My Bass Playing Neighbour Inspires Me

Something I think a lot about is practice. As I start writing this my neighbour is playing bass. They play bass nearly every day. Often the same songs but I like the songs they are learning so I’ll sing along here and there. The thing that sticks with me is how many hours a week they put into playing bass. You could make the argument they want to play bass more than I want to rap.

You’d be right about that. I feel very disillusioned with things. I’m trying very hard to put the work in to move my career forward correctly. There’s a mental block I’m facing where no one listens to my music and I feel crippled. I don’t want to just release more music to no one. I need to get more attention.

As we saw in my amazing blog covering why my planning is off and I’m behind on everything, I don’t have a lot of free time. I’ve chosen to prioritize this blog over new songs. I think a lot about how the time I put into this kind of writing could go into music. Maybe it’s an excuse but I know that pursuing the next level of music will require a more balanced house than writing up my thoughts every day. 

Listening to the bass guitar playing above me reminds me that I need to make the time to practise all my crafts

Once upon a time I played bass and practiced every day

I will do about 5-10 minutes of random freestyling or vocal work every day. I can’t even help it, I just start rapping to myself if I feel a thing. Often it will be in the shower. I used to be more focused with it but I don’t put the same effort in that I used to.Between 2012 and 2013 I put no less than 15-30 minutes a day into music. There are periods where I regularly worked on my craft 20 hours a week. Before I rapped for realsies I played bass guitar. 

I bought Gertrude during the spring break of 2006. While I had already clocked years of songwriting experience as a teenager, I was all over the genre lines. I’ve always cared more about writing songs than being a Hip Hop artist if I’m being honest. This is why some of my peers probably don’t respect me as much, I can live with that. 

I slowly taught myself to play bass. I started with tabs, teaching myself to play Jesus of Suburbia. Then I learned a bunch of other songs. Inevitably I found cyberfretbass.com and learned some theory. While I never really practised my chords and arpeggios, I did learn some fundamentals of music theory that I remember to this day. I practised a lot. I had my little 10 W amp and for a year or two I put work in.

I joined a band and wrote a song with them. That didn’t work out but I did get some experience playing with others. Inevitably it clicked I was a far better rapper than I would ever be a bassist. I have small hands and it honestly had an impact on my ability to play quickly.

I also have a small tongue but that helps me rap faster if anything.

Recently I don’t have the same drive to release music

I enjoy writing songs. That part of the process is amazing to me. The studio is less fun. I find a lot of pressure to pay per hour to do something creative. Yes I know you can memorize your song in advance. When I was younger I wasn’t disciplined like that and would come to the studio 80% ready. Then I would perfect the verse there. 

Inevitably I realized that was stupid and bought my own gear. Now I can record in the comfort of my own home. It’s lovely and in truth I don’t have to memorize anything until I perform it. I can instead spend hours re-recording the same verse until I like it. Being by myself can be kind of dangerous though because I can spend a lot of time not actually improving anything.

Still I learned to become my own recording engineer. I can record raw vocals and place them exactly where I want. I can line up all my doubles and backs and make sure my engineer won’t have to spend time doing that. Also in reality if people pay me they can record their vocals on the cheap here and ship them to their engineer. 

Recently I recorded a project at MCO’s crib. I wanted to try recording somewhere that isn’t my home. I liked the experience but it’s super different. I did show up prepared. I was writing them fast though and over the span of like 2 months we recorded 8 songs. I know for one of them, I finished writing it on his balcony before recording it. 

That being said, once a song is created. There is so much fucking work to do. The expectations behind marketing a song are insane. This is what has me paralyzed. I understand how to monetize a blog and a podcast a lot faster than music. 

Music is my passion and that will never change

As the upstairs neighbour continues to play I remember when music was new. I would rap through the dishes and every shower. I would find all these new beats and write new songs. I would record them and release them. All that used to be really fun.

Then I got better and newer opportunities appeared and slowly but surely it got more complicated. The original few thousand dollars I spent has definitely passed the 50’000$ mark all in. I’ve tried my hand at so many things that I honestly lost sight of what I’m meant to do.

The problem is I still need to pay my bills. Focusing on that is a priority. I used to do more interviews and all these interviews and most people I talk to who really have tenured, lengthy careers, all had a patch of “living life”. A few years after their original buzz, where they had to deal with life stuff. This can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To me it means credit card debt. 

I’m learning to live within my means, reduce spending and be wiser. I need to constantly remind myself that vehicles like my blog and my podcasts will put me into better rooms with better music people. Taking a year or so to focus on how to move forward is progress. Even if my discography takes a hit, there are still really good songs coming. Music that years after I wrote it I will release it. Only we’ll have the funds on deck to pay the people I need to pay to get shit done correctly. 

Slowly but surely and song by song I will stack up a catalogue of nice singles. We’ll record visuals and make sure we have social media fodder. We’ll get merch and everything in order. We’ll use all the wisdom gained from this time away from the rat race in order to come back with something stronger than ever. 

I recently finished writing one of the nicest songs of my career over a Frime beat. I got a joint that will get two releases over a SkinDeep beat. There is stuff there. I just don’t want to waste these releases. That means for me my daily bass playing has manifested into different things for now. 

I’ll add music back into the mix, when I can give it the love and attention it deserves. We don’t need another run of shittily mixed music coming out of me. 

Live Long and Prosper Everyone