Greetings and salutations. Thank you for joining us. My name is Johnny Nadeau and you are at Embrace your Storm again, and we’ve got another exciting episode for you, as always. Before we get to that, don’t forget to check out EmbraceYourStormcom and there’s dashes in the domain name. You can reach me at hello at embracestorstormcom. And don’t forget to check out the other podcast I have on there called Soundbite. That’s giving daily reactions to a new metal song. So, with that being said, today, like I said, I’ve got an awesome episode I have on Bruce Gertz, who is a bass player and also a professor at the Berklee School of Music. So, bruce, thanks for coming on today.
Thanks for having me hey, it’s my pleasure. So, Bruce, before we get too far into all this, how did you discover bass as your creative outlet? How did you stumble into that?
0:00:58 – Speaker 2
Well, in the 60s I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.
0:01:03 – Speaker 1
Well, I guess that’ll do it.
0:01:05 – Speaker 2
It’s a common theme. You know a lot of musicians, especially guys. My age and my era started out the same way and saw the Beatles. Anyway, I saw the Beatles, I wanted to be like George Harrison, play guitar and I started taking guitar lessons. And I took guitar lessons on and off for a couple of years and my teacher I had a couple of teachers the second one noticed that I always gravitated to the bottom four strings and he said you know, maybe you’re more interested in being a bass player, you know?
0:01:41 – Speaker 1
That’s funny.
0:01:43 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and it turned out that I actually would listen to, uh, my parents radio when they had a big. You know, the old radios had big speakers in them yeah, yeah, yeah the bass. The bass was very prominent, very clear, and I was hearing all the motown music at the time, you know, and, uh, really enjoying the feeling of the bass in my gut, how I could feel it. I hear you. So I think that’s what drew me to the bass, and then I so what I did was I switched from guitar to electric bass.
0:02:16 – Speaker 1
That’s a pretty sorry to interject, but it’s kind of a cool thing that your guitar teacher found and it’s even kind of funny how he’s like almost he talked his way out of a student or whatever but it’s cool that he realized that like hey, you’re kind of, you know, gravitating to those four strings more. Maybe you should play bass. That’s really kind of a cool like thing that he noticed. I, I don’t think I don’t know, I don’t know, would talk themselves out of a student.
0:02:42 – Speaker 2
you know what I mean well actually he didn’t talk himself out of a student because he doubled on bass and he actually said. He said he plays bass too at you know, at weddings and all these kind of things, and he can teach me the fundamentals on bass that’s cool so he certainly did and I I. It was a kind of a discussion about me, like in the bass. It wasn’t him just discovering it, it was like I went, we agreed together that I.
0:03:07 – Speaker 1
I see, okay, okay.
0:03:08 – Speaker 2
But yeah, you know.
0:03:11 – Speaker 1
I guess that’s part of being a teacher, right, like kind of noticing things and being like, hey, maybe you should do this instead.
0:03:18 – Speaker 2
I don’t know, I find that Well. Yeah, I expressed my appreciation for those low sounds, you know.
0:03:24 – Speaker 1
Yeah, totally.
0:03:26 – Speaker 2
And my uh appreciation for those low sounds. You know, yeah, totally, and uh, and then, and then he also noticed that I did play those four strings a lot in the bottom and so, yeah, that’s how I went to bass and then, uh, I I started with the electric bass and I played in um rock bands and we did doors cream jimmy there you go uh, all the stuff that was popular at that time. We rehearsed in my house in the basement.
0:03:49 – Speaker 1
That’s cool.
0:03:50 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
0:03:52 – Speaker 1
What was your first bass and bass amp? Do you remember those?
0:03:56 – Speaker 2
Yes, my first bass. I still own it.
0:03:59 – Speaker 1
Nice.
0:03:59 – Speaker 2
It’s a 1966 Fender Precision bass. Wow, that’s great. Very beautiful bass. Yeah, that’s great Very beautiful bass yeah. And I still use it and I had. My first amp was a Guild Thunder bass. There you go. I bought it used from somebody at University of Rhode Island or Providence College or Brown University, something like that. I’m from Rhode Island, so okay.
It was. I was living down there at the time with my parents and I found this ad in the newspaper, you know, for this amp that somebody was unloading and I bought it. It looked like a robot because the head that sat on top of the cabinet had like a metal U-shaped frame that bolted to the top of the cabinet. Yeah, it had like a metal U-shaped frame that bolted to the top of the cabinet. Oh wow, when you carried it you flipped it over and used that as a handle, so it looked like a robotic kind of head, yeah, yeah, A couple of 12-inch speakers in the cabinet and it was pretty heavy duty.
0:05:05 – Speaker 1
I mean it had some weight to it, you know no, absolutely would it have like two 15 inch like speakers in it or whatever it had?
0:05:13 – Speaker 2
two I think it had 12 inch speakers okay, yeah later I had, I got into the big uh ampeg with the two 15s yeah, yeah, actually the giant amp eggs and oh yeah, you know so what, what was it like?
0:05:30 – Speaker 1
so, like, what was it about? I mean, can you put your finger on, like, what was it like about the bass guitar? I mean, I think you kind of were like you could kind of feel it when you’re playing it and stuff, like as was that kind of the attraction to it, like not only hearing a beat, but maybe being able to kind of feel it in your bones as you’re playing yeah, like the rhythm you know yeah yeah I feel a strong sense of rhythm from the bass.
0:05:50 – Speaker 2
You know it’s kind of a pulse absolutely yeah and it’s got this warm fat sound and it’s a pulty sound. I just love that so.
0:06:00 – Speaker 1
So it sounds like you’re into like rock bands and stuff at first, like yeah, I was.
