Welcome back, bassists! Let’s continue with our theme of post-pandemic live performance and how to re-establish the necessary performance skills after a year out. This month, we’re talking about re-learning and retaining material—whether it’s your own band’s songs, a covers band set, or for a tour this year that you’ve booked in with another artist
First off, get started now. Do this prep while the pace is less pressurized. I doubt we’ll ever have a time like this again to regroup, establish, and develop wider skill sets, or embark on thorough preparation. If you don’t already do it, start labeling your repertoire with their key signatures. This has a whole host of benefits, from helping to relearn the bass parts more quickly, through getting the relevant theoretical structures under the fingers, to giving you the knowledge and ability to improvise when mistakes happen, or embellish your parts when the performance calls for it. This will also help to put you in the right harmonic headspace for the song, which supports the retention of the bass part.