Daily Licking 012: More ii-v's. Now With Analysis Quiz!

Yea, thats right, a quiz.

Here is todays ii-V-I lick, courtesy of Mr. Freddie Hubbard. And as I have repeatedly said, the point here is to understand what makes these lines the way they are and to start figuring out recipes to make your own lines from them, not to just learn where to put your fingers.

bass lick tempo 140 4/4 | Am7 f#+8 g f# e d c# c b | D7 a# f# d# c# d c# c a# | Gmaj b d e a r a g4 |

And here is the quiz, with answers in the comments.

All the questions are in relation to the chord that is mentioned, so if the question is "what are the altered notes" and there is "Gb" on the Gmin (the ii chord) a Db on the C7, (the V chord) the answer to both would be "b9".

So move what is considered the root to each chord.

Q: What note does the lick start on?

1. ii chord: ______________________
   
2. V chord: ______________________
   
3. I chord: ______________________

Q: If there are any altered notes (notes not in the chord or scale) what are they?

1. ii chord: ______________________
   
2. V chord: ______________________
   
3. I chord: ______________________

Q: If there are any altered notes what beats do they fall on?

1. ii chord: ______________________
   
2. V chord: ______________________
   
3. I chord: ______________________

Q: What is the range of the entire lick (interval distance between highest note and lowest note)?

1. A: ______________________

Q: How many chord tones are there in each measure and what are they?

1. ii chord: ______________________
   
2. V chord: ______________________
   
3. I chord: ______________________

Q: What beats do the chord tones fall on (if there are any)?

1. ii chord: ______________________
   
2. V chord: ______________________
   
3. I chord: ______________________

And if these licks are all tooooo easy for ya, tough guy, remember you can always turn them into only-two-beats-each-licks at the same tempo by just turning all the 8th notes to 16ths like below.

But you already knew that. Right?

bass lick 4/4 tempo 140 | Am7 f#+16 g f# e d c# c b D7 a# f# d# c# d c# c a# | Gmaj b d e a r a g8~ g4 r |

Damian Erskine's Chord Inversion Exercise

Get a free lesson from Damian, basically. I know I re-post a lot of stuff from him, but its pretty much impossible to improve or elaborate on a topic he discusses, so might as well link to the source.

In this clip he goes through the chord tones of "Falling Grace" and how he plays them with the smoothest voice leading as possible.

He does it on six-string, but the concept will certainly work on 4, and the general idea of keeping voices moving the shortest possible distance is applicable to any tune, no matter how many strings you have.

Hmmmm. More chord spellings and knowledge of inversions. Those must be like, some important key concepts to know how to do or something.

Two Extremes Of Music & The Best Unspoken Look Ever

The two extremes of twentieth century music right there, Kenny G and Miles Davis in the same picture. This must have been at some festival or studio, although it looks like Kenny is going to play tennis or something.

KennyG is the one pointing, by the way. On the left.

Now, from everything I have read about Mr. Davis, I have to believe the next words out of his mouth were certain to contain one, if not all, of the following phrases - "jive ass", "curly haired" and "mother f@cker" in some various combination.

One Month Old Today.

Well.

'Tis 30 short days ago Basso Ridiculoso was foisted upon the unsuspecting world. Here is what has happened so far:

1. A total of 41 Posts.
   
   
2. A grand total of 8,581 page views so far. That is about 284.7333333 per day.
   
   
3. Most of you use Windows (52%), Firefox, (35%) and are from North America, although it has become quite the international incident.
   
   United States: 5,250
   United Kingdom:922
   Canada: 405
   Netherlands: 151
   Spain: 130
   France: 122
   Australia: 111
   Belgium: 88
   Russia: 81
   New Zealand: 75
   
   
   
4. Talkbass supplies most of the traffic, followed by Facebook, surprisingly.
   
   
5. The most popular pages are the ones with music on them. Shocking. The Autumn Leaves transcription is the most popular, with double the hits as the next closest page. Then comes the ii-v's posting, and then just barely behind, the "What People Want In Their Bass Player" article by Jake Hertzog to round out the top 3 pages of all time. The rest are all pages with music on them, a transcription or something.
   

So to everyone who has stopped by and visted, I want to say: Thank You! Well done, lads! Thanks, eh! Dank u! Muchas Gracias! Merci! Thanks, mates! Spasibo!

