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First off cool sounding piece you are developing.

My two cents. There are no shortcuts. Every rhythmic and melodic variation you want to learn over any given baseline has to be practiced. If I have a new bassline I practice whole notes, halfs quartes eighths sixteens dotted triplets scales licks arpeggios etc all over the bassline. Then I add variations to the line and do it all over again. Some stuff gets easier as your brain figures out the relationships between the parts but there will always be something new to learn, so being a dedicated, patient and thoughtful practicing stickist is the only answer. And it's where the fun is. And don't forget the ears always make sure you are internalizing your new concepts, sing them.

Brett

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I like your music style. You are doing really well.

Try closing your eyes and feel your way around the fret board.
At first, it may seem impossible, but it's really easy to do.

Sounds good Jay - great rhythm. Steve is a great instructor. My 2 cents would be to check in with him on the position of your neck.

Looking forward to more videos Jay - good job

Steve comes from a guitar background, so his concepts tend to extend from the bass/guitar paradigm. Independence and interdependence tend to extend more from the piano background. For interdependence, it is much as you described, where the LH sets up a rhythmic pattern which the RH springs off of. Funk, as we may know from this forum, places this concept on its head, where the LH creates tension with the straight beats.

Independence, which is more of a lofty goal than an every-day thing, relies on both hands acting separately. You have to split your brain to do different things with each hand. These things are not necessarily improvised. Bach 2-part inventions are not improvised, but are separate.

The 5ths tuning for the LH make it possible for this side not to be demoted to bass-line rhythm keeping only. The "compass system" has its uses, but is not end all be all. The more you stick with just one approach to the Stick (stick), the more all of your music sounds the same. Keep an open mind to how you approach this instrument, and you will find that it will continue to surprise you.

You have a good start. Keep it up!

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Yes, Steve has some very good points. I poke at everyone's weaknesses, including my own. His seminar on chords was very enlightening, where he could show chordal relationships as theory and then just pop out with: and this is where Led Zeppelin does this, this is where Hendrix does this, doesn't this sound like Moon Dance? There may be no one better to connect chord theory and practical application.

I was thinking this morning, that if we envision the true power of the Stick as lying in the middle of a circle, then Guitar, Keyboard and Drums create a triangle around it in tangent to it. Each by itself can only dip into the periphery of the circle, but together the middle can be reached. Maybe that's a bit overly symbolic. We each find our own style from which parts of the circle we choose to inhabit.

Great thread. Just a general observation.

Simply doing two different things at once is not a guarantee of "independence." Depending on how your hands are interacting it could be extremely interdependent.

The way to test it out is to vary one of the hands spontaneously to see if the other can "maintain".

If you're working on a tune, learning the parts individually, as Steve has pointed out here before, is a great way to ensure that you aren't committing digicide later on...

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