0:06:03 – Speaker 2
So it sounds like you’re into like rock bands and stuff at first. Yeah, I was yeah. Because of the Jimi Hendrix and also Cream and other groups. We’re playing a lot of blues, you know. Yeah. And James Brown. A lot of his tunes are blues forms. We got into blues and we added some horn players to the band. We added some horn players to the band and we ended up like kind of like a BB King slash Chicago Blood, sweat and Tears.
0:06:31 – Speaker 1
Okay.
0:06:32 – Speaker 2
You know buddy guy, you know blues and and the popular rock at the time. Yeah, yeah. And we helped. So we had vocals, we had horns and it was turning into a seven piece band and the the horn players, you know they were all listening to, uh, charlie parker and john coltrane and all this stuff. And so one of the guys just told me he said I have to start checking out these bass players who are jazz bass players, you know ray brown, ron carter, char Charles Mingus all those famous jazz bass players, and so I did start listening to them and I started copying ideas from them by ear on my bass guitar.
Yeah, so then, then I desired to go study and and play the big bass, because that’s what the sound was, you know. Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t really the sound of the bass guitar anymore with the jazz. So then I picked up the upright bass and I went to Berklee and studied with John Nibbs, who was a great jazz bass player in Boston.
0:07:38 – Speaker 1
Man. So what year did you go to Berklee then? When did you decide like, oh, I got to do this berkeley.
0:07:45 – Speaker 2
Then when did you, when did you decide like, oh, I gotta, I gotta do this? You know what my parents, uh, particularly my dad, didn’t think music was gonna be a lucrative career for me. For me, because his father was a violinist and he struggled, you know, to make money so, uh, he thought I should go into, uh, engineering or something like he was doing, you know yeah, yeah they yeah, they didn’t want me to go to music school. I mean, my mother didn’t care, she wanted me to be happy, you know. Yeah.
But so I went to another school in New Hampshire called New England College and I majored in geology for one year. There was another thing I liked, you know rocks and fossils and all that kind of stuff, yeah, so, but the first thing I did was find a drummer, a guitar player and a harmonica player and a singer, start a blues band and the next thing I know I’m playing all these parties and all this stuff and I wasn’t doing a lot of studying, yeah, yeah.
But it was 1971 at the time and I was being drafted in the army, which I ended up getting out of for allergies. Okay. But a lot of people were, you know, heading to Vietnam at that time. Yeah, yeah.
And so once I got out of that, that which took a while because I kept passing the physicals and I was number three in the lottery, huh, naturally my number got called pretty fast, you know absolutely once I got through with that. I told my parents I need to go to music school and pursue that, because that’s what I really want, that’s my passion, and so I went to berkeley that’s cool.
0:09:24 – Speaker 1
And so like what did you end up like take did you took bass classes, obviously, but like what else did you take while you’re there? I majored in composition and arranging okay, okay I really like the idea of writing my own music I hear you so when they go with that, they teach you how to like a modulate and stuff like that, how to use, how to resolve seventh chords and all the crazy stuff like that.
0:09:45 – Speaker 2
Right, oh yeah, all the theory of composition and arranging, even even modern composition. Well, at the time it was 20th century composition involving a 12 tone, you know all that. All the chromatic notes in the scale, mmm, different kind of harmonic possibilities within that, which is pretty massive.
0:10:08 – Speaker 1
That’s interesting.
0:10:09 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I took big band arranging, small band arranging, composition, had to write some classical stuff, string quartets and all this kind of stuff. But now I mostly write for my own group, which has primarily been a quintet with tenor, sax and trumpet, and before I had guitar, sax, piano, bass and drums. Okay. Sometimes I still use that, but I prefer the two horns because I like to write harmony yeah.
0:10:43 – Speaker 1
That’s cool, that’s really cool. So, like I said, you know you say you graduate berkeley. Yeah, what do you end up doing then?
0:10:50 – Speaker 2
like do you try to start another band or like well I had. I was in a lot of bands at the time, you know, because there weren’t enough bass players there still isn’t I know there’s always a need for bass players and drummers. Yeah, and one of my teachers was Gary Burton, the vibes player, and he always had me play in his class and he told me. He said, you’re always going to work because you’re a bass player.
0:11:18 – Speaker 1
That’s funny.
0:11:19 – Speaker 2
Bass players always work. So, I’ve always had lots of work. So I’ve always had lots of work and what happened was in my senior year at Berkeley, my boss who I’d become friendly with at the time, Richard Appelman. They needed people to teach some little base classes and they hired me part time to do that in my senior year. So I did that for a year and then the next year they asked me if I wanted to do it full-time and I saw the money and I said it wasn’t great.
I mean, compared to what what they pay now it’s, it was like really bad yeah, yeah, I thought it was a good opportunity and to have that job and I took it, continuing my performances and actually at the time I was making more money playing than I was teaching no kidding, that’s funny that did change though gig money never went up yeah, right, however the teaching money did go up and the benefits were added and all that kind of stuff so it’s been a positive and also teaching. You have to have your instrument in your hands every day. Absolutely Show people, and so it just helps you get better yourself too, you know.
0:12:35 – Speaker 1
Yeah, what’s that saying? Like, if you want to learn something, teach it.
0:12:38 – Speaker 2
That’s a good saying, you know like it forces you, you know, to really have to know your stuff.
0:12:45 – Speaker 1
Exactly, yeah, no, totally Like. So, like, well, what’s it? What’s it like being a teacher and, like you know, I mean you kind of said this before you must’ve taught 10, like 10,000 kids, or whatever. Like, what’s that? Like kind of have an effect on them in that way and to encourage them, you know, to to kind of, you know, play an instrument or to be creative. That must be kind of a fun thing to be doing on a daily basis.
