A Regularly Scheduled Interval

I have mentioned the completely awesome book called Forward Motion before and if you do not have it in your library and yet you are interested in improvisation at all, well, there is a big gap in your library, that's all I am saying. Its a book that has so much info in it that it will keep you busy for a long time and your girlfriend/boyfriend/xbox/playstation/dog/cat/gopher will feel hurt and neglected.

Here is a very small nugget pulled from one of the ways Mr. Galper talks about how to practice intervals, scales and arpeggios in the book. I am going to show you some examples using the interval of a third and the C Major scale so, buckle up.

Remember from earlier posts, that the word diatonic is just a fancy music school term for "only using notes in that key", thats all. So when I say "diatonic" and C major it just means that we are ONLY going to use the notes from that scale, and thusly, being C major, there will be no sharps or flats, just C D E F G A B C.

Now, if you take C Major notes, and you play a third off each note of the scale respectively, you get something like this:

Ascending Scale in Ascending Diatonic Thirds

bass lick tempo 90 2/4 |Cmaj c8 e Dmin d f |Emin e g Fmaj f a | GMaj g b Amin a c | Bdim b d c4

You probably have played that one, or heard something similar, it is a very common way to get the major scale under your fingers.

But there are always a couple of other ways to play the same set of intervals and when you start combining these different permutations, things start sounding less see-I-know-how-to-play-my-scales-y and more like phrases and licks that you can use during a solo.

Here is another way to get through the major scale in thirds, where instead of going up a third, you descend a third, so the first pair of notes is E down to C:

Ascending Scale in Descending Diatonic Thirds

bass lick tempo 90 2/4 | Cmaj e8 c Dmin f d | Emin g e Fmaj a f | GMaj b g Amin c a | Bdim d b c4

Now you can alternate each group of thirds, with the first group descending:

Ascending Scale - First Third Descending

bass lick tempo 90 2/4 | Cmaj e8 c Dmin d f | Emin g e Fmaj f a | GMaj b g Amin a c | Bdim d b c4

And you can alternate with the second third descending:

Ascending Scale - Second Third Descending

bass lick tempo 90 2/4 | Cmaj c8 e Dmin f d |Emin e g Fmaj a f | GMaj g b Amin c a | Bdim b d c4

Now how to turn these into licks?

Well since all of these notes are within a key, anytime you have a chord that works in C Major, so a C Major 7, or C Major #11, or even a Dmin, or Emin, or G7, or A min, you can use combinations of these same intervals.

Here is how that would work over a C Major chord, it is nothing but a combination of those intervals from above, but the rhythm is now 16ths and the patterns are moved around a little octave-wise.

Third Based Lick

bass lick tempo 120 2/4 | Cmaj e16 c f d g e b g | c a d b c+4

That is just one piddly example, there are a million ways you can do this, for example:

1. Don't play the thirds in scale order, do them in another order, like go something like C, G, D,A,E,B F, C which is going up in 5ths. So C E, B G, F D, A C etc.
2. Repeat one or two patterns before going to the next one
3. Change the rhythm
4. Mix up other intervals, don't just do it in thirds, do the first one as a third, the next one as a fourth or a sixth and then mix up the directions ascending and descending.

This is another one of those lick-factory ideas where you can get a million different chunks of solos out of stuff like this. As per usual, you have to make this sound like it is not just scalar patterns but is actually a melody of some kind.

Of course, this works with minor scales too, and you can do all the intervals within any kind of scale - thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, and sevenths. Even bigger intervals if you wanted to, especially if you have an extended range bass, like ninths and tenths. Big stretches though.

So there ya go, something to chew on. Go nuts.

Creativity ala Jack White

Now no matter what you think of his music, you can't say that he ain't one creative dude.

And fearless? Oh yea. He just does it. Inspiring.

Here is Jack White talking about how limitations enhance creativity.

Daily Licking 040: All The ii-v Arpeggios

Always handy to have around. Just in case.

Save, print, make wrapping paper out of it, a million and one uses.

The Pentatonic Lick Factory

UPDATE - added a PDF that shows a bunch of examples

You can never have too many pentatonic licks. Ever.

But, in the real world what usually happens is first you learn the little box shapes, okay cool, then maybe some of the other shapes, the ones that start on notes other than the root, and then.....it kinda tapers off.

