Victor Wooten’s Unique Approach to Improvising 

Full Video Here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nrYBUoGEFz8.htmlsi=7UH9hKJ0lCAX26wy

"We applaud a child's effort, not the result. But we look at the result as we get older, when its the effort that really matters" This is profound, beyond music.

I love how Victor relates music stuff in a non musical way. Like he was saying ‘when a child crawls across a guitar’ ‘we applaud the effort, not the result’. The other example of telling your spouse “I love you” the different ways

Victor is a musical sage, I am convinced. I’ve never heard an unwise or unlikeable thing come out of his mouth OR his bass.

I have personally seen Victor do that “ see how bad you can solo” exercise with people. It’s pretty amazing. It does a lot. It breaks the ice, it gets everyone smiling, and it breaks the tension in the air. You can also tell how bold or safe someone is by how they are willing to do the exercise. Victor is an amazing teacher.

Victor is an incredible musician! Never knew that he had Dystonia. Glad that he is getting help and can still play!

Victor is not just a bass player, not just a musician, he is an ambassador to teach the world about being a musician. He is the joy that music creates. A walking legend and a great human being.

Scott Devine has spoken about focal dystonia also. He's able to mitigate his with gloves. Thank you Rick, and thank you Victor! One of my biggest musical inspirations!

"Play poorly" - that's such an incredibly cool idea in terms of improvising.

Victor Wooten has one of the best approaches to music of any musician I have heard. His style of teaching how to play musical instruments is genius. His story of how he learned music growing up and how he came to play bass is an inspiring story. Great interview Rick.

“Let’s have a bad playing competition!” Loool I love that

So much wisdom here - in just 8 minutes - about improvisation, creative freedom, and self care. Thank you, Rich & Victor.

Love it! Been playing guitar for over 50 years ( most these years professionally) and YES Improvisation is the Most fun, ever learning, better learning music and jamming then anything! ENJOYING YOUR CRAFT will always make you better at it!

Victor is an amazing human being! He literally saved my son’s life with his music and beautiful heart. We got to meet him in Elgin last month and he is everything and more than we expected. ❤️

This is great. I've been really listening to a lot of musicians talk about this lately. It's so nice to hear and it's reshaping how I think about learning.

went to flecktones concerts around 10 years ago and got my mind blown. Victor played a solo including detuning his bass on the fly while going crazy...jawdropping..they are all incredible musicians..recommend also the music by Fleck/Hussain/Meyer

What an interesting and useful conversation!!! Thank you, gentlemen!!!

His new book is really fascinating, called The Spirit of Music. Victor is a very intelligent and thoughtful person.

What a vibe… Vic is the MAN.

Mr. Wooten is an amazing musician and more importantly an amazing human being. What a teacher and guide. God bless 😎

Always love Victor's views on stuff!!

I love victor! Cant wait to see this whole interview!

Thank you, both! 💜

A GREAT interview with Victor! Thank you Rick!

Victor is one the most humble and genuine musicians I have had the pleasure to meet.

One of the greatest musicians and teachers ever. What a legend. So glad you had him on.

America should be proud b/c of u !! u are no 1 in the world !!!

I've had the pleasure of seeing Victor live with the Flecktones several times. He's so cool.

Great post Rick! Victor is a treasure!

Well said. Love it! All my life in every band I've ever been in (over 50 years) I've always said let's jam first because to me that is the most important thing musicians can do is to have a musical conversation and get to know each other musically. Without fail they always will say, we don't have time, we need to learn these songs for the upcoming gig. I have finally found as bass player and drummer who get it. We always jam while recording it and then find the golden nuggets and write music that way. It's fantastic!

Victor has been my favorite musician since the beginning of the Flecktones. I was so happy he referenced Snarky Puppy!

Victor is so full of knowledge yet so humble and respectful of the learning process. Much respect!

It's one of your best interviews. Victor's insights are amazing.

You can only LOVE this guy. Have been listening for well over 25 years... Bless U, Vic.

one of the truly great players, teacher, thinkers

Man I ❤ Victor Wooten. I first admired him for his playing, and then I listened to him speak. He’s just the best. Keep on keeping on man.

I play tenor & baritone sax. My improvisation was stilted so I hunted out a tutor. I went through four kind, willing tutors who taught me all sorts of interesting technical stuff that made sense. I knew why an improvisation could work BUT I was still clumsy. A new alto joined our group and she came up to and offered some help, she was so”natural” in her improvisation. Basically she just got me noodling around over backing tracks, learning things organically. She’d record me when I’d started to pull some good sounds and then we’d listen, analyse and understand. Eventually I got the confidence just to drop in what I felt was ok and could feel experience rather than theory guiding me. We often dissect something to understand how it works. Unfortunately dissection means you’ve killed your subject.

This is a great interview. I'm gonna implement this advice. ❤

great interview (as always!)

His book the music lesson is amazing

Thank you Rick for being authentic and true to you and improvising in the moments of life. your solid. I hope to meet you one day. and it would be a gift of God to have you produce and collaborate on music one day

Tried this!! It is amazing 🙏🙏🙏🔥

Wow. What an interesting, and encouraging, way to look at improvisation

love victor. He says it perfectly!

This is true of all art, all creativeness.. we MUST move beyond what we "know" or are comfortable with to expand...

Such good stuff

I love the freedom and spontaneity I used to see at every concert back in the day. Technology has changed it. Love Vic. Seen him and Bela about 94 or so. Bumbershoot. Stood about 5', 10' away, lots of old pics. Amazing.

Awesome video

Wow. What a great interview.

I love Victor!❤

Victor should get in touch with David Leisner, a well known classical guitarist in NYC. He cured himself from focal dystonia and has helped countless players over the years. Please pass this on to him, Rick!

