Playing wrong notes with Victor Wooten 

Don’t miss around 10:31 where Victor intentionally tries to make me mess up by playing in different keys and syncopations 😂

Came for a music lesson, left with a life lesson.

Universally all bass player - "Music Theory is the law" Victor Wooten - "I am the law...."

"Theory only comes in if there's a problem, if I need it. Theory is a tool, and like riding in a car, the tools are in the trunk. They're not in the passenger seat. I hope I never need the tools!" Brilliant analogy.

“These are all the notes, you tell me which is wrong”. That’s the funkiest shit ever spoken.

"Theory only comes in if there's a problem." "Theory is a tool."

"This has been my favorite chord progression since high school." Victor : "ya I use that one to tune my guitar."

Victor Wooten is so good that tuning his bass is the opening to a triple Plat album

What he nonchalantly does to “reshape the groove” starting around 12:35 is one of the coolest and grooviest things I’ve ever heard. What a legend!

7:05 "the coolest notes are the wrong ones". Well who knew after all this time that my playing was cool after all

"I can play in the totally wrong key so well that it will make you sound wrong..." -Victor Wooten 2020

Best statement Victor made was that "it is the context in which the notes are being played that matter. There are no wrong notes." That concept is what is "missing" in music education today.

12:30 gave me goosebumps with that harmonics man what a great player

"I don't know the key. but I don't care." -victor wooten 2020

"We don't drive around with the tools in the passenger seat, they're in the trunk." - Just might be some of the best advice I've heard that goes for anything.

"Because it's the wrongness that grabs your emotions." Well that's cool. I'm the most emotional player there is.

Victor is such a gem in the music industry. Guy feels like that Dad you wish you had lol

"Theory only comes in if there's a problem" Possibly the most valuable line ever uttered in relation to Music theory!!!

I love how uncomfortable he looks when he's shitting on music theory XD

Everytime I rewatch them I learn something new. Everything Victor says sounds like a friendly chat but is actually really profound for learning how to play musically.

This video is over a year old now, and it has been the only youtube video that has actually given me good advice. Victor teaches so well how to not focus on the technicality, and just feel it. I really appreciate this video, and remember it every time I play.

12:31: “That’s cool. This is cooler. I’m gonna reshape his groove to make him sound better.” Causally activates GOD MODE. I don’t play bass. I don’t play guitar. I keep coming back to this video because it’s ridiculously impactful. Eyes, ears and heart wide open. This is beautiful.

Gandalf: "A bass player doesnt play wrong, nor does he play right. He plays precisely like he's meant to"

It’s freaking intimidating to play through with Victor Wooten! Well done!

VW is one of the most humblest music legends. Apart from the musical advices he gives, he always slips in a moral lesson which is so uplifting. Just like his music!

"So, as a rhythm section musician, my job is not to just play with him; it is to make him sound better" This is GOLD

When Wooten pointed to the audience member and said: "Look at you head now right?" Well he might as well be pointing through the screen

I've probably watched this over a hundred times. The harmonics Victor plays at 12:37 is probably the best I've ever heard on bass

Victor: Just groovin’ Tyler: Don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up

"If you can play wrongly , you can play rightly" -My hero and a very friendly bass player Victor Wooten DUUUDE I LOVE THIS MAN

Wootens tuning method is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever played 😂

I’ve seen this video like 10 times and still, every time I see it recommended, I watch it again. I don’t even play bass but Victor is just such a master and his insight is second to none. There’s few people who I can say have as much musical knowledge as he does. Put simply, he has the feel and also has the intelligence to explain it. You rarely see people with both those traits.

Victor Wooten never ceases to amaze me. His music philosophy is so liberating, groovy and fun ❤

Plot twist: he played the wrong note accidentally then made up the whole lesson to pass it off as intentional

“Your job as the rhythm section is to make other people sound better.” Victor Wooten everybody.

I'm watching this for the second time and 5:28 further cements it in my mind that bass and guitar have their own roles and feed into and off of each other.

Honestly, the part around 11:41 where they’re both playing in totally different keys still sounds fantastic to me, reminds me a lot of the album “birds of fire” by the mahavishnu orchestra, that album is very heavy on polytonality

"I can play in the total wrong key so well...that I can make *you* sound wrong." 😂😂😂😂

Victor: "My job is not to just play with him. My job is to make him sound better." Tyler: "You're hired!" Victor: "That's what ends up happening." 👌😂

I could listen to Victor Wooten talk about music all day long

Victor is the man! One of the best live performance ever and the stories he tells are just as good as his music.

