Tag: observations

Bass day (1h 20m)

  • Chord tones (Phil Mann) — 30m
    • Diminished triads in all inversions around the cycle at 80bpm
    • Major and minor triads in all inversions around the cycle at 80bpm
    • All repeated several times without stopping between inversions or triad types
  • Walking bass lines (Scott Devine) — 50m
    • Composing bass line using techniques I learned from Scott’s course to a new standard (Moondance by Van Morrison)
    • Soloing over same standard

Observations

Looks (and feels) like I got pretty good at triad & 7th chords inversions! Still struggling a bit with 2nd inversions of  7 and m7b5 when playing at faster tempos, but not terribly bad. So I guess it’s time to move to a new course!

Piano day (1h 40m)

Jazz voicings (Dan Haerle)

  • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 40) at 84bpm — 20m
  • Major ii — V — I’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 41) at 84bpm — 20m
  • Minor ii — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 1 (skill 42), without click, then at 70bpm — 30m
  • Minor ii — V — i’s around the cycle of 4ths, format 2 (skill 43), analysis + playing without click — 30m

Observations

Man, minor is hard! 😵 But I’m also getting better at recognising 3 -7-9, 3-7-6 and 7-3-6 shell voicings (that are harder than 7-3-5 where you just need to see the 7th, and the rest of the chord is already there). Also, m7b5 — 7b9 — m9 is the an incredibly beautiful way to voice minor ii — V — i!

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 (70bpm)
  • Break
  • Walking bass lines + chord tones
    • Soloing workshop: asc / desc arpeggios over Autumn Leaves in G-
    • ii — V — I patterns
    • 7th chord inversions over Autumn Leaves in G-

Observations

Struggling a bit with playing inversions backwards, especially in the context at high tempos. Need to work on it next time!

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.

Bass day (1h 20m)

  • Chord tones (Phil Mann)
    • All triads (major / minor / diminished / augmented) in all inversions around the cycle of 4ths at 74bpm — 20m
    • Major and minor 7th chords in all inversions around the cycle (70bpm) — 20m
    • Dominant 7th chords in all inversions around the cycle (40bpm) — 20m
  • Walking bass lines (Scott Devine)
    • Soloing exercise (chord scales up and down chromatically moving to the closest degree of the next chord) over jazz standard (Shine by Dabney-Mack-Brown) — 20m

Observations

Although thinking in intervals and chord tones is cool and super helpful when composing a walking bass line on the fly, it’s still very important to sometimes just think in melodies when soloing, because melody that you compose in your head before playing it with your fingers is not always made up with chord or scale tones, so sometimes it’s better to just forget about functional harmony and think of the mood. It works for me, may not be the same for everyone. There’s a great exercise by Jamey Aebersold: when soloing, try singing your solo for 4 bars and them play for 4 bars, and then sing again, and then play, without interrupting the flow of the melody. I don’t do it too often because it’s pretty hard, which means I actually should! 😄)

Also, I’m so glad I chose these two courses for my challenge (I mean Scott’s walking bass course and Phil Mann’s chord tones) because, it turns out, they complement each other perfectly (especially in the soloing part). I’m getting much better at recognising chord degrees detached from the root by learning inversions, and that’s exactly the skill I need to get better at soloing! Well done son.