Transcription Tuesday Club October: Ray Brown at 100 Live with Cole every month

An Open Letter To Any Jazz Bassist Whose "To Learn" Folder Is Growing Faster Than Their Playing

One legendary line every Tuesday. Twenty focused minutes a day. And once a month, you play it for me live.

Join before October starts $27/mo · cancel in two clicks · first live call is Ray Brown's 100th birthday

The bundles work. That's the problem.

I'm not about to tell you that the transcriptions you already own are bad. Most of them are good. Mine included.

Here's what actually happens to them.

Somebody hands you ten legendary bass lines at once. You play through all ten in an afternoon. You find the two that sit well under your hands, you keep those, and the other eight quietly turn into a folder on your desktop.

Ten things due at no particular time is the same as nothing due at all.

That's not laziness and it isn't a discipline problem. It's arithmetic. A bundle hands you everything at once, which your week experiences as being handed nothing.

Meet the folder.

Mine was called "to learn." For a long stretch it grew faster than my playing did.

The folder is the real enemy here, and it's worth naming out loud, because as long as it has no name you'll keep thinking the answer is another bundle. It isn't. You've run that experiment. You own the results.

Every player I know can name the two lines they actually play. Nobody can name the other eight.

And none of it was ever your fault. Nobody handed you a week to do one in. Nobody was waiting on the other end to ask what you'd done with it. The room where people used to learn this, one line at a time with somebody listening, mostly doesn't exist anymore.

The two years that changed how I practice

I took a lesson with Ron Carter every week for two years.

One week. One thing. And somebody on the other end of it who was going to ask me what I'd done with it.

I want to be precise about what did the work there, because it wasn't access to material. Every line I ever wanted was already sitting on a record I already owned. It was sitting there the whole time.

What I didn't have was a week, and a witness.

That's the entire mechanism. I've never found a substitute for it and I've stopped looking.

So here's what a Tuesday looks like

One line. Seven days. A room working the same one.

The chart
Note for note, all of itNotation and tab on the same page, the whole line. Not a couple of bars with the interesting part missing. If somebody hands you eight bars, they've handed you the easy part and kept the part you needed.
The breakdown
The moves, not the notesMe at speed, then slow enough to follow. Then the two or three moves that make it sound like him instead of like the notes he happened to play. You can learn every note of a line and still not have the thing that made you stop the record.
The band
The track, bass pulled outThe line goes into your hands where it's going to live: in time, with a rhythm section, the same afternoon you learn it. Not alone in a quiet room at half speed forever.
The shelf
Nothing expiresEvery line you unlock stays yours on the shelf. Miss a week because life happened and nothing disappears.
The part a PDF can't do

And once a month, you play it for me.

The chart, the breakdown and the track give you the week. They can't give you the witness. Nothing you download can.

So that's the one part I do live. The second Tuesday of every month, 8 PM Eastern, I get on a call with the Club for an hour. It's called the Hang.

Play it back
Your line, my one fixBefore the Hang, send me a phone video of you playing that month's line. Sixty seconds is plenty. On the call I play them, and for each one I tell you the one thing I'd change. Not ten things. One. I get through as many as the hour holds, in the order they came in.
Live, at tempo
The month's lines, played for realI play them with the band track, stop exactly where the moves are, and take the questions the videos didn't answer.
The floor
The question you've been sitting onAbout your own playing. Your walking, your time, the gig next Saturday. Bring it and ask it.
Next month
The room picks the legendI put three names on the table and the Club chooses who we spend the next month with.
Can't make it?
Send the clip anywayI'll still play it on the call, and I'll leave your one fix under your clip in the Club feed.

The Tuesdays are the week. The Hang is the witness.

It's the thing I got from Ron Carter that I've never been able to put in a PDF: knowing that on a specific night, somebody who can hear it is going to listen to what you did with it. That changes how you practice on the Wednesday before.

Why I'm writing you now

October is Ray Brown's month.

Tuesday, October 13 is his 100th birthday

The whole month is his. Four Tuesdays, four of his lines, in notation and tab, and I've been sitting on which ones since the summer.

