, Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept"?  Redundant points aside, the point is that we never really enjoy our personal victories.  So how can we?

Embracing the change that you made comes in two steps; Awareness of Effort, and Awareness of Application.

Awareness of effort refers to pinpointing every element or fundamental desire it required of you to acheive your goal. 

... More Specifically...

What technical inabilities did you overcome? 

Where did this rank on your overall list of development, was it something that you needed to accomplish for an audition, gig, etc, or could you have been spending your time somewhere a little bit more productive in your practice?

What was your motivation?  Your reason why?   Was the motivation to become a better musician, or to show off at a future NAMM show?

What was your approach, the how?  How you do is almost more important than what you do.

There are several other questions that could be asked, but I'm sure these are sufficient enough to get you thinking outside of your box!

Now onto the second part...

Awareness of Application

This is probably the most important part to help you continue on your path to greatness. You might at this point be asking yourself why?  It's simple. 

Do you know exactly what the lasting effects of what you learned are on your continual development?

Is your knowledge of working harmony, or improvisatory ideas augmented to allow you the chance at knowing "Exactly what to say" when that one moment comes?  Etc.

This is a relatively short and dry post, however, I thought it might be somewhat beneficial to share as I have been spending so much time analyzing my playing, but more importantly, giving myself a pat on the back for some of the small developments I've made in the last month or so...

In other news, Nostros will be doing a small tour over in Europe towards the beginning of April, and new tracks are to be posted soon!

As always, like, tweet, comment, and follow!!

Connect!

Best,

A

Hello again everyone,

There has been such a high level of positive feedback coming from you bloggers, musicians, and bassists out there, that it has fueled my motivation to reach out to you even further.  It has also simultaneously spawned a lot of thought provoking conversations with myself in the car as I drive to a certain gig, rehearsal, recording session etc.  Here is the formulated, "blah" that has come from my brain:

Do we all know what an ABY box is?  No? If you don't its a useful little pedal / channel switcher that allows you to simultaneously have two instruments plugged into one amp and easily switch between them, or vice versa.  But does our brain do this?  How do we manage (for all you busy budding musicians) to be in the proper mindset when we are playing several different styles of music, managing multiple bands, and juggling the daunting task of being a composer, sideman, bassist, musician, promoter, booking agent, and more importantly, a human being?  So back to my original query.  Does our brain do this...?   ... In my opinion... yes it does. It has to.

Personal scenario.  I am in the process of playing in a musical, being a sideman to an R&B group, composing and writing new material for my group, as well as being a bassist, and managing feeding my dog, cleaning my apartment, going out with friends, and having a personal life.  How do I do this.  I mentally equate it to having the capacity to be multilingual and fluent in each language.  After all, music is a language yes?  Now, usually there is one underlying theme per post, an asops fable or a punchline / moral of the story, and that is....

...drum roll please....

Compartmentalization.  The minute you stop trying to compare apples to oranges to eggs to elephants the more successful you will be at identifying the purpose and the role you play with each of those items.  To translate this musically.  It is CRUCIAL that you evaluate and become cognitive of what is you're doing, why you're doing it, and what can you do to maximize the success of your purpose, and plant the seed for future use of your talent.  

More specifcally...

When I play in a pit orchestra, I only focus on playing the language of broadway, or musicals, vaudville, etc.  I spent a couple rehearsals in the last week trying to figure out why I wasn't sounding like Nostros' bassist and bandleader...  well... after vexing my brain with scrutiny and stupidity over an answer that was plain obvious reason, I realized, "I am not supposed to be Nostros' bassist right now."  This wasn't my gig.  This was a gig that I was called for and that I needed to be present, alert, and ready for the uncertainty that is musical theatre.  I was not benefiting the nine other musicians in the pit by over analyzing whether or not my jazz chops were beginning to suffer because I had not been improvising over changes, or practicing and writing my own music.  The minute this fog had been lifted I was more present and began enjoying the language that I was playing.  Not comparing it to something that it had no relation to other than the fact that it was highly orchestrated music, and that there were a bunch of people in the room making sound.   I found a deeper clarity and love of the music I was playing just because I had immersed myself in it, not analyzed the living crap out of it.

Shortly after giving the best performance yet of the six weeks this show will run, I had gotten back into my car and started mulling things over again as I was on the way to another rehearsal.  This time... I was to be a sideman in an R&B band I play for...      ...I'm sure you can see where this is going...

 I immediately noticed that I brought the same bass, the bass that has flatwound strings on it, and is not normally the bass I use for this respective band...   ...if this is the case, how was I able to bypass this using my pit bass, to sound like me, and sound like the sideman that the bandleaders had hired me and expected me to be.   By compartmentalization.  The minute I had walked in the door and set my gig bag down, I prepared myself to be more in the forefront of the band, to drive and support the other musicians to acheive overall success of the tune and maximize the productivity of the rehearsal.  

