This short piece came out better than I had hoped. Wasn't sure the final result was going to work given the busy, slap bass style used from start to finish. Listen, then read on!
Practice Exercise to Derek Sherinian?
I wrote the bassline about two years ago when I was spending a lot of time practicing my double-thumb slap technique. I remember Victor Wooten demonstrating how to do the double-thumb slap technique from his first instructional video many, many years ago. One of the first exercises he demonstrated used the major scale. Of course, I practiced this. Victor Wooten suggests you do something, you do it!
After staying with the major scale for a bit, I had an urge to practice some more "metal" sounding exercises. So I wrote a few double-thumb practice routines using the harmonic minor scale. After a year of on an off practice with these exercises, I began to record them. In fact, here's one now...
The fourth or fifth practice exercise ended up becoming "Dragon's Breath." Started out simple enough and then, like a lot of things, evolved into something more. I liked it so much I wrote a drum line for it. No way I was going to write the guitars so Brett happily offered to do all the guitars. And I also heard keyboards. But where to find a metal keyboardist? And one who could keep up with Brett?
It was around May of 2020, after we first started publishing Radius80 material, that I saw Derek Sherinian's "Sherinian Sessions" pop up in my Instagram feed. What is this? I thought. It says, "I [Derek Sherinian] want to play on your record?" Derek Sherinian wants to play on my record? The Derek Sherinian from Dream Theater, Sons of Apollo and many other projects? That Derek Sherinian wants to play on my record?!?
Good thing, a year later, Derek was still offering "Sherinian Sessions." I brushed off the digital dust, sent the track to Brett for the guitars, contacted Derek and within a couple of days, we had the guitars, keyboards, bass, and drums.
It's still a busy slap bass line. But it works.
- DD
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