I especially want to thank Jake, Damian, Nikita from Bopland, Mike, and everyone who left a comment or pointed out a clam in a transcription or played "Name That Tune".

There is lots more of what you have been getting loaded up and ready, so please keep coming back, comment freely, say what you like and don't like, and what you want to see more of.

And you can always email me directly at the address listed in my profile, or send me a message in all the usual places, twitter, facebook yadda yadda etc. etc.

Thanks for all the support, this has been a fun experience and has made me practice too!

The stuff worth learning. That's what Damian says.

I know re-posting articles is not exactly the height of insightful blogging...but this article by Damian Erskine is right on. When someone like him says "this is the stuff you need to know and should be practicing" it is worth listening too.

There is a reason there ain't no TAB up in here. It's gonna mess with your mind, son. Screw you up and hold you back. TAB takes away more than half of the information in any piece of music it represents. It's a trick that makes you think you are learning things and it is actually making you understand less about what you are playing. It is the pornography of bass playing. It puts all kinds of crazy ideas in your head about what bass playing is about that ain't real.

Damian Erskine's NoTreble article.

Lets see, what's Mr. Erskine talk about in that article...knowing how to spell chords,Um, check.

Let's see what else..um, arpeggios and their inversions, oh yea, check, check, and lets, see, check!
So there ya go.

Who ya gonna believe?

How good do you want to be?

Updated post: Triad Permutations

A gnawing sense of that posting lacking all of its potential ridiculoso has been haunting my every waking moment, because that posting contained only the major triads as an example.

It has now been updated to include all the primary triad types - Major, Augmented, Minor, and Diminished and I feel burdened no more and free of my crippling bondage.

Daily Licking 011: Here's That Funk, The Lady Said

bass lick tempo 88 4/4 | Cmin c8. g+16 r16 bb16 r16 d16~ d16 bb8.~ bb16 r8 g16 | Cmin c-8. g+16 r16 c16 g16 r16 a8 bb16 r16 r4|

Name that tune from just the bass line? Answer in the comments, and don't cheat and look in the "tags" tab either. Cheater.

This is one syncopated stanky bass line that notation does not do justice. This is only one pattern used, the player varies it a lot throughout the tune, but this is the main skeleton of a very globular cluster of funkosity.

That "modern" right hand technique

Abraham Laboriel Right Hand Technique

Yea, um. About that. It's "modern" all right. If 1986 is "modern".
When you look at what guys like Matt Garrison, Hadrien Feraud, Janek, Damian Erskine can do, it appears to be this cutting edge break through new fangled technique thing. Now, all those guys are monsters and have more than their fair share of unique ridiculoso happening, but the idea of how they do that right hand technique has been around for a long long loooong time.

This video is from the 80's and Abraham Laboriel shows how he used the same three and four finger technique way back then. In the olden days, you know, before the internet. He says it comes from classical and flamenco guitar technique, so it may very well be hundreds of years old then.

Every thing old is new again as the saying goes.

Jamerson and Marvin Gaye isolated tracks from Heard It Through The Grapevine

Here is a mix of just the vocals and the bass from "Heard It Through The Grapevine". There are a lot of these individual tracks floating around the internet these days. I combined just the vox and bass from a set of the 8 different I grabbed off the net that also included the drums, organ, and strings.

When you hear just the bass and the vocals together it is 4 minutes of solo ridiculoso of the highest order. That's some feel right there.


Download James Jamerson and Marvin Gaye - Grapevine

Daily Licking 010: You Might Break Out

In a cooooooold sweat! HA! Hit me!

bass lick tempo 116 4/4 |Dm9 d4 d8 d+8 c8 a4 d8 | Dm9 d-8 f#-8~ f#8 f#16 f#16 g8 g#8 a8 c8 | Dm9 d4 d8 d+8 c8 a4 d8 | Dm9 d-8 f#-8~ f#8 f#16 f#16 g8 g#8 a8 c8 |

Jaco and Hiram

I hadn't heard this track, and I thought I had heard all the Jaco in NYC stuff.

Jaco sounds pretty darn good, considering when this was in his life and the pharmacological implications of all of that. Some of his NYC stuff is painful to hear.

He does a few of his standard go-to pentatonic lines, but he sounds pretty cohesive and grooving.

I think this is called "Son of Creeper" anyone know? Not sure of the title, but Jaco gets two nice solos and Hiram and him trade licks as well and play what each other just played.