"Theory only comes in if there's a problem" is some of the most sage shit I've ever heard with music honestly.

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” - Pablo Picasso

Awesome!!! Victor has always been my favorite bassist for close to 15 years now, and I was lucky enough to see him in a drum-bass duet concert 10 years ago which was an absolute treat. Still the most musically impressive concert I’ve ever been to

Without a doubt Victor Wooten is not only the worlds greatest Bassist, but he is so skilled and accomplished he could probably even make an amateur musician sound godly.

Victor isn't just a talented bassist, he's a talented musician. Very fun to watch.

This guy just turned a technical video into a spiritual one. He's like a motivational speaker! VICTOR WOOTEN you're a legend! ❤️

This was really insightful. Tyler always does a great job going with the flow of the people he interviews and walking with something cool

This was mindblowing to me. I m A theory guy who always is looking for those other notes and chords that make a song pop. This is truly a great lesson in how to think about it.. or ... how "not to think" about it !

The interview felt like a kid asking questions about space to NASA.

with 30 years of playing I think this is the best lesson Ive ever heard. Spectacular

Victor's bass tone is glorious!!! Between his fingers, that Fodera, and his Hartke, just perfect!

Victor is awesome and i love his attitude on keeping music special even as we live in the "i want it right now" age. Such an incredible person and outlook on life.

"tired of learning music from random youtube videos?" - no Fender Play ad... i'm not

“The tools are in the trunk” if you have to pull out the tools you broke something. God that’s great.

Exactly Victor! Everything back then was so special 😔 today's its all messed up. He's very spiritually balanced and I could listen to Wooten all day long. Stay blessed 🙏🏽

What an amazing guy! A man of his abilities and talent and profile, humble and patient and kind enough to teach. Need more people like him! Glad you had the chance to meet, learn and jam with him.

This reminds me of a quote from Herbie Hancock, where Herbie once asked Miles Davis about ways to improve soloing. Davis replied with "Don't play the bottom notes", meaning don't play the notes below the root, but Herbie misheard him and thought he said, "Don't play the butter notes", which Herbie interpreted as "Don't play the notes that are comforting or are what people expect to hear". Herbie said next live show he incorporated that idea into his solo and got a standing ovation, and now lives by "not playing the butter notes".

This is seriously one of the dopest lessons ever. No joke.

This applies to not just music, but EVERYTHING in our lives. This is literally a lesson for LIFE.

I'm 36 and his "Show of Hands" album was one of the first CD's I bought in my teens. Very inspiring for a kid to hear that much emotion thru a 4 string. Thank you Mr. Wooten for motivating me to practice more too.

I remember jazz band when telling us to do a solo he always said “ There are no wrong notes, just wrong choices.”

Victor “ No body hired you to play the right key” me: got kicked out of band for not playing with the right key 😂

Tyler, you said "maybe go back and watch it a second time". i think i first watched this video about a year ago. i watch it every few weeks. every time it comes back up on my feed. every time i watch it i not only learn something new, but it gets me in the right mindset to not be afraid to learn to "speak" with my instruments. i really hope to run into you and Victor next year at NAMM.

Playing the wrong notes is dangerous and that’s why using them right requires mastery. In the hands of a gifted surgeon, wrong notes create classic moments in music

13:17 "You're hired" "That's what ends up happening" Haha, smooth and savage. ^^

13:07 As a drummer, finding bandmates that think this way is so satisfying.

This was such an amazing video to watch, I can't believe I am just seeing this now. I haven't really had any lessons in my guitar journey, but I've learned so much from this one video than I ever have on my own.

Victor is such a wholesome dude. Glad to see you playing with him!

“I don’t have perfect pitch but I don’t care”

Victor Wooten is on a whole different level. When you think he’s teaching you how to be a better musician he actually teaching you how to be a better human being.

I now reference this video at any practice or show I’ve played in the last few months. Thank you to both of you for opening my mind.

always love to hear Victor talk, he gets his message across so good, no need to flex just pure musicality

I get the feeling that Tyler can barely contain his fanboyism and is just thinking "OMG I'M PLAYING GUITAR WITH VICTOR WOOTEN OMG I'M PLAYING GUITAR WITH VICTOR WOOTEN" during this entire video lol

“Theory only comes in if there’s a problem; is a tool. Like riding in a car, the tools are in the trunk, not in the passenger seat. I hope I don’t have to use it” As a music producer and music student I spent a lot of time focusing on theory and trying to get very technical. I started actually finishing tracks when I let things flow and started using my ears. Very wise musician.

