Tag: chord tones

Bass day (1h 40m)

  • Chord tones (Phil Mann)
    • Walking bass practice with Nashville number notation (keys of C — Ab around the cycle of 4ths)
    • 7th chord inversions (1st and 2nd) with 2 different fingerings up and down, not looking at the neck
    • Practice 7th chord inversions over a standard in Nashville notation (1st and 2nd, up and down + improv)
  • Pick + reading practice
    • Learning a part (What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye)

Bass day (1h 40m)

  • Latin rhythms & walking bass
    • Cha-cha-cha in G & E
    • Walking bass practice with Nashville number notation (keys of G, E, C, Bb)
  • Chord tones
    • Recap all 7th chords in all inversions around the cycle of 4ths
    • In context of the song (very briefly)
  • Tons of Runs (Andy Laverne book) — reading in treble + learning licks for soloing: dominant 7th run in 3 keys

Observations

OMG! I don’t know if it’s just a recent update or was always there, but I have just discovered that you can display chord charts in iReal Pro in NUMBER NOTATION!!! YAAAAAY!!! That’s an absolute killer. Keep improving walking bass line skills and at the same time finally internalise all scale degrees relationships (even though the app is not smart enough to detect mode mixing and modulations to other keys, but still!). Priceless.

Bass day (1h 30m)

  • Chord tones
    • II — V — Is in all keys round the cycle
    • Harmonising scales with 7th chords C through Ab

Observations

I’ve just discovered a huge blocker that was holding me for a long time! So, my thing was that, when I used to play an exercise that had a lot to do with mind games — like harmonising a scale or II — V — Is in all keys, etc. — I used to always run into this paralysing moment of “Errrr… Where am I supposed to go next? I’m in F, so next one will be… Er… Bb, and the V in Bb is… F… Er… But I’m still in F, and the 5th of F is… Er—” So, like, I would always think about what I’m playing at the moment, and not about what’s coming up next. And therefore by the time I got to the next key, I would be lost and have to pause. There’s a scientific term for it actually, it’s called “analysis paralysis” — when you are presented with too many choices, you just get stuck and don’t do anything. So, in my case, I think the problem was that I kept holding too much to that key or whatever the thing was from which I was transitioning, and didn’t really think about the next thing to play in advance. But why think about II — V — I in F if you have already figured it out? Just let your fingers play it automatically and in the meantime think about II — V — I in Bb which comes next and figure it out before you started playing it!

It could be tricky, because your brain does not want to switch attention to something that it’s not doing at the moment, and instead it wants to control everything, even if it’s already in the fingers, but you have to force it and persuade it that you can do some stuff on autopilot, and then use this time to think about the next changes or about the larger-scale things. Not sure if this ramble was helpful for anyone or at all understandable, but that’s my today’s enlightenment, I’m feeling pretty happy about it! 😄

Bass day (1h 30m)

  • Chord tones
    • Harmonising Dorian scale with 7th chords — all inversions, playing to the click, no pauses
      • D Dorian
      • A Dorian
      • E Dorian
    • II — V — I’s
      • In the keys of C, F, Bb & Eb, all inversions
  • Walking bass lines
    • Dominant 2-octave bass line around the cycle of 4ths
    • Improvisation over the same chord progression, emphasising the b7ths & b6ths

Observations

Finally getting better at 2-octave dominant scales! This time played with almost no mistakes.