So all in all, the moral of the story is to be ever present mentally, but more imperatively to be consistently conscious of what you're doing, who you're doing it with, and the reason why you're there...  the minute that you're able to just be a musician and, "Wear the right jacket" so to speak, you will understand how important you really are to the music world, no matter the level or status of a player you are.  We all dream big and dream of being the best bassist or musician out there... and truth is, in my extreme redundancy, and probably having said this in another post....     .... you don't have to THE BEST.... you just have to be, THE BEST AT BEING YOURSELF and giving the bandleader, composer, conductor, every bit of faith and reason that he made the right choice in calling you.    Make sure you can switch channels in the ABY box of your brain, and you'll make a living on the circuit, retain artisitc satisfaction with your musicianship and more importantly, your hard work, dedication to greatness, and persistance on the road of personal growth is obligatory, but also rewarding.

Comment, like, tweet, post, share, and connect.

Sincerely and with all the best,

Keep swinging.

Andy 

Greetings bloggers and bassists!

I've come to realize that I am not a habitual blogger, but for those who have commented on this site, I have read, and making some coding arrangements to make this site more accessible to smart phone technology, a little bit more user friendly, and a bit more personally accessible to myself!

I know many of you have read and commented on the blogs, and I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do that, I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you all!  That being said, I'm going to make a few recommendations! 

1. You can follow me on twitter.  www.twitter.com/andybowersbass

2. I do have a facebook page, and you can follow me on there as well, I update those much more regularly, as I am learning to get into the habit of updating this again.  

3. Email!  My email is Andrewbowers.bassist@gmail.com   and I DO respond to those!  Please send me emails with your questions, comments, requests for things you would like me to talk about in my music career, etc.   

So this post is kind of a bipolar in the sense that I am updating on where you can find my group Nostros' music, and download and purchase the album, as well as to give you a little  update as to my current practice routine. 

First things first.  I have a group that just cut an album, the group's name is Nostros, and we just released an album of all my original compositions called, "On Grounds of Misdirection" To give you a brief synopsis of the album, it is a concept record that basses most of the tunes of a single melodic / recapitulating theme that is present in one form or another in all of the ten tracks on the record. 

The initial response to the album has been phenomenal and I would love YOUR support of the record, as it was a very big emotional work for me that took me through the depths of almost every single emotion I could feel after losing someone very close to me. However, I would love to hear the emotions that get triggered by you, the listener.  

Where you can find this record:

www.nostros.bandcamp.com

That will take you directly to the album, and guess what, there is a sweet little incentive if you purchase the album, go and check it out for yourself!!!!

We have all the social media as well.  They are:

www.twitter.com/nostrosmusic

www.facebook.com/nostrosmusic

www.reverbnation.com/nostros

www.youtube.com/nostrosmusic

and our email is (you guessed it!)

nostrosmusic@gmail.com

Please send your thoughts, comments, and as always, like, tweet, connect, and spread the word!

Now onto the section where I actually attempt to cohesively organize my random blah to help you bloggers and budding bassists!

There have been several moments within the last several years where during times of intense touring, performing, session work, and or composing, where I do not necessarily feel that I am as connected to my playing or my own thoughts on what I should be practicing if at all.  We've all been there  yes?!  So here is maybe a little insight to the day regarding this vexing conundrum.  

 What do we do? We don't force it.  The biggest problem we have as musicians is that we all are perfectionists, and that we try to strive to the highest level of performance even in practice; this is not a bad thing, but can be our biggest set back.  What happens on days where you don't feel like you have the motivation to practice.  It's quite simple.  Don't.  The biggest detriment that will result is that you will continually grow frustrated and start to not see the bigger picture of the point and end result of practicing.  The end result, purpose, reason, calling, of practice, is that YOU discover YOURSELF with your instrument.  Let me say that again...   YOU, discover YOURSELF.  How many times have we practiced and then all of the sudden made a mistake that was somewhat hip?  Or some little nuance that happened in your playing that became a part of you solo vocabulary?  The point being, that made the mistake, the reason you practice (to supposedly decrease the number of technical inaccuracies), opened up a whole new door to your playing, and upon playing, you found an even greater desire to practice?

So how do we hone this on a regular basis when people are hiring you out on a gig?  We constantly play.  The problem with using the word, "Practice" is that we have such a demanding association with the word.  However we have no problem figuring out a bassline to a James Brown tune, because it's fun right?!  Or we listen to the radio while we drive and hear a tune that we love, and go, "Damn, I wanna jam to a tune like that, or that tune!"    So... again, back to what we do.  We change the stipulation as to what we practice, why we practice, and the association of the word practice.  

