I went to camp, and it was okay. In other words, I finally finished writing up my diary from Bass/Nature Camp.

Going to this camp was truly one of the best experiences I have ever had. As one of only sixty students, we spent a week out in nature, learning quite a bit about both ourselves and the world around us. We learned a bunch about music in general and bass in specific, but in ways I wouldn't have ever considered.

You can browse the FAQ flie or start at the begining and read through the whole thing (scroll up!).

Below are some excerpts (along with links to that specific post, in case you don't want to browse the whole thing):

Introductions on the first night

Part of the evening was to introduce yourself to all the other musicians at the camp using only your bass. Imagine this: you — all by yourself — standing up in front of sixty-one bass players, with luminaries like Steve Bailey, Chuck Rainey, Anthony Wellington standing behind you listening to every note. Add to that Victor Wooten (one of my idols, and I'm sure most of the other campers felt the same way) sitting immediately on your right, and you got what can only be a nerve-wracking experience.

Needless to say, I completely whiffed my entire playing. ...

Chuck Rainey

One of the instructors at the Camp was the great Chuck Rainey. I'm not sure as what he was supposed to teach on this particular day, but he ended up spending quite a bit of time telling stories about his experiences in the music industry. I could listen to that man for a month. ...

His offhand comments ...

[ed — if you don't know who Chuck Rainey is, he's played on the soundtrack of your life. He played with Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan, Cannonball Addlery, Little Feat, Roberta Flack — and that's just off the top of my head. He's a legend in the bass community, and it was a true honor to meet him.]

Nature Activities

While at camp, we did a lot of things in nature. I'm not writing much about it, though, since they tended to fall into two broad categories: 1)Things that seem strange but make sense once you've done them and 2)Things that you have to just do to really appreciate.

For example, one morning, we spent an hour or so making fire by rubbing a stick against a piece of wood using a bowed string (I'm really simplifying here). Just that description doesn't quite get across what it feels like to actually make your own fire, or the appreciation you gain for how valuable fire actually is (as well as for matches). ... Suffice it to say that you will learn quite a bit about the world around you, and in ways you probably would not have thought about before. I don't mean to say that the nature part isn't important and won't impact your music, so therefore I'm not dedicating much ink (or is it pixels?) to it. Rather, I think you should experience it for yourself. What I can write about it doesn't do it justice.

In fact, if you want more information, you should check out Richard Cleveland's Earth School. Richard was one of the nature instructors at camp. He was very open and personable, as well as a good instructor. I'm actually considering taking a nature class from him at some point, especially since he's only a day's drive from DC.