Great conversation!! Late subscriber, didn’t know you had a second channel!

love it !

Truly, truly, not only is Victor The Man on Bass, but also the most favored among musicians because of his wisdom, insight, & humility. (Can never say enough good things about Victor!)

I have to meet Vic one day. He is like the Dalai Lama of music. Always spitting out these one liners that juat make you rethink everything you ever knew. And its always the simplest analogies too! The most excellent teacher

Love this ❤❤❤

Love this dude

Great advice.

Excellent

He's absolutely correct

As always, Victor Wooten shares with us a constant stream of golden advice combined with humility. Most of us will never be able to play like him, but we can all learn his philosophical approach to playing music. It is sad to learn that he is having hand issues though.

Great video rick this will get more people to take up music without worrying about perfection

Victor is so brilliant.

Deep respect to Victor Wooten!

Awesome stuff. Im still mad at myself that he was in town and I missed getting to see him live.

Real cool!

I saw Victor when he was with Bela Fleck back in the 90's and he was incredible. Also saw him on tour with Stanley Clarke and again just a phenomenal musician with a phenomenal performance. I hope he can manage his condition and continue making great music.

He is one hell of a human being. The best!!! 😊

1 off the best ever. Legend!

One of the GREATS, on ALL levels!

He is so right

Who doesn’t wanna listen to the words that come out of Victor’s mouth💐💐💐 he’s super intelligent!!! I’m not in just music I hear the way he speaks and the language that he uses🥰🥰🥰 I’m very impressed!!! And I learn a super a lot about music🔊🔊🔊 every time I listen!!! Thank you so much!!! The world needs people like you Victor🎉🎉🎉

Victor is so right!

I just love Victor

Victor is so smart and so articulate. Lovely guest

I needed to see this beautiful human being, this morning.

“Permission” is a powerful word, if put into action, in the world of music.

Inspiring.

My biggest bass inspiration ❤

True wisdom from Victor. Improvising literally means doing something unforeseen, which immediately explains why it's not easy, by definition. But I always love to try.

I saw foo fighters last month and almost every song became a jam. Great improvisation

What a fantastic teacher. Brilliant. Mr. Wooten should be training teachers.

Man, that's some great advice.

Victors one of those players that I enjoy listening to his ideas as much as his playing.

Word. New Chan el. Subscribed.

Please, get in touch with Scott Divine. He has a focal dystonia and he made some videos about it, explaining why he wears gloves while playing the bass.

Victor is a real life guru. What a great man.

Victor woooten is such a class act.

That's how i learned to stay free when i play the bass. I think of it as throwing a monkey wrench in the works. As soon as i feel like i'm thinking too much and i'm kind of trapped and wondering what to do- or even if i just feel like the stuff i'm playing is boring- i'll throw a wrench in it. I make it as loose as possible- open strings, sliding around the neck all willy nilly etcetera. It works instantly. Or i'll just hang on a "wrong" note or whatever note i happen to play for a good while and see how it sounds. Then anything i do after that is an improvement, and a lot of times i end up playing really interesting stuff. But i'd rather be bad and freed up than boring. Bad music is funny, boring music is depressing.

I got free tickets from my work at Borders to see Bela Fleck & The Flecktones at Sunset Center in Carmel, CA. I didn't know what to expect and was blown away by the top notch musicianship on display, especially by their bassist Victor Wooten. Before that night my favorite bassists were Chris Squire, John Entwistle, 'n Paul McCartney. He blew them all away! By far the best...

yeah! Rick!

Genius.

Victor, i hope you overcome that finger condition. God bless brother 🙏🏾

Such a great point. We are all expert improvisers already.

Makes so much sense. In musical terms: being freed up and allowed to "play bad" while improvising, in theory, should result in more musical TENSION..., its well-placed/timed tension that creates EMOTION. Those limits can be tested more freely...

So wise

Dear Victor Wooten, I am a musician/teacher (drum set). I'm a fan of the bass (both electric and acoustic) and, of course, have a great appreciation for what you bring to the instrument. I never knew that you suffered from dystonia. I've been battling the condition since 2009 or 2010. It's a long convoluted story, so I won't go into too many details here. For a couple of years I had no clue what was happening to me. I finally insisted to my PCP, who had no clue what was happening, that I get a referral to see a neurologist. I was subsequently diagnosed with focal, task-specific dystonia. Medications we tried were of no help. I've been many directions trying to get relief from the nightmare. I finally realized what I believe was the cause. I was trying to learn a technique called drop-catch which is useful for execution of double strokes as well as playing a faster jazz ride-rhythm using the fingers instead of strictly wrist movement. I believe that this was contrary to what my right hand knew how to do and the way it had functioned for decades. I think trying to upend the existing "muscle-memory" caused neuronal confusion which resulted in the uncontrollable movement. I can tell you at this point that the claim that dystonia is incurable is not necessarily true. After many varied attempts at getting help I finally decided to see a physical therapist specializing in the hand. They were of little help. But it set me off on a new path which has taken quite a bit of time and effort, but that has been greatly successful! I designed my own exercises realizing that I had to minimize the reinforcement of dystonic movement, and that I had to relearn the basic movement of using my hand on a drumstick without any errant movement - very slow and very deliberate. My name is Ken Bowie. I live in VA near Richmond. I'm not leaving any contact information out here. But, without being presumptuous, if there's any way I could help, try to contact me (maybe a DM on FB or something). Best of luck. Keep making great music

My man…🔥🔥🔥

Sad to hear about dystonia. Hopefully he will overcome this. Great bass player. Maximum respect.

Lovely, a bass player!😁👌