What can happen after a while is you just keep playing the same box-shape licks over and over. And over and over and over. Or maybe you find another pattern that fits under your fingers, but you only have one or two familiar patterns you default back to or they are the ones that fit under everybody's fingers. I mean, I certainly have never done that. Of course not. Never. Okay, I totally have.

Then the question becomes - Well, how do I make/invent/discover/create new material anyway? If only there were some repeatable, step-wise process one could use to generate new licks and phrases for use in solos. Oh what a great world it would be...

Of course there is.

And I am going to show y'all one.

What People Want In Their Bass Player Ep. 03 - Pianist Randy Halberstat

Time for another episode of one of the most popular features here on Basso Ridiculoso.

This episode brings us a Seattle local hero jazz pianist, Randy Halberstat.



Randy is a professor at Cornish College of the Arts, where he originally was asked by Gary Peacock to fill in for a few classes that Peacock was teaching at the time. That is a pretty heavy endorsement right there. Now, Randy is a full professor and teaches piano and improvisation at Cornish.

Randy has also written a great book called "Metaphors For The Musician" which is one of the most interesting and helpful music books in my Basso Bass Book collection. And I own a LOT of books about music, it is seriously up into the hundreds of books at this point and Randy's book it one of the best. His book is not a book about scales, but it will change how you play them. It is not a book about learning tunes, but it will show you how to learn any tune you want deeper and faster than ever before. It is not a "you can play this scale over this chord" kind of book (although, there is some of that in there) but instead it takes you from scales to music in very interesting and engaging ways. Big Basso stamp of approval on this one.



Lest you think Randy is just some ivory tower academic, let me dissuade you of that incorrect idea. He also is a recording artist on Origin Records and has cut sides (as the cats say) on his own and as a side man for people like Mimi Fox and Greta Matassa. Some of his tunes are also in the Sher Real Books.

So Randy has seen probably his share of young students with chops through his teaching and has also got to play with legends like Gary Peacock, so it should be very interesting to get his take on what makes a "good" bass player.

Here is what Randy said (emphasis mine) :

For me, this question immediately splits into two questions:

1. "What do I want from a bass player?" and
2. "What do I want from any musician?"

Just to be ornery, let me go to the second question first. I need my musicians to have their ears wide open. They need to be in such control of their own musical "tasks" that they can listen to the others in the band with as much avid interest as an audience member. If they're too focused on taking care of their own business, they won't be able to contribute to a unified band sound, which is really more important. If a musician has his ears open and really hears everything that's going on around him, I know I can relax and just play. At that point, I don't care what he plays in response to what I play: he can imitate me, complement me, or contrast with what I'm doing. I know it'll be an honest and well-informed decision, and that's all I want.

I want my musicians to have distinct personalities. If one musician plays "behind the beat" and the next plays "on top of the beat," that's OK: I just need to know where they're coming from. I can enjoy playing with almost all types of musicians, but it's difficult to make something happen with a musician who's doing what he thinks he should, as opposed to what he wants to.

Of course, I want my musicians to be well-versed, both in terms of repertoire and vocabulary. Really, I just want to sense that they love and respect this music as much as I do. If they do, the repertoire and vocabulary will be there.

Hmm, frankly, that doesn't leave a lot for my answer to question #2.

I guess I would say that I want a bass player who enjoys both the "traditional" role of the bass as well as the opportunity to make a more personal statement. If a bassist is never willing to lay down a walk or a two-beat feel, and/or if he spends all of his time in the upper register of the instrument, it leaves me wondering why he didn't just become a guitarist. Again, it has to do with the overall band sound. Doesn't he realize what an opportunity he's missing to knit the band sound into a coherent whole? Why try to simulate what the drums and piano are already doing? This is a touchy area. I really don't want to make a bass player my "beast of burden," just laying down the groove all night so I can display all my cool reharmonizations and rhythmic displacements without fear of getting lost. I don't want to tell a bass player what or how to play: I want him to feel free to play what he hears. But if what he hears just doesn't contribute to the overall sound I'm going for, I'll just look around for someone else. And that doesn't mean that he's wrong. Being able to enjoy another musician's music and being able to play with that musician are not the same. Vive la difference!

Good stuff from someone who plays for a living.

Check out Randy's book and albums.

http://www.randyhalberstadt.com/
http://www.randyhalberstadt.com/Book.htm
Randy's Book at Sher Music
Randy At Origin Records

Triad Palooza - Diatonic Triad Variations

Here is a fun little set of exercises to keep you busy for, oh, the next 3 or 4 years or so.

