Mark Michell

High school was awesome, really, in hindsight, for no other reason than I had a great group of friends who were all close. I was in the band all four years...marching band, concert band, you name it. I got my start playing bass there, actually, in the jazz band. I acknowledge high school the most for spring-boarding all of my goals and ambitions, musically-speaking. I'm technically still a member of Tetrafusion, and we started that band in 2006 and were all more or less childhood friends, and there's definitely something to be said for that, a certain bond for sure. I always felt right at home with those guys, but then again, you grow up, meet new people, and you do it all again and it's just as great. I may play in an established band, but I wouldn't say it's changed my social life at all really...it's what I chose to do for "work", my career, and I work hard at it and take it very seriously and professionally. All of my friends are doing similar things in other fields, so I wouldn't expect it to change much, other than being an odd career to some people.

---

I'm kind of rambling here and not really sure what you're asking, but hope this helps!

View more

When thinking creatively, personally, I get a little overwhelmed sometimes when I really start brainstorming the possibilities, it's almost too many, so what works for me is simplifying the approach. I've kind of come up with this motto or what have you, not really a motto, but just a guideline I tell students often when they have questions about writing basslines; I always try to think of the bass guitar as one of two things: a drumset that can play pitched notes, or a guitar that's just an octave lower. Simply put, the bass has a huge liberty in the band because it can exclusively accent each instrument at different times and still contribute to the song. I work to use this instrument's liberty to my advantage. Knowing that, before I write a note, I really try to look at the song from a "bigger picture" perspective. This is 90% of creating a bassline, for me, that way I can be musically fulfilled while serving the song at the maximum level, which should always be a priority. Traditionally, the bass is recorded closer to last, and written closer to last, so the bassist can usually get a pretty good idea of how a song sounds before he/she writes or records his parts. I pay close attention to what the other instruments are doing, and I can really get an idea of how I want to approach it by literally asking myself questions: What is the guitarist doing? Is he/she playing more chordal-type riffs, or very single-note based riffs? Stuff like that. My response to that is, say, if the guitarist is playing something very chordal, then if I were to write a really busy bassline, it might clash, so that calls for some more single-note, groove-oriented lines. When the riffs are a little more one-dimensional with single notes, the depth of the composition is a little more free, so you can experiment with maybe two-notes at a time, chords, or venturing up to the higher notes. More room for bass fills, you get the idea. What's the drummer doing? A very repetitive, pocket-groove, or really busy and trying to follow the guitars? I'd take that into consideration as well. What range of the instrument is the guitarist playing on? Lots of higher stuff? Ok, then that means I need to make sure to fill out the low end. Notice how I haven't written a single note yet and already am, more or less, framing how the bassline will sound. Sorry for the long-winded answer, but wanted to explain the approach. Modes and scales simply show me what notes are available to use, and past that, I don't think about it much. Music theory should show you what options you DO have, not a set of rules telling you what you cannot do in the music. And yeah, sometimes, basslines just pop in my head, but I don't really have an explanation for that!

View more

Well, a big reason was to have something to appeal to people that the technique book didn't. Lots of players out there who wouldn't get much use from my technique book and can play absolute circles around me, but can't read a lick of music and want to learn, so for variety reasons mostly. Secondly, even though there are thousands of books on the same topic, they're honestly unique from each other because different people are writing them. Everyone learned differently, teaches differently, and offers different advice and approaches. My Sightreading book focuses on the best methods possible to learn rather than just the goal being to "learn it". Learning something as extensive as reading music requires a ton of time and patience and a lot of time can be wasted going about it the wrong way. I sort of laid out a process that makes it as easy as possible.

View more

I really worked to incorporate a specific methodology in the way I designed it, which is a big part of why I wanted to write a book on that topic. I faced this same problem too learning early on, so this was sort of my remedy for people encountering this issue.

---

Much like math, you learn the concepts very "sequentially" - for instance, even though you learn addition and subtraction in elementary school, you still continue to use those skills VERY frequently regardless of how complex the math gets, and even in a college math class, you still use addition and subtraction. It becomes so easy because even as the math got more complex over the years, you still were given (or forced) an opportunity to keep practicing addition and subtraction. I'd make this an exact analogy to how the book is paced, once one new topic is introduced, it shows up continuously in every chapter and exercise following it. I paced it super slow, so that if you need to work extremely slow, it can be done, but if you feel you can work quicker, you're able to as well. A lot of books let you work fast but not slow, so I sort of solved that problem.

View more

I don't really change the tone at all for this song, it's just a matter of technique and how the tone is EQ'd already. For starters, harmonics rely heavily on the upper-mid frequencies. I normally EQ my tone with the "sad face" EQ, more low and hi mids, bass & treble to taste. So, try boosting your mids a little but be conservative on the treble, as it can make the harmonics sound a little rough around the edges. Next, they always sound best plucked closer to the bridge, and in conjunction with that, a bridge pickup to go with it. In other words, on a P-Bass, these are a little harder to get to speak (in my experience). Try rolling toward the bridge pickup (or even full solo'ing it, whatever works), boost the mids, and pluck a little more forcefully. I tend to pluck harmonics how you would pluck using finger-picking on a guitar, instead of a traditional finger-style used on bass. Good luck with it!

View more