As you might be aware, Victor Wooten has been putting on bass / nature camps for 27 years now. If you’re not aware of the details, you can find out more here:
I had the privilege of attending the Bass/Nature camp last week and, wow! It was incredible. I can’t possibly convey everything about the week - we were busy from around 7am to 11pm or later most days and it was just absolutely packed with experience and learning. On the last full day I didn’t make it to bed until 2am, and was up again at 6am. I was tent camping, so once the sun starting coming out and the birds decided it was daytime, there was no going back to sleep.
I also can’t possibly convey the profundity of the experience. It transcends “playing bass”. I feel like I left there a better person than I was when I arrived. I’m not going to delve into all the hows and and whys of that, but just simply say that, as good of a bass player as Victor is, he’s at least 10x that as just a really good human being. I was able to connect deeply with fellow campers and came away with many new friends.
The nature curriculum was really cool. We foraged for edible plants, walked barefoot and blindfolded through the forest following a stringline, and made fire with a bowdrill. I felt that it complemented the bass curriculum nicely. We also started some days with Tai Chi or yoga before breakfast.
The food was insanely good, with a focus on being healthy and natural. They bring in a chef and his staff from Virginia, and they stay onsite in one of the cabins the whole week.
On the bass side of things, we rotated through three bass classes a day, and had special guest speakers - usually after dinner but sometimes otherwise. That’s where Amos Heller and others like Travis Vance, Steve Bailey, James Genus, and Billy Sheehan come in.
Teaching, they had folks like Denson Angulo and Dave Welsch, along with Victor himself. I learned a ton of new things - most of which it will take me quite a while to fully unpack and internalize. I’ll be reviewing my notes and listening to my audio recordings to make sure I don’t forget anything.
Experience-wise, there were some really cool things. I finished my P-bass build just in time to take it with me, and it made the rounds!
(I think the headstock logo turned out really well!)
As I posted in the Bass Porn thread, I was able to check out Stanley Clarke’s (Victor owns it now) Alembic from the 70’s. Victor brought it to class one day, told us what it was and passed it around for everybody to check out all they wanted.
We also got to see Stanley’s upright bass from the 1700’s - though it has a crack forming so we couldn’t play it. I got to play other uprights though, which was a cool first for me.
In one class, we had Victor and his brothers Joseph (Steve Miller Band) and Roy/Futureman (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) just giving a masterclass on nonverbal communication and cues.
In the evenings we had open jams until midnight, then hit the sack and do it again.
Probably the coolest thing for me personally is that I finally played a song, with a band, on stage in front of an audience. We had a ton of people join us for a concert we put on. There were two rules:
- If you’re on the dance floor you better be shaking something
- EVERYBODY plays.
I got to play one song - and both Roy and Joseph were playing in the band with me! The guitarist was unreal as well, and the singer nailed it. There was another camper that doubled up with me on it - we were both first timers and nervous about it. I used that trick to reframe anxiety as excitement and I’m happy to report it actually worked, LOL.
Now I’m hooked and really want to get a band going - that was SO FUN!
All in all, I’d rank this as one of the top things I’ve ever done. Not kidding, it was phenomenal. Again, I highly recommend it!
made a big smile on my face