It takes all the triads that are in the key of C Major and runs some ascending, descending and mixed (up and down) arpeggio patterns. Some patterns are "close position" meaning the notes are all within one octave, and some are "open" where they span more than one octave.

The patterns are as low as possible on the neck and they are guaranteed to be playable on a standard tuned 4 string. You can extend the patterns by playing them in higher octaves if you want and if you have a 5 or a 6 string you can move them around as appropriate.

The patterns outline each chord that appears naturally in C Major, so - C maj, D min, E min, F maj, G maj, A min and B dim. The patterns don't all start on just the root of the chord, they also start from the 3rd and the 5th too. "Inversions" for those theory showoffs in the crowd.

Ben Allison on NPR

Great to see bass players getting some love!

I have Ben's record with "Dragzilla" on it..I forget the name of it, but it is a great record. Check out the interview and some of his other tunes on this NPR interview.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/11/137108909/ben-allison-personal-and-unpredictable?ps=mh_frhdl1

A Minor Funk Loop For Practice

The play-alongs have been very popular, so here is one that is nice and simple and will let you go ridiculoso all over A minor. (UPDATE: Now there are two. Both A min. What the hell. Why not.)
It's just that one chord, A minor with a gee-tar, a synth and drums, and it will loop until you can't take it anymore and make it stop. So drop it in your favorite loop-able audio player of choice and commence to A minor-ing.
Slap away over it or do some fingerstyle funk or do some one-chord-vamp soloing. Go nuts.
A minor, for the whole thing.

http://www.divshare.com/download/14665147-e04

http://www.divshare.com/download/14665981-b56

Daily Licking 039: Minor Blues in C

Well, you greedy bastards sure like free stuff.

The ii-v play along has been surprisingly popular, so here is another very simple play-along track for you to pilfer.

This time it is a minor blues in C, with a couple of altered chords thrown in.

Follow the same drill as before, download the file and the chart, put the audio into a player that can do seamless looping (like Quicktime Player) and repeat ad infinitum and commence to shredding. There is no bass on this so you can solo or play a bass line along with the chords. Knock yourself out.

Enjoy.

http://www.divshare.com/download/14533893-8dc

Brian Beller On Bass

Mr. Beller has released a new live record and also recently posted his entire catalog up on Bandcamp.

Beller has played with some scary, scary, people in the past - Dwezil Zappa, Steve Vai, Mike Keneally (also on his new album) and probably a bunch of others who are equally terrifying.

If you like rock-y, (but not dumb) fusion-y, (yet not wanky at all) grooves that have gritty yet sophisticated bass playing, go check out his new album "Wednesday Night Live". It covers a lot of ground, has a high ridiculoso content and will keep you listening for a while.

Basso Approved!

http://bryanbeller.bandcamp.com/

Daily Licking 037: Playalong ii-v In All Keys

(fixed the link to the wrong mp3. Doh.)

Spent some time goofing around with GarageBand and the many minutes of hard work (not really), have resulted in a handy play along file that others may find some use for. Ya can't have too many ii-v's to practice. Use it to work up some of the ii-v licks posted previously, or your favorite lick from Pent-up House or just to practice soloing on, there are a million and one uses. Goes great on salads too.

The track is very very simple rhythmically, just whole notes, so you can really hear how any notes you play fit (or don't) against the chords. There is also no bass so you can add your own.

Here is a simple chart that shows the order of the progression. The mp3 is loopable so it will continuously repeat until you get the lick nailed. Click on the chart, save to disk, blah blah all that.

To loop the audio, just load the mp3 in Quicktime Player (free for mac and windows), and just select "Loop". Ta-da. Done. Then bust out your favorite ii-V-I lick and practice moving it through each key.

http://www.divshare.com/download/14480543-5e1

Some other things to do that are fun:

1. Play just the third of each chord as a whole note. Record yourself so you can hear what that sounds like. Then do the 5th, 7th, etc to hear what each note sounds like against each chord.
   