0:13:07 – Speaker 2
Well, they already have the desire to play the instrument, you know, and that’s why they came to school, or they? Took lessons with me outside of school or preparing for college. So they already had that desire to want to play and I just look for ways to stimulate their um, their interest in directions, directions that they find uh enjoyable.
You know, like some people want to play punk music and some people want to play funk music and some soul music and pop music and uh, you know, and I I can play all those different things, um, but I’m primarily a jazz player and people realize that if you can play jazz and you can play it pretty well, you can pretty much play any other style yeah, exactly change your rhythmic approach yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:14:00 – Speaker 1
No, you know that that’s actually true. That must be kind of uh, that’s even more exciting thinking about it, like you know, like the kid’s already there because they want to be. It’s not, like you know, like their parents are making kids like take piano lessons when they’re five years old or whatever. This is like a completely different situation. So I like. I also like how you said that you’ve got to find that thing that energizes them. So, like you said, maybe a kid likes punk, so you have to find a way to be like oh yeah, you ever hear this punk bass? Because if you don’t find them where they’re at to make it interesting to learn, they’re going to check out.
0:14:40 – Speaker 2
Oh yeah, I’ve had people come in. First thing they say is I hate jazz. Yeah, oh, yeah, I’ve had people come in, first thing they say is I don’t I hate jazz. Yeah, this doesn’t happen very often, but because they already know that I’m a jazz player and so most of the people that choose to study with me want to learn that stuff.
0:14:56 – Speaker 1
Right right.
0:14:57 – Speaker 2
But you know, at Berkeley sometimes people get put with a teacher and they just, you know, they don’t know what they really want. But yeah yeah, they might not like jazz, so they don’t like it. But then what I’ll do is I’ll find a connection between punk and jazz. That’s cool. You know some kind of a bass line that’s like the same as a jazz bass line, or you know some kind of harmony that matches with jazz, you know. Yeah, yeah.
0:15:24 – Speaker 1
That’s really cool, that awesome to to find them that way. That’s really cool, like. So what do you? What different kinds of classes have you taught there? Or have you kind of always taught the same ish like class while you’ve been there?
0:15:38 – Speaker 2
or how does that I guess.
0:15:39 – Speaker 1
I don’t know how that works either, like if you can choose to teach different classes or whatever yeah, um, I’ve taught a lot of different things.
0:15:48 – Speaker 2
Uh, um, mostly private lessons on bass, and some of those people study with me because they want to be a player and a writer, like they bring their tunes to me to look at them and discuss what could be better or what’s great about them. Whatever, you know. Yeah. And I used to teach I haven’t done it in a couple of years a professional development seminar which was like a capstone course for people getting ready to graduate from Berkeley.
0:16:22 – Speaker 1
Okay.
0:16:22 – Speaker 2
How do you prepare yourself to leave Berkeley and go out? And have a career? Have you got a website yet? Have you got some kind of a presence online? And how about having the goods to show first before you can try to sell yourself? Have you practiced enough? Can you play? Yeah, no, totally. Whatever, but they were students of every kind, like music, business, music therapy, all those kind of things, and it was challenging to uh to teach them, because I don’t those are not my expertises, you know I hear you, I hear you not.
0:17:00 – Speaker 1
Like I guess, again you had to. Uh, did you, did you have to, like um, learn about some of that stuff? To teach it then, like, did you have to brush up some of your knowledge?
0:17:08 – Speaker 2
Well, yeah, what I did was I let them do presentations of their work to the rest of the class. Okay. And then I could critique the presentation, you know, and ask questions, you know.
0:17:20 – Speaker 1
That’s cool, that’s cool yeah.
0:17:22 – Speaker 2
And then they would have to figure explain If they didn’t know. They would have to say well, I gotta work on that one, you know?
0:17:28 – Speaker 1
like, where am I going to get my connections to do this with that, you know, yeah what would you, what would you kind of like, how would you pitch berkeley to like someone that might be interesting, interested in going, or maybe they weren’t interested in going? What is the attitude Of the culture there For musicians and stuff at that school?
0:17:53 – Speaker 2
well, they’re. They’re mostly, you know, people that want to, young people. You know they want to be in the spotlight yeah, yeah yeah, they look. They look at their star for it. You know a lot of. We have a lot of singers at berkeley. You know they’re probably looking at taylor swift. They’re looking at the voice, they’re looking at right right american idol yep america’s got talent, all those shows, and they want to be on there. You know it’s like they’ve been watching it at home.
0:18:21 – Speaker 1
Do students say that? Will students say I want to be on American Idol, that’s why I’m here?
0:18:25 – Speaker 2
They don’t have to say it, I mean it’s kind of obvious that you know with all that you know all that stuff you see it all the time these kids are inspired. My older daughter used to watch Fashion Runway. She ended up going into fashion. That’s funny. She was very inspired by it, she learned how to sew from her mother, and then you know, that’s funny.
So even you have creativity kind of getting passed down through, even through your kids, like even though they’re not, yeah, totally my younger she’s also teaching at berkeley no kidding, yeah, that’s cool she got a job two years ago, teaching at berkeley wow, what does she so?
0:19:10 – Speaker 1
what does she teach?
0:19:11 – Speaker 2
she’s just like a singer songwriter. She that’s cool she, she teaches arranging and ensemble.
0:19:19 – Speaker 1
Wow, do you guys like driving to work at the same time? She doesn’t live at home. There you go.
0:19:26 – Speaker 2
I think she rides her bike most of the time.
0:19:28 – Speaker 1
That’s cool. That must be fun. That’s so cool. That’s really cool. Are there major. I went to berkeley once when I was with. This is like probably 30 years ago I was with my girlfriend from high school I was actually, I think I was still in high school and she was too but her brother went to berkeley. He went to like to for like recording, for recording and studio engineering and stuff like that Sure yeah.