And the 13th is the second Tuesday, so it's a Hang night. 8 PM Eastern, on his 100th birthday, I'll play his line live, you'll play it back, and we'll spend an hour with the man on the day. To be on that call, you need to be in the Club before it starts.

He's the reason a lot of us started walking in the first place, and he's the most useful player alive or dead to steal from, because what makes his lines work isn't his hands. It's the order he puts the notes in. Which means it survives the trip into your hands.

I know that sounds like the kind of thing a teacher says. I thought so too, until I printed one of his lines out and handed it to an 11 year old with a cello.

It swung.

  • The move he makes at the end of nearly every two bars.Once you see it you'll hear it on every record you own. Then you'll hear it missing from your own lines, which is the less fun half.
  • The chorus where he puts a root on beat one for eight bars running, and then leaves one out.He set that up ahead of time. That's the part nobody tells you about walking.
  • The cadence with no root in it anywhere.Most players won't believe this one until they see it written down.
  • Why "it swings because it's Ray Brown" is exactly backwards.And what that means for the line you write tonight.
The Transcription Tuesday Club

A new line every Tuesday. October is Ray Brown.

$27/ month · cancel anytime
  • A legendary line every Tuesday, transcribed note for note in notation and tab.
  • My breakdown on each one, at speed and slow, with the moves that make it sound like him.
  • The backing track with the bass pulled out, so you play it with a band the same day.
  • The shelf, holding every line you've unlocked, growing every week.
  • The room, where players are working the same line the same week, and where I am.
  • The Hang, live with me every month, second Tuesday, 8 PM Eastern. Send me your take on the month's line and I'll tell you the one thing I'd change.
  • All four Ray Brown Tuesdays in October, and your first Hang on his 100th birthday, Tuesday, October 13.
Join the Club

Cancel in two clicks from inside your account. No phone call, no form, no "tell us why."

Don't join this if

  • You can't yet play through a tune and hold a groove. Come back when you can. This will still be here and you'll get ten times as much out of it.
  • You want a library to own rather than a line to play this week. You'd be paying monthly for something you'd rather buy once, and I'd rather you bought a bundle.
  • You only play electric and only want electric lines. October is an upright month. Every line comes in tab so you can absolutely play it, but I'd be lying if I said October was built for you.
  • You already have a teacher giving you one thing a week and asking about it. You've got the mechanism. You don't need me.
Before you join
Do I need to read music?

No. Every line comes in tab and notation both, and the video has me playing it slow enough to follow. If you can find the notes on your bass, you're set.

Upright or electric?

Both, and the lines come from both worlds. A great line is vocabulary, and vocabulary works on either instrument once it's in your hands. October's lines are Ray Brown's, so they come off the upright, and they come with tab.

What if I fall behind?

Nothing expires. The shelf keeps every line you've unlocked and it's there when you get back. The point of one a week isn't to punish you for missing one, it's so that the weeks you do show up, there's exactly one thing in front of you.

Do I have to play on the Hang?

No. Sending a clip is up to you, and some months you'll learn more from hearing me fix somebody else's line than your own. But if you've never had anyone listen to your walking and tell you the one thing, send one. That's what the call is for.

What if I can't make it live?

Post your clip anyway. I'll still play it on the call, and I'll leave your one fix under your clip in the Club feed.

How much time does it take?

One line a week. Twenty focused minutes a day and it's in your hands well before the next one lands.

Can I really cancel easily?

Two clicks from inside your account. No email to anyone and no phone call. I've been on the other side of a subscription that made me chase somebody for a week and I'm not doing that to you.

You can keep buying bundles. They're good, they're cheap, and there will always be another one. Ten years of that is a very large folder and a very short list of lines you can actually play.

None of that was your fault. Nobody ever gave you the week, and nobody was waiting to hear what you did with it.

From here, it's a choice.

Cole

P.S. Here's a test you can run tonight, free, before you decide anything. Open the transcriptions you already own and count the ones you can play from memory right now. Whatever that number is, it's not a measure of the material and it isn't a measure of you. It's a measure of how many weeks you got, one thing at a time, with somebody waiting.

Join the Club $27/mo · October is Ray Brown at 100