2. Run the arpeggio of each chord up and down.
   
3. Play other arpeggios against the chord, for instance on Dmin, try a F maj, or an Amin arpeggio, on the G7 try a Bmin7b5 and go up to the ninth. HA! Tricked ya, that is just the G7 starting on the third! But check it out, play around with stuff like that.
4. Start a scale on the third of each chord and go up in 8th notes. Try different scales (appropriate ones for each chord type). Where does the end of the scale leave you relative to the next chord? A nice juicy note?
   
5. Play different pentatonics against each chord, on Dmin7 try Amin, Emin, and even, wait for it, Bmin.
6. And of course, practice walking lines over the progressions. This is the most common progression there is in a lot of improvised music, so you can't ever go wrong trying different ways to connect these chords.
   

Enjoy. And if there are any other progressions y'all would like to see let me know, or if you would be interested in how to make your own, I could do a post on that as well. Ciao!

Triad Pairs. For Bass. Dammit.

Why oh why do book publishers hate the bass clef. Huh? What did that cute, harmless little crescent ever do to them? Why won't they just put a bass clef section in their music books. Is it because he is ....BLACK? Oh, that is just so typical. Hey, it can be at the back of the book, separate but equal okay, but whatever, just get it in there and set my bass peoples free.

Exhibit A - there does not seem to be a single book about triad pairs that has any bass clef notation in it. Not that I could find, anyway. Those trebley bass clef hating bastards. They are anti-octavists, thats what they are, overt anti-octavists. Next they will be saying bass players need to be in their own section, some kind of section just for "those people" that play rhythm. Geez.

Well, this aggression will not stand, man. Time to rectify said unacceptable situation. So here we go...

Triad Pairs

Triad pairs! What are they?

Well, they are a pair of triads, as in two different triads without any common tones paired up together. Just two triads you decide to group together and then limit yourself to only playing the notes contained in those two triads in a bunch of different ways. That is really all there is to it, pretty much.

Of course, there are details:

1. Usually the two triads are either a whole step apart or a half step apart, or sometimes a tri-tone apart. For instance, a C Maj and a D Maj triad could be one pair, and then say, D Maj and Ab Maj could be another pair. The reason is that if you put triads that are a 3rd, 5th, or 6th apart they can have many overlapping notes (c maj and e emin have 2 notes in common for example) and you don't get a strong harmonic effect. The unique notes of each triad make the effect. So, for example:

Triad Pair Example - C maj & D maj

bass lick tempo 140 3/8 | Cmaj c8 e g | Dmaj d8 f# a |

And here is the scale you get when you put the notes from those two triads in musical-alphabetical order, a-b-c-d-e-f-g, but only using the notes that make up the two triads.

Triad Pair Scale - C maj & D maj

bass lick tempo 140 6/8 | C c8 d e f# g a |

2. The two triads can be any quality - one can be minor, one can be major, both can be minor, one augmented, one major, whatever. You can pretty much go wild. The combination of the qualities of the triads (and their respective notes) determine what chords it makes sense to play that particular pair over. You can create your pairs either by just making up a pair randomly and then figuring out what chords it could fit, or find a chord or scale and then take a pair that occurs naturally within that scale/chord.

This is not a new concept, horn players have been using it for quite a while, as in, for decades. At the end of this article there are links to some books and videos and a bit of history on where this concept came from so you can get into it even more if you want.

This is probably a newer idea to a lot of bass players, however. Part of the reason is that this really is almost exclusively a solo technique, it's not really for altering bass lines on the fly. Sometimes the pairs of triads intentionally include notes that will create altered notes on a chord, or include notes that may not even be in the chord, so if you suddenly throw a triad pair line into your bass line, and no one else is playing those alterations...well, you might get The Look from your guitar player/keyboard/drummer and we don't want that. The Look is bad. It's the "what the hell was that" look. No good. So, keep that in mind and realize this is primarily a solo-istic device.

Guitar players also use this technique abundantly as well, see, here is an article where Mike Stern shows how he uses a triad pair to play over an F7 chord - scroll down to the section in that article called "Twisted Triads".

Let us take Mr. Stern's example as a jumping off point, but move his example into bass clef where it rightly belongs and then apply a generous slab of freshly ground ridiculoso to liven it up even more.

First, here is the raw triad pair Stern uses, just converted to bass clef. The first measure is the Eb triad, the second the F, and then the scale the two triads make when you put them together, like the example above. Note that he plays his examples in 4/4, but his pairs and his lines are exactly the same as the ones below. Those below are just in 3 so you can see each triad pair more clearly. You can play any of these lines in 4 at anytime. But that is an entirely different subject...

