Actually That Is a Banana In My Pocket

(but I'm always happy to see you)

Back before I could drive I was in my first band. Everyone but the drummer was five to ten years older than I was. We had three guitarists. a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist and a guitarist that had a place to practice.

The lead guitarist was a guy name Dave Johnson (no relation). I'll never forget something he once told me: "Well you have to admit, playing bass is no big deal, it's pretty easy."


That really pissed me off.

What bothered me the most was that I knew, in a sense, he was right. Bass was easy playing the music we were playing in that band: AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Etc...

I loved bass. I didn't want to play guitar, but I didn't want to be playing endless quarter notes on open strings behind an endless heavy metal guitar solo either.

Frankly, I didn't particularly want to be playing under an endless jazz sax solo either.

There is an instrumental tune on the Rush, “Moving Pictures” album called “YYZ”. The name comes from the airport code for Toronto: YYZ, the home base of the band (that's pronounced “wy, wy, zed” here in Canada by-the-way).

Rush, "Moving Pictures"

Rush's drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart said that they were always happy to see “YYZ” tags on their luggage after many months on tour around the world. They were finally headed home, just as I am happy to see "LAX" on my bags today as I fly home from YYZ (Toronto).

 YY-Zed (Pearson International Airport, Toronto)

Rush was known for their instrumental prowess; asymmetric meters, fast scale runs on both guitar and bass and, perhaps most famously, intricate daring drum fills, beats and solos on Neil's mammoth drum kit. 

As a bass player, Geddy Lee's bass riffs were what I was interested in: tight, aggressive, melodic and wonderfully busy.

Side note: in the midst of writing this blog, I learned that the director of the show I am currently working on in Toronto knows Geddy Lee through his wife and has spent time with he and his family! -Yes the director has my CD -No, I have not instructed him to give a copy to Geddy.

Not all Americans 'get' Rush, but I sure did. To some folks, it was excessive and indulgent but it became a kind-of mecca for drummers and bass players, a mountain to climb just for that: the satisfaction of the challenge and the bragging rights among bass players that you could play their songs--especially "YYZ". I spent hours and hours myself trying to master the fast riffs and tight rhythms.

 Rush at Le Studio in Quebec, where they recorded the "Moving Pictures" Album

YYZ and other Rush tunes started me on a journey to find out what the bass could do to prove Dave Johnson, the guitarist in my first band, wrong. 

What were the bass guitar's hidden secrets? What had everyone missed while the bass was busy doing all the heavy lifting of rock and roll, and the cooking and ironing of jazz, albeit with the occasional night-out-on-the-town bass solo. 

What were the bass' other sides, its hidden talents? 

What were mine?

The journey that began with YYZ and other Rush tunes has brought me to my own creation, my own "YYZ". I wrote and developed it over many years utilizing not one but several unique playing methods I have developed or adopted and altered. 

I called my tune: “On Your Toes”, a play on both the physical difficulty in performing it at its break-neck pace and for my variation on the two-handed finger technique I used for the main section.

A still from the video showing the two-hand technique I adopted from artists 

like Stanley Jordan (guitar), Stu Hamm (bass) and Billy Sheehan (bass). 

I developed my own version of it based onTabla drumming.

 

No, I don't play with my toes.

"On Your Toes" stretched me as a player. I in turn moved the goal post of the limits of the song in both speed and intricacy as I improved and stretched the reach of the song as my abilities allowed and so on over twelve or thirteen years until I felt it had become a full and finished composition.

I also learned about my limits and some sensible practices in my playing. I actually put my wrist in a brace for a several weeks after I worked too hard and too fast to stretch my skills and speed. The painful condition put my bass back in its case for months and put my song away for several years.

As I worked on my album I occasionally toyed with the idea of including “On Your Toes”. Even though it didn't completely fit with the other songs, there were several other songs that resided on the outer edges of my central style—whatever the heck that is.

I wanted to show what the bass could do. I wanted to show what I could do. I had my "YYZ", I wanted to share it... 

You know: show off! 

Hey, you can't tell me that Franz Liszt, and Ludwig Von Beethoven didn't compose with the specific goal of being 'impressive'.

What if I only looked like a show-off? What if I injured myself again? There was too much else at stake to add months of of recovery to the production of my album. Finally I decided I had to at least try to record it. I wanted to use everything in my arsenal that would make me stand out from the gadzillions of self-produced music projects, and the thousands professional budgeted projects too for that matter.

I gingerly started work on “On Your Toes” again. I warmed up carefully, limited my practice to twenty minutes at a time and only three or four times a week. I started slow and gradually built it back to its full tempo.

Still, I couldn't seem to get it right. I could not manage to get through the entire piece without a notable mistake. Perhaps I had written beyond not just my current abilities but beyond my physical abilities no matter how hard and long I worked.

I could have lowered the mountain. I could have slowed it down simplified the scales and runs; played it safe. I could have used recording tricks and pieced the song together a section at a time using many takes for each to get it right, then edit them together. I couldn't do that though. Forget about the fact that that such things would decrease the impact and quality of the composition. I had to do it right or not at all. Maybe I could put it on a later album.

Finally, after putting it away and picking it up dozens of times, it started to come together. I decided that I had to play it as one take all the way through. Truthfully, it needs two takes since there's a point in the middle where I let a chord ring while the next sections begins over it.

There was one particular section that I was still having a hard time with. Just four notes, a descending scale that, because it's speed and the way my hand had to be positioned, the notes were simply not coming out clean. I could have rewritten it to something simpler but I refused to compromise on the composition. The scale was perfect, exactly what it needed it to be. Just because I couldn't actually play it was no excuse to change it.

Somewhere along the way I changed the name of the song from “On Your Toes” to the cheeky, “Actually, That Is a Banana In My Pocket (but I'm always glad to see you). You could call it marketing, but it was just that I thought up the title, thought it was hysterical, and wanted to use it somewhere.

Perhaps it was even the new title, but after months of more cautious rehearsals, the troublesome scale was working out one out of every four or five attempts. I wasn't sure it was going to get any better. 

Time to record.

If I was going to record this without cheating, as two unbroken takes (one for each section that overlap with the ringing chord), I had to be sure to document that I had achieved it. I also wanted to show the unusual technique I was using so I recorded my takes on video as well as on my recording software.

Here it is, the video in the form the tune was in right after I recorded the main bass tracks. In the background are drum and guitar tracks that I pre-recorded to play along with. Even though those tracks and the bass solo I laid down afterwords have been redone for the album, the main bass track you are seeing in the video is the same one on the album with no overdubs.

As the video begins I appear bit exasperated because I had already made several failed attempts to get it right. I was worried my hands would give out before I got a good take in the can.

I didn't realize until later that my cat Delilah had stolen the show.

I would love for this video to go viral. I would love to be recognized by other bass players and musicians.

I wouldn't mind selling a few (million) CDs and downloads too much either.

What this piece is really about though, is reaching some kid in Wisconsin or Yorkshire, or the Philippines. Some kid who will see this and be inspired to take the bass guitar to places I can't even dream of. The same way Rush, Geddy Lee and “YYZ” reached me.

Please help me reach him or her; repost this video or send it to anyone you know who might find it interesting.

...And someone please play it for Dave Johnson.

Easy huh?