Bass day (1h 30m)

• Chord tones (Phil Mann) — 40m
  • All triads in all inversions around the cycle (70bpm)
  • All 7th chords in all inversions around the cycle (60bpm)
• Break
• Functional harmony excercises (derived from Phil Mann course of the same name)
  • Superimposing G & E pentatonic scales (minor and major) over static Cmaj7 chord to explore extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths)
  • 6ths excercise over 12-bar blues progression:
    • play a root
    • try to play 6th above in tempo
    • if can’t, play below (it’s easier because of the pattern that looks like 5th shape but mirrored bottom to top)
    • figure out the note and immediately play it above (all in time)
  • Same with 9th

Observations

Invented a new excercise for familiarising with extensions — I always felt like I was not fluent enough in that area (like, naming m6 / M6, 11 / #11 on cue) and therefore kept avoiding using them in improvisation and — especially — walking bass lines. Though there’s a cool hack: major or minor 6th above is tricky, but below — it’s an easy pattern that looks just like 5th (or tritone) above, but sort of “mirrored”. So, although notes first shapes second, I can actually benefit from patternistic approach here and used it as a fallback when I can’t quckly recall the note name is some less-than-common key. Like, I’m playing over Eb, and I want major 6th, it’s— er— quickly playing pattern “6th below”, figuring out it’s C and nicely sliding to the high C. Boom! Same approach works for 9ths. 9th above is weird fingering, but 9th 8vb — well, it’s a second. So, just in case you were a little slow with extensions like me, here’s the helpful exercise.