And we went there and, even though I’m blind, my girlfriend was telling me it’s kind of funny you were talking about some guys might not want to play jazz or whatever. Yeah, whatever, yeah, her brother’s roommate, as as he was like walking out of the room and we were starting to go into the room, my girlfriend was like, oh my god, my brother’s roommate has a cannibal corpse t-shirt on and I was like what? I was like, are you serious? And she was like yeah.
0:20:31 – Speaker 2
I was like that’s crazy, yeah, that’s a metal group right yeah yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of people into metal at berkeley too now yeah, no, that that’s so cool.
0:20:43 – Speaker 1
Like my uh a story about my girlfriend’s uh brother. He, he graduated from there, moved down, moves down to nashville, gets it, gets a job at this studio. And I and I was talking to him like I was like, oh so is it cool. Like how is it? Man must be so neat being in like this awesome, you know nashville, you know studio, right, he’s like yeah, he’s like, yeah, we, I guess we recorded this girl. He’s like you ever hear someone called leanne ryan? I was like, yeah, dude, you haven’t heard of her. And he was just Because he was so not in the country. But it was funny yeah.
0:21:23 – Speaker 2
That’s the country capital, isn’t it?
0:21:25 – Speaker 1
Oh no, absolutely. But he told me about some of his classes. It was pretty cool. He’d be like. One class was like you know, they, they wanted you to recreate Sort of like the tonal quality To like the song Purple Haze, so like you had to like sort of like the the tonal quality to like the song purple haze, so like you had to, like you know, get the drums and the guitar and bass and stuff to match kind of like the recording like that’s pretty cool to like learn techniques like that you know yeah wow, that’s really cool.
But, um, were there any like favorite classes that you’ve taught or like, is there anything like kind of sticks out in your mind Like being a teacher? That was cool. That happened while being at Berkeley.
0:22:02 – Speaker 2
Well I, I had a great experience in my. My teachers were all like kind of first generation Berkeley teachers.
You know, the school opened in 45. Okay, and these guys were probably maybe they were students there at that time, but they were. They were all professors, uh, I don’t know if they all went to Berkeley or not, but uh, they were all really great teachers. Uh, some you know pretty well-known people you might not know of them because of Jazz Circles, but Herb Pomeroy taught like writing classes and he was a trumpet player who actually played with charlie parker and, uh, he was friends with duke ellington and he was a brilliant writer for big band and he had a two-year waiting list to take his class wow, yeah yeah, and gary burton, wow, yeah, yeah.
And Gary Burton, you know multi-Grammy winning vibraphonist, you know who did duets and stuff with Chick Corea.
0:23:04 – Speaker 1
That’s cool.
0:23:05 – Speaker 2
And he had his own bands, which I actually got to play tour with him and record with him, which was really nice With Chick Corea, no, with Gary Burton.
0:23:13 – Speaker 1
Oh okay, that’s cool, that’s cool.
0:23:15 – Speaker 2
I met Chick because Gary, because I was with Gary, so I met Chick, but I didn’t get to play with Chick.
0:23:21 – Speaker 1
Dave Weckl is a crazy drummer, yeah, he is yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he’s a crazy drummer. Here’s a podcast. I did a solo podcast on this topic and’d be interested to hear, hear your opinion on this. How do you feel about bass player, just musicians in general, I guess, understanding theory or not understanding theory? Like like kind of like, what’s your opinion on, like guitar players, that, or bass whatever, musicians that just pick up the instrument and they just start playing, they just start, they figure it out or whatever, and they’re like I don’t need to know any of that stuff, like I did it all on my own. Like like what’s your opinion on either knowing or not knowing theory?
0:24:06 – Speaker 2
Okay, well, you know, there’s. There’s a guy who I’m friends with, who’s also a kind of a guest professor at Berkeley, named Victor Wooten. Oh yeah. And so you’ve heard of Victor right.
0:24:18 – Speaker 1
Oh yeah, he’s ridiculous.
0:24:20 – Speaker 2
Well he’s. He’s one of those people who could play incredibly well without knowing what he was doing. However, however, you know, he’s also a very smart guy and and as he’s been playing for all the for many years now, he’s been learning theory as he goes along and he’s actually getting pretty knowledgeable about it. But yeah, he’s one of those natural guys. He was born into a band. He tells that story because his brothers are all musicians and he was the youngest.
0:24:51 – Speaker 1
So you know, basically, and it looks like they needed a bass player. Yeah, exactly.
0:24:58 – Speaker 2
And he’s a natural. There are people that are naturals, yeah he’s totally one of them, absolutely.
0:25:08 – Speaker 1
He’s someone where he could lay down a track and then someone could break it down and be like, yeah, he just modulated, know this key signature to this one and he just you know, like he now he’s in this mode, like he probably does crazy stuff without even realizing it right.
0:25:25 – Speaker 2
I think he’s much more aware now of you know the theory behind what he’s doing, you know because, because my argument here’s, here’s my argument.
0:25:33 – Speaker 1
It’s like I don’t, you don’t have to know it, right? I mean, obviously people play every day without knowing it right. But my, my, my point is you might not know it and you might be able to get all this far this way, and everything but theory is this like musical language that’s been given to us to explain and you know how how all this stuff works. So why would you want not, why would you want, not want to know the language to speak of the thing that you’re doing? You?
know, what I mean, like like the example I give too is like, if I’m jamming with people, do I want to hear, oh, put your first finger on the sixth string, on the second fret, your third fret? No, I want to hear play a g major chord. You know what I’m saying?
like that makes that makes everything playing so much easier than being like you know, telling you where to put every finger. You know what I mean, like that. That’s where, like benefits of knowing you know your theory is, or even your notes, comes into play. You know right.
