I had a great talk with brother Polo Jones. He’s been extremely busy producing a project for earthquake relief. Joining with NFL alumni from the Bay area, as well as Bay Area Celebrities for Earthquake Relief, Polo has cowritten and will produce the single When the Earth Shakes. The song will be a key element in the charity’s efforts to raise awareness and funds.

Polo wrote the song with Zad Magau, with whom he has been working recently. “She’s a phenomenal vocalist,” Polo says, “and we have this great brother-sister relationship.”

Polo is gathering many prominent Bay Area musicians, and hopes to shoot the video in about three weeks. If you think you’ll be in the Bay Area around that time, send me an email and may you can be an extra in the video.

SEAL Team Field Report 031310 and second video

Practice Tip of the Week – Build a Scale Encyclopedia

I’ve been keeping in touch with Sean O’Bryan Smith lately because of a few projects. We wanted to get a thing or two tied up before he heads up to the Big Apple for a lightning round of meetings, a recording session and hopefully some great cheesecake! He said to tell everyone HI! and asks that you all keep your fingers crossed!

Traa Daniels checked in today. He as in the studio this morning, and was heading to rehearsal, so we got a few minutes to catch up. He’s been keeping himself busy with studio dates and one-offs with P.O.D., and says life is good!

We spent most of the call talking about the new cabinets, which he’ll ge to hear live shortly. He’s really excited about them, and has been very involved in the design from the very beginning.

New Content:

Tip of the Week: Accuracy Exercise

Lesson: Diatonic Modes and Chords, Part 2

Lesson: Triads

Article: The Double Groove

Article: The World’s Greatest Bass Solo (or, the Dutch version)

So, there you have it. I’ll probably have a bit more before the weekend, or Saturday at the latest. See you then!

We caught up with Sean O’Bryan Smith this morning for a call and a cup. Sean’s been very busy lately as he works toward the release of his second CD. Next week, he travels to New York for a packed schedule of meetings. He’s also actively booking tour dates for the summer and fall seasons. This is all on top of his work with Anna Wilson as she looks forward to the release of her new CD. Sean shares our love of coffee, mostly for the caffeine, and now you can see why. We’ll continue to update as more info becomes available.

Professor Roy also touched base, or bass, if you must. Roy’s been keeping extremely busy lately, what with classes at Belmont, private students, and a packed schedule of studio and live dates. In addition to all of that, he’s putting the final touches on Thunder Row, the community site for learning bassists of all levels. Roy and I will both be maintaining blogs over there, with a strong focus on learning and playing bass. We’ll also be posting lessons and other articles, many of them from the BASS U. library, as well as videos.

Speaking of videos, Roy recently completed a series of free bass tips that you can sign up for over at Teach Me Bass Guitar. Once you confirm your registration, you’ll get seven free video tips from Roy. We’re already talking about doing a lot more, so if you have any suggestions or ideas, please send me an email.

New Content

Tip of the Week: Turn on the TV

Article: Subbing

Article: Protect and Serve

Article: Making a Case for Covers

Lesson: Practice Tips, Part 1: How to Learn to Play Bass

That’s it for today. Before I go, though, I want to again thank all who have emailed. I make sure David sees every message, and we both appreciate all the well-wishes!

Greetings, everyone. I hope everyone is now dug out from the recent blizzards. We’ve been lucky down in my area, only getting the fringes of the last two storms. David? Not so much. Luckily, David’s used to it, having spent so many years in Iowa and Minnesota.

I’ve been keeping warm with my (not-so-)secret hot chocolate recipe and a space heater in my office. So, let me bring you up to date on everything:

Benefit for Angeline – Many thanks to those who have already made a donation to help sister Angeline Saris with her medical situation. We received another email from her yesterday to bring us up to date:

So the weekend was uh-mazing. The benefit was total mayhem and a great success. We reached maximum capacity 3x throughout the night- it was packed shoulder to shoulder. I had one of my students and her sister sit in, which was super cute (they’re 9 and 11 years old). … I have some video and some great pix for you, which I am working on compiling.

This week, I am taking off for a short 4 day Northwest tour with Jerry Hannan. Just a reminder, he wrote Society for the movie Into the Wild and also helped me to put together this whole benefit. His site: jerryhannan.com

I watched the new vid you put up on the dna site…. I’m super excited for the new cabs! Aaaah! They sound really clear on the vid!

Anyhoo- Thanks again Lane for all your help and support. I’ll be in touch…..

Angeline introduces her student, 11 y.o. Katie Phelan, sitting in.

Our First Local Liaison

If you saw the first SEAL Team video, you already know that Jeff Carlson is once again assisting with R&D testing. Today we are proud to announce that Jeff is our first Local Liaison. Jeff has been working with David and Lane for several years, helping with R&D and QC testing, and more. We’re very excited that he will continue in that role. Please join us in congratulating Jeff on his roles as a DNA Local Liaison and SEAL Team member. By the way, Jeff also has the distinction of being the first bass player to every play through a David Nordschow Amplification speaker cabinet. (I was second.) Jeff’s Bio

New Content

Tip of the Week: Turn off the TV

Lesson: Diatonic Modes and Chords

Lesson: Left and Right Hand Exercises, Part 2

Article: Freelancing

That’s it for today. I have not had time to continue on creating video clips from the footage I shot last Thursday. As you can tell on the first clip, there’s a problem with the sound. It appears that the download process corrupted the file, so I have to find a time when I can shut everything else down on this old box of mine and get a better file. I hope to accomplish that over the weekend at the latest.

See you again soon!

Greetings, all! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day weekend. Today I added the previously promised video to the SEAL Team report. You’ll also find a little info on the team itself on the SEAL Team page. I also updated the home page so that it would provide links to more new content.

Thanks to all who have emailed to offer suggestions and catch my spelling errors! We very much appreciate your assistance, and encourage you to keep telling us what you think!

Next scheduled upload is on Wednesday. See you then!