By Elijah
About a month ago, I attended a weeklong trip to Wooten Woods, a music and nature camp in Tennessee. Grammy award-winning bassist Victor Wooten, who helps the students learn how to become better musicians, hosts the camp. We focused on many aspects of music, but I felt like the purpose of the camp is to teach people what groove really is, and how to apply it, not just in music, but also in life.
I learned that groove is being able to work with anything and everything around you. Applied to a musical setting, this would mean communicating with your band mates, listening to them, and playing with them. In a non-musical setting, this would mean communicating with the people around you, listening to the people around you, and working with the people around you. I think most people, including myself, feel like groove only applies to music, but once I learned how to apply groove to how I go about my day, I started to look at things differently.
- What do you think groove is in terms of music?
- Did you think that groove could be applied in everyday life? How? If not, why?
- Do you agree with my idea of groove as being able to work with your surroundings? If not, what do you think it is?
- Do you think most of the pop music that you hear has groove?
- For me, the most important aspect of music is groove. What do you think is important in a song?