Technique
Students in their fifth year of itinerant bass guitar tuition will have developed, and can make evident, a wide range of secure technical skills. They will further demonstrate a strong sense of control over the bass guitar. Generally the performer should be secure in holding down a groove and be able to move around the bass smoothly and with precision. They should be very comfortable with double stopping and glissandos and their basslines should be clearly articulated. Their LH should be able to contract and expand in order to change position and play large melodic leaps and arpeggios and their RH should be able to string cross and rake. Advanced techniques such as Slapping and Tapping may be getting complex.
Further, posture and hand position will enhance tone and fluency and allow performers to move effortlessly up and down the fretboard whilst demonstrating aspects of presentation. Finger work may include extended riff, lead line, scalic passages, single to multiple string work, consecutive and intervallic patterns across strings/octaves, a range of chord shapes, interplay between hands and a real sensitivity of ‘touch’.
Correct posture and hand position clearly enhance the students in creating convincing tone and fluency.
Repertoire
The two performance programmes will allow players to demonstrate a convincing range of the technical skills above, together with the ability to sustain the delivery and communication of extended pieces of music. Errors hardly detract from a convincing performance. Ideally the student’s programmes will allow them to perform technically advanced pieces together with more expressive pieces. Individual pieces within both programmes will be well rehearsed with attention to accuracy of the score/presignalled intentions, including articulation, dynamics and phrasing. An example of this type of programme might be a Bach Invention or Bebop head combined with a ‘Slapping’ funk piece.
Contemporary and jazz genres are likely to include students’ own musical interpretation and may include improvisation. The student should make it clear if passages are improvised or have been rehearsed/transcribed.
Achieve: Students performing at Achievement level may make occasional errors which do not detract from the overall performance. Achievement level appears less confident than Merit (effective) or Excellence (convincing) students. Performing less technically challenging pieces (appropriate to this level) with expressiveness and musicality may benefit judgements for less, as well as more experienced players.
Merit: To gain Merit, bassists will perform confidently and consistently. The pieces will be well rehearsed, played with precision (highly accurate) and demonstrate interpretive understanding of different genres or within a genre. For example, legato phrasing for a Bach invention, swing feel for a jazz piece (both swung quavers and walking bass lines) or a 16th note style funk feel.
Excellence: Learning and playing different genres will allow students to communicate each composer’s intentions through breadth of experience. Those students gaining Excellence will do this with imagination, musical expression and a sense of ‘ownership’ of the music (in their clear intention description prior to the performance). Rhythmic confidence will ensure great ‘feel’ or ‘groove’.
Musicality
In a fifth year of lessons, guitar students could be expected to have gained a level of technical proficiency which affords a degree of confidence for self-expression and contemporary relevance. Musicality will be evident in the astute use of dynamics, phrasing and any equipment along with pre-signalled interpretative aspects. Ability to capture the style/mood/delivery of the bass guitar music and communicate this to an audience will create an effective (M) and then a convincing (E) performance.