Stern Pairs in 3

bass lick tempo 90 3/8 | Ebmaj eb g bb | Fmaj f a c | F7 eb- f g | a bb c |

Next, Stern shows how to play the triads in different inversions to make a line. He plays each triad in each inversion, in order. So he does root position for each one, then first inversion (the third of the triad played first) for each one, then second inversion, (the fifth of the triad played first) for each one. Here is his line in bass clef:

Stern Lick in 3

bass lick 6/8 | F7 eb8 g bb f a c | g- bb eb a c f | bb-- eb g c- f a |

Okay, cool. A simple melodic line. See how it works? But there are a lot more ways to play these triad pair things than Mike had time to show. A lot more. How many more? Lets assess our options, shall we?

Well, since you diligently study and re-read every post spewn forth up here, you of course know that there are exactly six different ways to order the notes of any one triad.

So you have six different ways to group each triad, times two triads, and then you also have six individual notes between the two triads, so to figure out how many ways there are you do 1*2*3*4*5*6 and you get...

A big freaking number.

720 in fact. So there are 720 different ways to arrange the notes in any triad pair and play through them. Yikes.

Okay, but are all going to sound good? No. Some sound disjunct and angular and terrible and very contrived. But...some sound really cool. So lets try and reduce this number of possibilities and get to just some of the good ones.

So remember, we have 6 different arrangements of each triad:

1. Root - 3rd - 5th (aka Root Position)
2. 3rd - 5th - Root (aka First Inversion)
3. 5th - Root - 3rd (aka Second Inversion)

and then three others that don't have formal names and are just different orders of the notes:

4. Root - 5th - Third
5. Third - Root - Fifth
6. 5th - 3rd - Root.

So in our effort to reduce complexity, lets limit the ways we can play the triads to just the classic inversions, Root Position, First Inversion and Second Inversion. We will put those those other 3 non-inversion types aside for right now. That will help make our choices a little cleaner and easier, we will just keep it to 3 ways to play each triad, instead of 6.

But check it out, now we have 6 "units" of triads! (There are some made up abbreviations after each triad group. . .you will see why in a second.)

1. First Triad Root Position (or 1st Root)
   
2. First Triad First Inversion (or 1st 1st)
   
3. First Triad Second Inversion(or 1st 2nd)
   
   
4. Second Triad Root Position (or 2nd Root)
   
5. Second Triad First Inversion (or 2nd 1st)
   
6. Second Triad Second Inversion(or 2nd 2nd)
   

Uh oh. Thats six "units" of things again. We are back to having 720 different ways to organize just those! Fine. But now we at least have some organized labels and a way to approach this material, which is good because there is a LOT of material here. This concept is not a little lick or a line you just play once and then you got it, there is months or years of exploration in these things. There are rhythmic options, and all the crazy combinations of augmented, and minor then the tri-tones...all those are things for some future post. So, any way you slice it, this is a big ol' chunk of music to chew on.

To prove how much here there is here, I will use the triad pair of Cmaj and Dmaj and drop some examples on y'all. So using this pair and all its inversions:

Triad Pair - C Maj & D Maj in Root, 1st and 2nd Inversion

bass lick tempo 90 9/8 | Cmaj c8 e g e g c g- c e | Dmaj d8 f# a f#- a d a d f# |

And I will take those made up labels from above (1st Root, 1st 1st etc.) and use them to describe recipes for making melody lines with just those three arrangements of each of the triads. The examples will be in 6/8 just so you can see the recipe clearly, that means each measure will have two triads, each arranged in one of the three orders - root position, first inversion, or second inversion.

For instance, the recipe for Mr. Sterns example line, (originally with Eb and F) went:

1st Root (c, e, g) 2nd Root (d, f#, a) 1st 1st (e, g, c) 2nd 1st (f#, a, d) 1st 2nd (g, c, e) 2nd 2nd (a, d, f#)

Stern Lick Again Transposed

bass lick 6/8 | C7 c8 e g d+ f# a | e-- g c f# a d | g-- c e a- d f# |

But we can re-arrange those chunks INTO ANY ORDER WE WANT. What about...