0:26:29 – Speaker 2
Well, I can pipe in on this um as a teacher and how I told talk to my students who asked me that question. Like they say, do I really need to know this? You? Know I can do xyz?
do I really need to know this? So I said, well, can you do uh? Can you do n? Can you do M, whatever? You know exactly they cannot do that. But that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t figure it out. But here’s the thing I say well, you know, I was at a point in my learning where I didn’t feel I was the quickest at just picking things up immediately and I felt like I needed all the help I could get. And when I was a student of writing I I realized okay, so I’m learning to write music, I’m going to read music, I’m learning to write music, I’m learning to read music, I’m learning theory, and I can use those things to help me better myself as a player. Otherwise I might not learn all that language under my fingers just by playing. Yeah, no exactly.
I see students searching all the time for notes.
0:27:35 – Speaker 1
Well, that’s the thing. If you can hear something and here’s my argument. The thing if you can hear something and here’s my argument too if you can hear it in your head, where a lot of musicians you know will say oh, I hear this song in my head, I gotta get it out, you know, write it down, get it out, or whatever. If you can hear it in your head and you don’t know how to explain in your head what you’re hearing, or how, like, like that’s where theory works. Like in your head, if you figure out like oh, I know this is a g g note or whatever and it’s a perfect fifth away, well, I know, that’s a d. Like you can figure things out in your head that way, instead of, like you know, knocking your head against the wall, being like where is that note? How do you know what? How do what’s the next chord? How should I get to the next thing? I don’t know where I’m going.
0:28:10 – Speaker 2
Now you know, like that’s where theory comes into play to give you the roadmap to get you to where you want to go that’s great and also I always tell people to sing what they want to play and then and then find it on the bass and that way you know they, they actually know they’re singing it first and it’s not just some finger pattern, it’s actually a melodic line or a bass line that’s interesting sing it and then play it and you know, that’s how you become able to know where all your notes are on your bass and and actually feel like you’re singing on the bass.
Yeah, absolutely, you know you’re not just moving your fingers around patterns and stuff you know that that’s actually a pretty good uh way to approach that. I never thought of doing it. That, yeah, absolutely.
0:28:57 – Speaker 1
You’re not just moving your fingers around patterns and stuff. You know, that’s actually a pretty good way to approach that. I never thought of doing it that way. Yeah, well, I guess this will lead into you, know, being able to read music and understand theory and everything.
We were talking before the podcast and you were saying you have, like you know, 100 songs or something like that kind of archived. You’re waiting to like start recording them stuff. Yeah, because, because I asked you, I was like what do you? I know I was like you have it all written down like sheet music. And you’re like, yeah, like that’s the best way right there of how to archive your music.
Because I, I guarantee you, you know people listen to right now at least 50 of them, if not way more grab their phone and they’re like, oh, let me record this real quick, like on their guitar. You know, maybe they’ll hum it into their phone or whatever, but like that, that’s an interesting way of doing it. But like I, I think your way, like you know which people might be like, oh, that’s old school, they might frown upon it or whatever. But like, if you can literally write it down, the sheet music now, it’s just always there Because I’ve heard people when they record their songs sometimes like, oh crap, what was I doing there? I can’t figure out what I was just. How did I do that? And so if you write it down, there’s none of that, you have everything right there. So I find that fascinating that you have it done that way.
0:30:14 – Speaker 2
Well, what you’ve done is opened up a another thing that I meant to talk about before absolutely yeah I with students that they they say do I need to know this, do I need to know that? And I say, well, you have to be able to to sing it and then put it on your base, or you have to write it down so you can have a band play it, whatever, etc. But when I was coming up like I was not a natural.
I didn’t feel like I was a natural, so I needed all the help I could get. And if that meant I had to learn to read music, then I would learn to read music. If it meant that I had to know how to interpret chord changes, that’s the theory I needed to learn. Then I could put my fingers on the bass and, you know, do it that way, in addition to using my ears and figuring out things. Yeah, so I’m getting help from all these angles, you know. Yeah.
I want to be a better reader, so I write things and then I read them on my base, you know. I started out just writing random things. I didn’t know what I was writing and I just looked to try to read it and figure out if it sounded good or not. And eventually I was able to know I can look at music now and just I can hear it just by looking at it that’s so cool.
0:31:29 – Speaker 1
That’s it.
0:31:30 – Speaker 2
That is really cool another thing, too, is I also sing into my phone and I also play into my phone, so, so I use that tool as well.
0:31:41 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I hear you. I feel like it’s just such a lot, even though I don’t do it myself. But there’s a few reasons why I don’t. But I mean I’d like to think I would write down sheet music if I could. Yeah, I’d like to think I would. I would write down sheet music if I could. Yeah, you know, I’d like to think I would. I don’t know if I. I’d say it’s easy to say I would do it, since I I can’t, but but I, just I, because I, because in high school I took two years of uh, of theory in high school and my music teacher, my music teacher, went to yukon and yukon’s like pretty well, like it’s a kind of a music school. I mean it’s not Berkeley, but I know UConn pretty well yeah, uconn’s kind of a music school and he went there.
0:32:22 – Speaker 2
A friend of mine teaches there.
0:32:24 – Speaker 1
Yeah, okay, and my in high school my teacher was like look, I’m teaching you guys like college level stuff right now, like like we, you know, we learned how to modulate, we learned like all of the modes, like we were learning, learning all kinds of stuff.