Constantly play.  So far, my practice routine has been dumping fifteen or so tunes into a play list for each day of the week.  Tunes that are fun to me, tunes that challenge me, tunes that have a sick bassline or melody. And I jam through basically, a set a night, seven days a week.  This has exponentially increased my auditory response to dissecting form, melody, groove, time, and orchestration.  You as a bassist are nine times out of ten, focused on playing the pocket.  Does this under any circumstance mean you can't learn the melody....?  The trombone harmony line? Nope!  No rules.  Learn the tune in it's entirety!  Start small and work your way up to as many tunes as you want daily, but watch as the week progresses on, how much faster, accurately, and facility you will gain in your aural capacity, as well as your facility on your instrument!

Thank you all for listening,

Remember, check out the music, tweet, like, follow, spread the word!  Comment as well!  Connection is everything and I would love to hear from you all!

Stay tuned and hopefully I'll see most of you on twitter! 

Dear READERS,

It seems to me that I always seem to preface these blog entries with. "I am sorry for not updating this is so long." I was unaware that so many read this website and found it helpful. Having realized this, I will do my best to update as often as I can with everything that has been keeping me lifted or slumped.  But first and foremost I would like to say:

THANK YOU so much to all my readers out there. I hope to be in better contact with you regarding your comments, questions, and interests.

That being said, feel absolutely free to email me at Andrewbowers.bassist@gmail.com  

I am completely serious, I would love to hear from my fans, students, fellow musicians, bassists, and mentors!

So now, time for the actual post:

Since my last post, I can only give scope to the massive amount of progress that has been made. I will attempt to address it in categories.

News regarding ALL ORIGINAL music:

West of Eden: Since the summer of 2010 West of Eden felt a warm loving embrace and a well received reaction at our CD Release party back in July.  The Album, Sin if You Sing: The Overture is available on iTunes for purchase. Following the release there were several more dates booked for the band that were to full crowds and great bands. Edifice was a great progressive rock band that ended up becoming very good friends of ours and at some point I imagine us doing a few shows in the future!  As of the current moment, West of Eden will be on a break for awhile as Kaleb (guitarist) and Seth (drums) pursue their own music endeavours and finishing school.  I wish them the best of luck and hope everything goes well for them in the near future!

Aella:  Now since my last post, there has been a new development in my original music career. My band Aella formed in the post-rock / post-hardcore genre with members including, Mike Engdahl (Guitar), Dallas Owen (Vocals / Guitar), and Eric Selzer (drums).  We recently had our Debut show in Wichita, Kansas to a full house and arguably one of the most energetic crowds I have played to in my career.  CURRENTLY we are recording a 6-8 song EP that is being self-produced and we CANNOT WAIT to get it out to the masses and resume booking!  Please visit our websites at   www.myspace.com/aellaband    or   www.facebook.com/aellaband      I would love to see all you fans, readers, friends, and musicians there checking out our tunes and helping us grow!  

News Regarding my Jazz Career: 

Okay, so for those of you who are interested in the more improvisatory aspects of my music career, this one is for you!

I am in the process of writing (upwards of about) 10-15 tunes that fit in the classifications of Neo-soul / progressive jazz / ECM / post-jazz. This will be in addition to a few jazzed out arrangements of artists such as, Bjork, Imogen Heap, and Little Dragon.

A brief way of describing this would be, a touch of melancholy, romance, mechanical gears, ethereal soundscapes, aural painting, colour exploration, and experimentation all backed up by two or three of my most trusted, first call, world class, colleagues.  David Consiglio (drums), Annibal Rivas (guitar) and or BEn Jervis or Ryan Partin to make up the front line!  

I'll be looking to air out this material within the next two weeks as rehearsals will be starting soon! 

News Regarding my Session / Sideman Career: 

I have recently joined up with working / party / dance outfit, The Source. I must say, this particular group has kept me INCREDIBLY busy.  It's a great experience learning tunes that have been the top billboard chart tunes and learn how our predecessors have formed basslines, paved the way for the bass in ensemble settings, and help redefine what popular music is. To me, being in the band is not only a great way to be playing with great local musicians and having a blast playing late nights at the clubs, but a history lesson in pop music. I can't wait to get further in-depth with this group!

News Regarding my Music Theatre Career: 

Since meeting Jesse Warkentin (musical director for Music Theatre for Young People), my career as first call bassist for MTYP has been a great experience. I have never seen, met, played along side so many talented children for such productions as:  Rent, Children of Eden, All Shook Up, and Annie!   The pit experience has been great because of the fact that I've been able to work with a lot of the same musicians. I find that making the connection between your colleagues is important for putting on a great show!  I have to be able to trust that when ad libbing that the drummer is gonna catch something with me, and he ALWAYS does!  The music has really come alive when playing with this pit!