1 Root, 2nd Root, 1st 2nd, 2nd 2nd, 1st 1st, 2nd 1st

bass lick 6/8 | C7 c8 e g d f# a | g- c e f# a d | e-- g c f# a d |

Or maybe, mess with the octaves a little and change the direction of the line and do:

1st Root, 2nd 2nd, 1st 2nd, 2nd 1st, 1st 1st, 2nd Root

bass lick 6/8 | C7 c8 e g a d f#- | g c- e f# a d | e g- c d f#- a |

You hear how this works. There are, well, over 700 different ways to do every triad pair just using the inversions, not even including the 3 other ways of playing triads. And like I said, some are gonna sound like junk and are not good for anything but sight reading practice, but hey, even if there is only 10% that sound good, that is 72 new phrases you can keep and use.

Listed below is just a taste of what you can do. These are from a PDF I created that is at the end of the article, which only has about 120 of the possible lines. "Only". Each melody line in the PDF is numbered and has the recipe that made it listed below it, so 1st Root, 2nd 2nd etc. And if 100 different lines are not enough for ya, just start in the middle of any lick and play to the end and wrap around to where you started, like it is a mode or something. Brain overload, I know.

The PDF only contains licks that start with the 1st Triad in First Inversion , thats all, so every lick starts with E G C, in that order. I chose that because it starts on a low E and lets you get as much range as possible going up from there. There is still over 100 ways to play the other 5 "units" (2nd 2nd, 1st Root etc) in various different orders after that first inversion triad as the starting unit.

Again, some suck and are useless. The first 10 or so, meh, its good to see them to get how the inversions can be moved around, but they sound contrived. Some however, are really cool. Some just need a little octave adjustment or direction adjustment (alternating the lick up and down instead of just ascending).

A small sampling...

Number 7

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c c e g | d f# a g c- e | f# a- d a d f#-|

Number 30 - Emphasizing F#

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c g c e | c e g a d f# | f# a- d d f# a- |

Number 39

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c g c e | f# a- d d f# a | c- e g a d- f# |

Number 48 - Starts on Open Strings

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c g+ c e | a-- d f# f# a d| d- f# a c e g |

Number 51 - Beginning of alternating groups

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c d f# a | c- e g f# a d| g-- c e a d f# |

Number 60

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c d f# a | g- c e a d f# | c- e g f# a d |

Number 62

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c d f# a | f#- a d c e g | a- d f# g c e |

Number 70 - Opposite of 62

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c d f# a | a- d f# g c e | f#-- a d c e g |

Number 86 - Staying Low

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c f#- a d | d f# a c- e g |a- d f# g- c e |

Number 112 - Starting on Each String

bass lick 6/8 | C7 e-8 g c a d f# | d f# a g c e |f#-- a d c e g |

And here is what a few of these licks sound like against some chords. This is not the richest accompaniment, but it lets you hear the general idea.

Against C7#11 (rootless voicing)

piano voicings tempo 90 6/8 C7#11 | C7#11 | C7#11 ||| { | ( e2. f# g b ) | (e2. f#2. g b ) | (e2. f#2. g b) | }{| c8 e g d f# a | e-8 g c f#- a d | g- c e a- d f# | }

Against G Maj 9 (root on some)

piano voicings tempo 90 6/8 Gmaj | Gmaj | Gmaj |||{ | (d2. f#2. a b ) | (d2. f#2. a b ) | (d2. f#2. g g+) | }{| c8 e g d f# a | e-8 g c f#- a d | g- c e a- d f# | }

Lots of stuff. That's just 10 of 'em. Told ya. There are 600 others left for you to figure out. Some general observations:

1) The lines that alternate triads tend to sound more interesting (to me anyway). Yet, having lines that stay on one triad and then move to the other can be useful also. 2) Changing direction in the line helps, but having a line going in just one direction can sound great too. There is just so much stuff here to play with.

Okay great, so what can you play this C Maj/D maj pair over?

1. Any chords in the key of G Major or E Minor so your Gmaj, Cmaj7#11, Bmin, Emin, A dorian, D7
2. Dsus, C7#11 also.
3. F# minor flat 5 - Autumn Leaves anyone?

But ...there are not really any hard rules, you could try anything, for instance, say you wanted to try it over a BbMaj9 chord? What would happen?

Well you would have:

BbMaj9

1. C - 9th
2. D - 3rd
3. E - #11
4. F# - #5/b13
5. G - 13
6. A - Major 7

Hmmm, tasty possibilities. #11, nice and a #5, kinda whole-toney. Try it!

