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When it's time for your solo, you want to channel all of your pain and anger into your performance, so "Romeo & Juliet" will feel sorry and leave. The first chord comes up, and you play a nice, sad little melody - completely out of key and time. The next chord comes by, and you try to concentrate on the chord tones and play something safe. Trouble is, it sounds very pleasant and peaceful. Your frustration builds, and you fall back into playing the same old blues licks you always play.

Has something like this ever happened to you? At one time or another, every musician is frustrated at not being able to clearly and creatively express what he or she is feeling. My goal, in writing this column, is to help you to blend your emotional self with your technical self. This marriage between emotion and technique is not as hard to develop as it might seem. We just need to change the way we approach our playing. Too many people think that their playing comes from their heads and goes to their hands, which can make them sound too calculated. Others feel they play "straight from the heart," and they reject technical exercises and theoretical studies. While this can produce some amazing moments, it also limits the player's musical vocabulary and potential for growth.

A nice compromise between these two extremes is expressed by this saying:

What this means is that we should let our emotions create the musical idea, and then have our minds recreate it as accurately as possible on our instrument.

To better understand this concept, think of the emotion your heart wants to express as a flow of water. As this strong current leaves your heart, it travels through a pipe: your mind. The more holes you have in your understanding of music and the bass, the more water will be lost from the pipe, so what reaches your hands is much less powerful than what you intended.

To remedy this condition, study as much about music and your instrument as you can, but always make sure you take time to experiment creatively with what you are learning. For example, when you are practicing diminished arpeggios, take some time to see how many different emotions you can wring out of those notes. Does a diminished arpeggio always have to sound sinister? Can you make one sound happy? This kind of experimentation will fill in the holes in the pipe. Who knows - maybe someday you'll be taking a solo over a neo-classical progression and your heart will want to express happiness. Your mind will flash back to the time when you sat in your room, experimenting with diminished arpeggios, and your hands will create happiness upon your instrument! (And the first time something like this happens to you, you'll feel closer to your bass than ever before.)

To get started on this new way of practicing, experiment with a one-octave Gdim7 arpeggio: (G, Bb, Db, Fb). Turn on your tape recorder and try to make this arpeggio sound:

1. Afraid, yet angry. (As if you were just robbed.)
2. Happy, yet unsure. (Like on the first day at a new job.)
3. Jealous. (Need I say more?)
4. Agonized. (The dentist is scraping your gums.)
5. Confused. (Your flight leaves in 15 minutes, and you don't know what street you're on.)

It's important to record your practicing so you can remember all of the colors and textures that come forth. It's also a good idea to have a notebook for transcriptions of your new ideas.

Don't limit yourself to one arpeggio. Practice everything you learn - scales, chords, two-hand tapping, slapping, your favorite Stu Hamm licks - this way. And if you're wondering why I didn't write out some examples of different emotions I got from Gdim7…then you missed the point of this column.