Okay so now that the news update is finished, at this point I'll move on to things that are specific to my growth as a musician, interesting concepts I've learned, and things that I think might help you musicians and readers out there on your path to musical enlightenment!

The road to self-development ends up revealing the most useful and interesting bits of information when it feels that you are ready to receive it. For example, a lightbulb moment I had quite recently was coming to appreciate the art of playing your part.  There have been countless issues in bass magazines over the last several decades about playing the part. They are always talking about keeping it simple, keeping the pocket, and being a great sideman.  In my opinion, they are leaving out some KEY points.  

Yes 99.99% of the time we are (as bassists) expected to play the pocket, to be a solid foundation for the band to rely on.  While that is something beautiful and wonderful to aspire to, I believe this statement / theory to be completely and utterly based on circumstance.  For example, take Earth, Wind, and Fire.  A great band where bassist Verdine White was a great ensemble player. A man who never played too many notes, knew how to make the band the best. He has no doubt received praise from the bass community and musical publicity.  On the other hand, take the Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro on bass.  Why was he ranked as such an innovative musician? Was it simply because he played a lot of notes?  Too many some will argue.  However think of the difference between these two groups.  One group was a trio, the other was a multi-membered group.  As a bassist, you must be aware of the type of group you are in, before determining what your pocket really is.  The fewer the group members, the more space there is to fill. Now this doesn't mean play your entire bag of tricks to each member in the audience, but what this means, is that there is more freedom and space that is REQUIRED of you to fill.   Consider your battlefield before you strategize my low end war lords!

(Part two of blog entry to be posted soon) 

Greetings public!

 Again, I apologize for taking so long to finally update my website, or if nothing else a new entry. 

First things first, I have CHANGED my email address to Andrewbowers.bassist@gmail.com  so if you have any booking requests, please re-direct your emails there and make the changes to your address book!!!

 Okay, now onto actually filling you all in:

West of Eden just released our EP:  Sing if You Sing: The Overture   on July 15th in Omaha, NE at a venue called, The PS Collective.  Since then we have been booking shows to support this album, and will likely be at the heaviest of our booking in early fall!!  Gotta admit, we are very excited for the growth of this band!

In my own personal career, I recently acquired a teaching job that is completely awesome!  I get to work with kids who form a band and teach them all the finer things about being in an ensemble:  Writing tunes, arranging, dynamics of the band, image, business, presswork, and feeding their growth and hunger for making it in the modern day rock scene!  They have been absolutely great and a real treat to work with!  Looking forward to seeing them again in the fall!!!

As for my practice routine, I will admit, not too much has changed, though the minor things that have are crucial landmarks in my own playing.  I have begun to listen to other artists more, transcribe more, and spend a lot of my time refining my technique, touch on the bass, tone settings, etc. It has worked wonderfully and I write everything in my practice journal!  

I strongly recommend for you people that actually follow this if you are a musician to keep a practice journal and mark your progress and celebrate the milestones you pass!

Till my next post, take care!

Andy 

Hello readers!  

I realize that it has been quite sometime since I blogged about anything musical.  So here is a chance for me to hang my hat, grab a beverage, and chat with you! Lately I've been working quite hard on my progressive rock project, "West of Eden!"  Guitarist Kaleb McEwen, Drummer Seth McKenzie, and myself recently put some long hours into polishing up some old W.O.E tunes for an upcoming recording date in August!  We will be recording a 3-4 song EP which will help us throw our progressive sound to the wind!  The entire album is in pre-production right now and we will be entering Chicago's Flashpoint Academy for the Recording Arts in the second week of August to start cutting tracks! 

In other related news, West of Eden was fortunate enough to book a show at a local venue with the Prog-metal band, "Graphidum," and Dub-reggae artists, "Plain and Simple!"   The show was an incredible success with each band bringing talented, heartfelt, and energetic music to the club's listeners!  West of Eden will look forward to doing shows and collaborating more with our new and close friends, "Graphidum!"

Greetings all,

Okay, unfortunately spring break is over and I'm back to the daily grind.  However!  During spring break, I had the opportunity to visit high schools around the omaha metro area to recruit for some bass students for summer lessons.  The numbers look promising!  If you come across this site, please check my lessons page located on the right side of the site, send me an email, and I will schedule you in immediately!!!

 Additionally, the Western Illinois Jazz Rhythm section festival is coming up and I will have a chance to play with the Mike Kocher Trio, attend some master classes with the bassist, and be able to teach what I learned to my students!

I added a quotation and review page to my site so you can see what people have been saying about yours truly over the last few years! I also added more to my musical biography should you be interested in my background before signing up for lessons!!!

Keep swingin'!

Andy