"Your job as a human being is to make other human beings better"

Got to see Victor when he came to a small college town in northern CA when I was in high school with a buddy who played bass and was hooked on him. 20 years later he’s still doing amazing things and I enjoy it even more since I’ve started learning how to play guitar. Great video!

Victor breaks it down in a relatable way that doesn’t stress me out.

Had a chance several years ago to meet and visit with Victor Wooten, I’m really bad at bass but He was so nice and made me feel like we had been friends for a long time. He has great philosophy and yes he made me feel comfortable missing a note and showed how everyone has been a bass player just listening to music, he also said the most influential people in the world make music, think about it, a musician can ask 100k people to quiet down and they will. Not even your favorite political figure has that influence over people. A year later I met him in a crowd again and he remembered me, I didn’t ask he just said your that guy from.... made a nobody like me feel pretty special if only for a moment.

Such a cool video, watched again and after few moths and it is still great. Certainly a gem in your collection.

9:53 i like how everything gets quiet exept for the bass Like in movies

12:26 Anybody else catch Victor flicking a drop D switch after the start of that groove once he realised he needed to go lower than the E lmao

This dude makes so much sense. “Theory only comes in if something is wrong”. Big chunk to analyze there.

Victor Wotten - the Maestro. What a music philosophy and inspiration in reshaping the melody trough harmony. Of course you were great in rhythm lines. Thank you for the video. 👍

This was one of the coolest and most useful videos I have ever seen! Wooten communicated his thoughts extremely well in such a short amount of time!

Victor is just jamming and Tyler is freaking out hoping he doesn't mess up in front of Victor "Wrong Notes" Wooten

“My audience wants to know theory” My guy: I don’t use theory

I love victors understanding of music. So natural. A real inspiration. Thank you for the video.

That last “do ba do ba do do” bass part is gonna be in my head all day now lmao. Such a fun and wise video man. Thanks for sharing this.

This video should be mandatory in music schools. Everywhere.

His analogy of Music theory to talking really clicked with me. We know the rules of language (hopefully) well enough to manipulate to our needs and achieve our goal. Music theory is like the rules of music, once mastered, can be manipulated to achieve something new/ different.

By far, this is my fave you’ve posted!

This is my single favorite music education video. I love everything about this, the approach, the thought process, this is seriously valuable information.

i swear... this man just KNOW'S music. he could write thousand page books on theory, as deep and experimental as john coltrane... but understands that music is a journey, and he's the conductor. feeling!!! feeling!!! that's the key... i love this guy.

"Theory only comes in when there's a problem" - genius words from a genius artist. #GeniusWooten

Best music lesson I have ever gotten

Victor is such a great bass player that just listening to him talk about playing is extremely interesting. Glad to have seen him live 2 or 3 times with Bela Fleck.

From conversation: - I can tell you even before we start, that I will not be thinking about music theory. I’m tell you that right away This people don’t want to hear my theory come out of here(means guitar), they want to hear my passion(my emotion, my feel), they don’t care about how much theory I know - We learn theory in order to be right, but what gets your attention is the wrongness. As soon as I play note not in a key, you say woooo (point finger to the guitar), right. So we need to learn theory well enough that we could be wrong with it. - Nobody hires me to play the right key, they hire me to make groove. - Check it out, I don’t know what key, I don’t have perfect pitch, but I don’t care, because you’re not gonna dance to the key, you dance to the groove. - The contex make it right, not the pitch. We teach you pitch, but we should teach you context. You can put any note into that groove context and it will work. - A lot of the time I see is the instrument in a tune by playin chords. That much more fun than this(play melodycs). I like to make music. - Main thing is if I groove hard enough I can play any notes and you will like it. - I can play in a total wrong key so well, that I can make you sound wrong. - Sometimes to make him sound better I play in a different place. - My job is not just play with him, my job is to make him sound better. - We don’t teach that, we teach musician how to sound better, when you job on the guitar as rythm section … your job is to make other people sound better. And zero people teach you that.

"These are all the notes. You tell me which ones are wrong." Love that... not sure I could pull that off but it sure does sound nice.

i loved the video. Its hard to see Victor in this types of videos, just like he said. And the way he teaches its so clear. I will rewatch the video woth other friends because im just in the moment where the theory goes aside, focusing in highlighting the message and emotion of the music and its lyrics. Amazing video, congratulations on playing beside Victor!