Category: bass

Bass day (1h 40m)

  • Chord tones — 1h 20m
    • 7th chord permutations (all starting on 1)
      • Harmonising C Dorian, F Dorian and Bb Dorian scales
    • Applying permutations over jazz standard (all starting on the root and then several starting on the 3rd)
  • Pick — 20m
    • Line from the “Famous Bass Lines” book by Larry McCabe (to be honest, most of them are pretty boring and just meandering around minor / major pentatonic, so I’ll probably get some new transcriptions for this part of my practice)

Bass day (1h 40m)

  • Chord tones — 1h
    • 7th chord permutations (all starting on 1, all starting on 3)
      • Harmonising F Lydian scale (just because major all the time is boring, lol)
    • Applying inversions over jazz standard (1st, 2nd & 3rd in different shapes, trying slides this time)
  • Pick — 40m
    • Playing Jamerson part to the click (“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”)

Observations

Can I at some point have a day when I’ll harmonise all scales of all modes in all keys with all inversions of 7th chords played in all permutations? Just like Adam Neely played major scales in broken intervals for 6 hours non-stop? No. It will certainly take longer that a day, lol.

Bass day (1h 30m)

  • Chord tones
    • 7th chord permutations (all 6 starting on 1)
      • Harmonising C major & F major scales with all permutations without stopping
    • Applying inversions over jazz standard (1st & 2nd)
  • Pick practice
    • Jet — Are You Gonna Be My Girl?
    • Larry McCabe “Famous Blue Lines” — Lines 1 & 2 in E-

Bass day (1h 20m)

  • Inversions
    • Major, minor & dominant 7th chords chromatically up the neck in all inversions
    • Same, starting every subsequent inversion on a new string to force “intervalic thinking” over “patternistic thinking”
    • Applying inversion against jazz standard (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 1st descending)

Observations

Although it is always a hassle, it’s actually super helpful to spell out loud the notes you play (especially not looking at the fretboard). It might slow you down, but in fact, it really helps to break out of patternistic approach where you think shape first. Also, starting each inversion on a new string helps to focus more on intervals that make up the chord (instead of notes), so you could see many ways of playing it on the fretboard. E. g. Gmaj7: G — B — D — F#, then starting on A string: B — D — F# — G, then on D string (starting on open): D — F# — G — B, and on G string: F# — G — B — D. It feels a little uncommon, but you really start thinking about 3rds and seconds that make up the chord instead of trying to get the spelling right and not mess it up (which happens very often especially in the keys with a lot of accidentals).