What about say..F7?

F7

1. F# - b9
   
2. G - 9
   
3. A - 3rd
   
4. C - 5th
   
5. D - 6th
   
6. E - Major 7
   

piano voicings tempo 90 6/8 F7 | F7 | F7 | { | (eb2. f a c2. ) | (eb2. f a c2. ) | ( eb2. f a c2.)|} {| c8 e g d f# a | e-8 g c f#- a d | g- c e a- d f# |}

Also has potential. The b9 - always a bold statement. And even with the natural 7 against the flat 7 of the dominant it might work, remember, the Bebop scale has that note in it and people play that all the time over a dominant chord. Just don't sit on the E.

But that is how you figure it out, just map what the notes of your triad pair would be in relation to the chord you want to play over and see how it goes. Some will be way way out there in a good way, some in the bad way, but others will be just spicy enough to keep using and give you a little extra snap on your solo.

And remember those 3 groupings of triad notes that we took off the table back there? Well, those sound pretty good too:

The Left Overs

bass lick tempo 140 6/8 | C7#11 c g+ e d a+ f# | e c+ g f# d+ a | g e+ c a f#+ d |

So this post is the tip of a very big iceberg, there are minor/major pairs, augmented/major pairs, pairs a half-step apart, ad infinitum...this is just an intro to the concept and samples on one measly set of triads.

More Info, Credits, and History

Like I said, this concept has been around for quite a while, but as bass players we are usually the last ones to get solo concepts trickled down to us. But horn players (especially sax players), guitar players and keyboard players have all been using this concept for years and years.

There are a couple of very well known books about how to make different triad pairs and how to determine what chords they fit over:

1. The most well known book is rather bluntly entitled Triad Pairs for Jazz , written by Gary Campbell, a music professor at University Of Miami. This one is the most extensive, oh, except for the overt and glaring lack of any bass clef in the entire dang thing whatsoever. Campbell showed stuff like this to Michael Brecker, or so Brecker said once. This is the book that I got it from. He takes a very structured approach to building the pairs and goes through an exhaustive list of possibilities. He also explains how to derive a pair from any particular scale. If you think this stuff is cool, you will like this book. Even though it has zero bass clef in it. None.
   
2. Another good book is called Hextonics by Jerry Bergonzi. "Hex" as in six, as in two different three note triads. Same idea as triad pairs, he just calls them something else, but in true Bergonzi fashion he creates a cubic butt load of lines and melodies with various inversions and melodic permutations and combinations. This book also has a play-along and you can hear Bergonzi demonstrate some examples of different pairs in action as well which is always nice. But again, sadly bass clef-less.
   
3. I think the oldest of the books is called "Intervallic Improvisation" by Walt Weiskopf. It is not as in depth as Campbell's, but it still has a lot of good stuff in it. Walt is playing sax for Steely Dan these days so they must dig it. There is a link to a video of Walt below, demonstrating the goods in person.
   

But supposedly this concept is the creation of a guy named Charlie Banacos, who was more or less the Yoda of improvisational music. He was a very famous guy who used to give lessons by mail. Yea, not e-mail, like, you wrote down stuff on a piece of paper and put it in that little metal box nailed to the side of your house, and then in a week or two some guy in a blue uniform with a truck that has the steering wheel on the wrong side brought you a cassette tape and a piece of paper that came from Mr. Banacos saying "do this stuff". Then you did that stuff, which was usually ass-kickingly hard and took a really long time and made you cry (or so all his students say) then you dried your tears, sent him a cassette of you playing his lesson exercises and another piece of paper saying "okay, now what" and then he sent you something back that was even harder to do than the first thing he sent you...and on it went like that. But, anyway, a lot of very famous well known monster players did his various lessons over the years - Mike Stern, Jeff Berlin, Alain Caron, Bergonzi, Joe Hubbard, tons of guys all went to Degoba to get hip with this musical Yoda. Mr. Banacos passed away recently but his legacy lives on in all the players he taught.

So there you have it, a very long post on the crash-course in triad pairs.

And at the risk of beating a dead horse - remember this is not the primary stuff we get called on to do as bass players. This represents, at best, 5% of what we are expected to do, so don't let this stuff become 90% of what you are practicing all the time. Spend some time with it if it is new to you and play around with it, explore...but remember the things that we will be doing far more of when we play and make sure you practice all those things even more.