And I went, I went back to college when I was 30. And and I took I ended up getting a degree in computer science and business administration. But I took a bunch of, like you know, music classes for the electives or whatever music classes for, uh, the electives or whatever, and the the first year of music theory that I took with that college I literally didn’t learn anything. It was I. I learned all of it in high school. I couldn’t believe it. I was like my teacher wasn’t joking, like I, like I seriously didn’t learn anything. This whole, like this whole semester, I knew all this stuff.
It was crazy so but yeah, but back to it. Like, like I said, I, I think theory isn’t like you don’t need like, when I think theory is important, I don’t think people need to sit down and be like okay, I’m gonna write a song, uh, you know, in a minor, and I, you know, I mean like I don’t think people need to sit down and write it all out, like that, I, I, however, I, however, you write music is totally fine, but I just think knowing theory only helps. You know what I mean and that that’s how I, that’s how I talk about it to other musicians, like it’s not going to hurt you or waste your time. Trust me, right, you know, like no, true.
0:33:52 – Speaker 2
Neither is reading music. In fact, for a bass player, I mean, you can get a whole lot of gigs if you can read music no, totally that.
0:33:59 – Speaker 1
I’m telling like that’s what I mean. Like there’s bass players and drummers, like that. I’ve almost considered playing one of those two instruments, just so I could be more in demand to play something. Yeah, you know, it’s like yeah, but uh, so I guess, coming back around to your, like your music then that you have archived, like do you have new stuff you’ve been working on? Is it stuff just from over 20 years?
0:34:25 – Speaker 2
I write every day, so I don’t always get a song. Sometimes I just get a little idea or a little bass part, whatever. So I have all these little things. I keep them in binders and whatnot. Little music.
0:34:39 – Speaker 1
Okay.
0:34:40 – Speaker 2
And then what I’ll do is I’ll. I’ll either, if I don’t have an idea in my head, I’ll open up one of these books and I’ll find one of these little seeds and I’ll make a song. You know, start making a song out of it.
0:34:51 – Speaker 1
Okay, okay, yeah. So, like, like, what do you find more? I guess this could be depending on where you are in the stage of life or whatever, but what do you find more? What’s the word I’m looking for? Not satisfying, but when do you think you’re in your element the most? Is it when you’re writing, or is it when you’re playing live in a band, or is it recording in a studio? What are those things when you’re? Just lost in your.
0:35:21 – Speaker 2
Those are all elements that I feel very comfortable in you know, I’m sitting at my piano right now okay, yeah I, I come here every day to this piano. Uh, I’ve got the piano and I’ve got the bass in the corner nice you know I’ll immediately start doing stuff, uh, right off the bat in the morning no kidding yeah, and it’s.
It’s great because it takes my head out of all the noise that’s going on in the world I hear you and it puts my head into the music, uh, which is a very, very nice place to be absolutely, you know absolutely absolutely it’s like.
0:36:03 – Speaker 1
It’s like a meditation, you know no, I, I get that, especially like I was saying this on another interview like there’s times when I’m playing and I’m so lost in what I’m playing I forget I’m the one producing what I’m hearing right you know what I mean.
Like you’re playing, you know you’re playing in your head and you kind of catch yourself like, oh wait, I’m, I’m producing this, that I’m getting lost and I need to pay attention to producing it. So but yeah, I know I, I totally get that. You know, I I wish I had more of a little more of a routine like that. I guess personally I need to. I I guess I’m I’m creative musically, but I guess I’m also creative in a lot of other ways and that gets me taken away from playing music. I guess, like doing podcasts, I mean, that’s another kind of form of my creativity and so doing stuff like this and other things kind of evolved around. That takes me away from kind of playing guitar. But I kind of envy your schedule there because that sounds like it’s a lot of fun.
0:37:07 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, and I have to say that I find uh teaching to be a creative uh as well, like I find uh ways to get people to do things on their instrument that they can’t do, and I I use, I have all kinds of creative approaches to that.
0:37:26 – Speaker 1
That’s cool.
0:37:26 – Speaker 2
Sometimes individual students will actually give me the idea I’m trying to solve a problem that they have, specific problem that they have. Yeah. I look at their fingerings or wherever it is and I figure out this would be a really good exercise for this person and I’ll write it right down for them in the lesson on music paper and say take this home and practice this. I’ll show it to them first. We’ll practice together a little bit. Okay, go home and do the same thing, you know that’s cool. Yeah.
0:37:55 – Speaker 1
That’s really cool. So like what, so, like what, like it obviously doesn’t eat at you. Then to like, have all this kind of like, you know, you know, if you have 100 songs to kind of record, it’s not like itching at you to like.
0:38:10 – Speaker 2
Well, do you?
0:38:11 – Speaker 1
feel a sense of accomplishment or finish Sorry to cut you off, but do you feel like? You feel like you want to say finish it, but do you find like a sense of satisfaction, like having the song completely written or whatever out on paper and that’s almost like having it recorded, in a sense, to you anyways okay, yeah, but I also have a a residency in a venue in cambridge mass. It’s called the lily pad I think I’ve heard of that place I basically play there once every two months on a tuesday night that’s cool.
0:38:44 – Speaker 2
And I assemble a group and I bring in my music. You know that my most current writing stuff and I play it with a band.
We have a quick sound check, run down a few things and then we play, we play a performance, and so a lot of times it gets either recorded or videotaped. So in that sense, you know, I, I also can hear if I want to make a change in a piece that I, you know the way I wrote it, you know it could be better, uh, before I go in the studio and record it. So doing it at the gig allows me to hear how the band plays it and and get a sense of well, maybe I should have had that part up an octave, or et cetera, et cetera, various ideas you know, or how to end a piece differently, or you know what I mean.
0:39:29 – Speaker 1
Yeah, no, totally.
0:39:31 – Speaker 2
So it’s always like an experiment as well. We call it kind of being in the laboratory.