And just in case this all wasn't enough..here are some YouTube clips and blog postings, mostly from sax players, about using triad pairs.

Shawn "Thuder" Wallace

Walt Weiskopf - The Man himself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV-eaT3KDws

Dave Valdez's take

http://davidvaldez.blogspot.com/2006/04/triad-pairs-and-modes-of-harmonic.html

http://davidvaldez.blogspot.com/2005/10/gary-campbells-triad-pairs-for-jazz.html

Matt Otto - on tenor playing with some very altered triad pairs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlnS3rF0sM

Alleged Artist - Triad Pairs over ii-v's on the gee-tar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_NU987R8JU

Well, that oughtta be enough to keep y'all off the streets for a while.

New Episode of Janek Gwizdala's Podcast Series Released, #14

Go check it out.

http://gwizmon.podbean.com/2011/01/11/playing-what-you-sing/

Janek gives examples of developing an idea over a simple set of root notes - G,Eb, C, D and lets you listen along as he comes up with phrases he likes. He also plays a track from his most recent album.

Go check it out. All his podcasts are a gold mine of information. Highly recommended.

Its Language - So Here Are Some New ii-v Words

UPDATE: This file is now available here -

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46109603/Baker%2025%20Bass%20clef%20v2.pdf

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Victor Wooten talks about how music is a language, so do Branford and Wynton Marsalis, so does Pat Metheny (if you have ever heard his infamous guitar lesson mp3). They all talk about how there is a grammar-like structure to learning how to play over chord changes. How you develop that vocabulary is just like how you develop speech, you imitate, you hear a word you like and if you don't understand it, you look it up and then you file it away for when you want to use it again. Improv works the same way on some levels. You learn some basic phrases, you build your vocabulary by imitating others and copying words you don't know yet until you know how to use them. The absolute best, hands down, fastest way to get this vocabulary is to transcribe off of records the solos you like. Now we live in an era where we have books and DVD's and other things that the people that came before us did not have, so to that end, here are some phrases and new words in the language of improv for the electrified bass guitar, translated from treble clef from David Baker's How To Play Bebop Vol. 2. If this book exists in bass clef...I haven't found it, I only have a treble clef version so I converted 25 of his 101 ii-v patterns into bass clef and analyzed what notes the licks use and put the scale degree under each note of the lick. Yea, you are welcome.

No way man, you read how the jazz cats can channel consciousness and get so in the zone that pure spontaneous music erupts from the bowels of ones true karmic energy center when it is at oneness with the vibrations of the universal chi and it all just, like, happens, man.

Bull-shyte.

Everybody has licks they play and phrases that they have spent time working up to play over chord changes. It's part of the myth that improv just happens, everyone works on phrases. Everyone. No matter how heavy they were or are.

To go with the language analogy, the licks below are "sentences" for use over a ii-v progression, so in the key of c, from Dmin7 to G7 each chord for one measure.

Now, are these music sentences the kind that sound like "The burnished mahogany chest sat regally on its column like legs, with its dark, hand hewn contours accenting its orthogonal placement to the intersecting walls of the library chamber."

Not exactly.

They sound more like "There was a dark wooden box in the corner of the book room." But that is okay, they are still good and solid phrases to learn and explore and use as vehicles to figure out why you like certain ones. Some things you might want to ask yourself when you look at them:

1. Wait, what's with all the wrong notes? How come some have an F# on the Dmin? How come some have an Ab on the G7? What the hell!?
   
2. What beats are the chord tones on?
   
3. What is the starting note of the lick? Is it always the root? spoiler: no.
   
4. How many non-chord tones are there in the lick?
   
5. What is the range, or how wide is the distance between the highest note in the lick and the lowest note in the lick?
   

So bust out Band-in-a-Box or an Aebersold track with ii-v's on them and play through these. Keep the ones you like, ditch the rest. If some of these are cornball, so what, it is still good solid grammar practice. Analyze the ones you like and figure out how come they sound cool. Mix them up, take a lick from the Dmin chord and put it with a different G7 line from a different lick. Change one note. Change 2 notes. Start the lick a beat early. Start it two beats early and add a note at the end. You get the idea. Plenty here to keep you occupied for a while. There are actually 101 ii-v's in Baker's volume 2, this is only the first 25. When I have these nailed these myself, I will post the rest in the same format. Now go practice.

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