0:39:37 – Speaker 1
That’s cool. That’s cool. That sounds like an awesome time.
0:39:42 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and I used to have a lot of sessions in my basement studio where I’d just pull out my music and we’d read through things, and I have a little recorder down there and I could just record it, you know, and listen back.
0:39:54 – Speaker 1
That’s cool, that’s awesome.
0:39:56 – Speaker 2
How I would change things, you know.
0:39:58 – Speaker 1
That’s very cool.
0:40:00 – Speaker 2
A big part of writing too, is editing. You know Like there’s a tendency to write too much stuff and then you got to take out stuff and you end up with a real nice piece at the end yeah, so it’s not like everyone writes down something perfectly the first time, it’s always right, you do get lucky now and then, and that’s that does happen, but and usually those are the best songs yeah yeah, honestly, yeah, honestly, yes, sometimes you need to spend more time. You know, on a piece yeah.
0:40:29 – Speaker 1
So, bruce, what, what kind of advice would you give to any aspiring, you know, musicians, but even like, I guess, creative people, like what? What would you kind of tell them to, like, you know, maybe someone’s kind of like in their head and they’re not sure if they should, you know, start doing something or whatever, or maybe they are thinking about playing bass or whatever like. What advice would you give them, as kind of a creative person or someone that teaches? How would you encourage that person to kind of get out of their head and just do it?
0:40:58 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I would suggest. You know so much of being a musician is listening.
It’s like it’s at least half the job is to listen. That’s what I would say. First is to listen to music. You listen to what you like. See if you want to play that, or listen to things that you haven’t really listened to yet. Get exposed to some different things. You know, Some people just grab onto one thing and they never go beyond it. When I get a student that, for instance, never heard of John Coltrane or you know, or Miles Davis, yeah, yeah, it’s kind of shocking, but it does happen.
And so I turn them on to that stuff and they go oh my God, wow, that’s incredible. Yeah, I say yeah. Well, you know this record kind of blew. You know all your famous, your favorite rock bands and everybody else all listened to that record.
0:41:57 – Speaker 3
you know they all, yeah, yeah. Everybody knows that, knows that yeah.
0:42:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah, so if you haven’t checked it, you, that’s something you got to do.
0:42:06 – Speaker 1
Absolutely.
0:42:07 – Speaker 2
Yeah, so, like another, they want to play soul music. Well, check out James Brown. You know, see a lot of they. They see people on the internet like a Wolfpack or you know contemporary bands that do the things in their living rooms and whatever. And they they don’t realize that those people, they learned what they’re doing by listening to what happened before them.
0:42:33 – Speaker 1
Exactly, they did not just hear stuff. Yeah.
0:42:38 – Speaker 2
So they got what they have from listening to other people and then that comes out of their voice differently, but it’s the same stuff. Yeah, they need to realize that, that you know they should go back and and listen to all this stuff. It’s been so much great stuff you know, recorded absolutely 100 years yeah, yeah, no, seriously, that’s.
0:43:00 – Speaker 1
That’s actually really good advice. I actually actually heard Dave Mustaine, the guitar player from Megadeth. He’s actually quite an insightful person. He said almost that very same thing. When I heard him say it in an interview, that got me because he was like oh, you like my guitar playing, you like how I play? Well, you should listen to the bands. That got me to start playing guitar. He’s like I like this guy, I like this guy, I like this guy. I’m like and he was like, honestly, he’s like if you like someone, you need to figure out whoever they liked and start listening to who they they listen to. I’m like, wow, I’m like that’s interesting. I never, I never thought of that.
0:43:36 – Speaker 2
You know what I mean like it’s a, it’s a thread to the, to the source you know exactly, yeah, no, totally, totally and Totally. And that’s fun in itself. Just to trace a thread back to the you know, as far back as you can.
0:43:50 – Speaker 1
Yeah, try to find the actual beginning of it, right.
0:43:52 – Speaker 2
Exactly yeah.
0:43:54 – Speaker 1
Yeah, no, totally, totally. Well, Bruce, it’s been awesome having you on. Is there anything else you want to go over? Anything I might have overlooked or we didn’t get a chance to discuss I might have overlooked or we didn’t get a chance to discuss.
0:44:06 – Speaker 2
No, I mean, I think the idea of embracing the storm creative storm, if you will is that what it is?
0:44:13 – Speaker 1
Well, yeah, when I say embrace the storm, I almost mean like the storm that’s brewing up inside of someone right Like you know they’ve been. They’ve been through troubles, tribulations, trials, whatever, right.
So they have this storm brewing up in them and or my other sort of thing. Alongside of that is I feel like a storm can be brewing up in someone if they don’t have a creative outlet, which is why I want to help them find it. So it’s kind of two things going on. I want the person to embrace their trials and tribulations and channel that stuff through their creative outlet.
0:44:48 – Speaker 2
That’s good, that’s really good, and as a musician who spends every day a lot of the day doing music, I actually need other ways to have other outlets. I do like little woodwork projects that’s cool yeah I made a whole bunch of like small hardwood boxes that are very artistic that’s cool and lately I’ve been making iphone stands that’s really cool out of hardwood.
0:45:19 – Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s cool yeah yeah, like I said, bruce, I everyone has a creative inkling. Some have more than others. I I truly think people like a lot. Of you know obviously a lot of other reasons, but I really feel like some people that are frustrated in life.
It’s because they don’t have that creative outlet, or maybe they’re afraid of doing it Cause they’re afraid of someone being like oh, that’s stupid or that sucks, or you know what I mean. So I think a lot of people hold back from that too, just being worried about criticism and all that stuff, Sure, and worried about failing too. I think a lot of people are worried about oh what if I buy a bass and I try playing it and I suck at first? It’s like, well, yeah, everyone sucks at first.
You know what I mean Like like. Well, yeah, everyone sucks at first. You know. You know what I mean like like. People don’t realize that. They think, oh, you know. When they watch people on youtube and instagram and all this stuff, they’re like oh, that person’s insane, I can’t, I can never play like that.
0:46:13 – Speaker 2
I’m not gonna bother trying, yeah there’s a certain amount of work involved. I mean to get to those points where you can be expressive and feel, um, like it’s coming. It’s coming to you as easy as breathing, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that takes an effort to get over that hump of what it takes to do to get the sounds you want and all that. You know where your hands go, et cetera. Absolutely.
Another thing. So, before we sign off, I want to make a plug. Oh yeah, sign off, I want to make a plug. Oh yeah. People to visit my website, brucegertzcom, and and also to, if they happen to be in the area of Boston. I’m going to be at the Lilypad August 27. And I’ve got a great band great quintet Awesome. And I also want to give my daughter a plug Eva Gertz, e-v-a-g-e-e-r-t-z. She’s fantastic. She’s got a good presence online. She’s a singer, songwriter. Her music’s beautiful that’s awesome.
0:47:12 – Speaker 1
I have a daughter named eva, so that’s funny. Oh yeah, that’s cool.
0:47:17 – Speaker 2
One letter off, yeah how old is your daughter? She’s uh 16 oh yeah 31 yeah that’s fun.
0:47:25 – Speaker 1
the uh, but yeah that 31. Yeah, that’s fun, but yeah, she’s not musical, but she’s definitely creative. She’s into clothes design and stuff like that.
0:47:33 – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s what my older daughter did too.
0:47:37 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and your last name, bruce, spell out Gertz, just so people know it.
0:47:41 – Speaker 2
G-E-R-T-Z.
0:47:47 – Speaker 1
Yeah, so it ends with a Z people, people not s, like you might think so, right, um, but yeah, bruce, it’s been, uh, it’s been awesome having you on and uh, thank you, yeah, it’s been great, and thanks so much for your time.
0:47:54 – Speaker 2
I really appreciate it not a problem, I’ve been enjoying having this discussion yeah, I’d love to have you back on another time at some.
0:48:01 – Speaker 1
You know, if you ever have anything else you want to talk about or discuss, or sure what? What are? This is a a topic I’ll throw out there that I’d love to talk about, and I don’t know if you’re like knowledgeable you know your knowledge is too deep or whatever but I’d love to talk to someone about, like, music therapy oh, yeah, like like the effects of that, like I don’t know much about it.
I know, I mean, I know a little bit, but like I’d love to talk to someone about that and I don’t know much about it. I mean, I know a little bit, but like I’d love to talk to someone about that and I don’t. So I don’t know if you have any expertise in that area or whatever I do have.
0:48:29 – Speaker 2
I do have the experience of performing at nursing homes.
0:48:33 – Speaker 1
Oh, that’s, interesting Okay.
0:48:35 – Speaker 2
And what I’ve noticed is like people in nursing homes like they’ll be in units like where they an Alzheimer’s unit or a dementia units and whatever like were they an Alzheimer unit or a dementia units and whatever, and they, they may not say a word or do anything, just but sit in a chair.
But when you play a song and it it stimulates something, that a memory or something to them. Yep, yep, oh man. I’ve seen, I’ve seen 90 something year old guys get up and start dancing. I’ve seen other people sing along. I’ve seen people get like they just wake up from.
0:49:05 – Speaker 1
Yeah yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s this I can’t remember the exact I think it’s called the music on your brain, or something like that. I I’ve read tons of books, um, and and one of them I think this might have been the book where it said there are these five points in your brain and I can’t remember these five points. But the point of this is, music is the only thing that touches all five points of your brain.
0:49:31 – Speaker 2
That’s right.
0:49:32 – Speaker 1
And I was like that is so interesting and so like, like you said, you a guy could hear a song that’s 96. When that music into that’s enlarged his brain, hits that point in his brain, it just triggers all those memories and everything and like music is so powerful it’s, it’s just so crazy what it can do to people I know, you know, so I I’m gonna go off on another tangent, but I I’d love to have you back on, though, and talk more about that, or if you have, you know, or if you had anyone else you’d want to like, bring on and have, like a table discussion or something that’d be really cool.
0:50:04 – Speaker 2
Well, there’s a friend of mine who who teaches music therapy. He’s also a great singer, great sax player and a very nice guy.
0:50:12 – Speaker 1
His name is stan strickland I think it’s kind of familiar for some reason yeah, he’s.
0:50:17 – Speaker 2
You know, he’s got a name yeah and and uh, he has a website and all that too, and his name is Stan and his last name is Strickland S-T-R-I-C-K-L-A-N-D. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you can check him out. Yeah. He might be able to talk about music therapy more. He’s teaching that at school.
0:50:42 – Speaker 1
Yeah, that’d be awesome. But yeah again, bruce, again I want to go off on a side tangent or whatever. But I greatly appreciate your time and I wish you well in all your endeavors. And don’t forget he’ll be at the LilyPad August 27th, brucegertzcom, and you can check out evagertzcom too. I’ll put links in the show notes to the websites and stuff too. I’ll put links and.
I’ll put links in the show notes to the websites and stuff too. Great, great, so awesome. Bruce, thanks so much for your time. You have any any final words for the audience?
0:51:12 – Speaker 2
You know, keep singing and swinging, there you go. That’s the best way to do it, and everyone.
0:51:18 – Speaker 1
Thank you for listening, thank you for downloading. We’ll see you next time. Embrace your storm, see ya.
0:51:23 – Speaker 2
OK, thank you Bye.