Jamerson's Part on "Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops

Since it was Mr. Jamerson's birthday recently, I thought it would be befitting to put up one of his famous bass lines. This is what he plays on "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)".

Surprisingly, this song is not in the "Standing In The Shadow Of Motown" book of transcriptions, which is a little weird, but hey, that means I can put it up here.

The song is very simple. It is an 8 measure long repeating phrase, and it just loops. No B section or bridge really, there are 8 measures out front with bass, and then after they go through the progression 7 times, they do 8 measures of bass and drums and then they start the 8 measure phrase over again and fade out after a few more.

The progression:

C | C | G | G | Dmin | Dmin | Fmaj | G maj |

Thats it. Over and over.

The bass line is simple, but very sly and drives the entire song along. Notice how he puts a little marker at the last measure by changing the rhythm there, its like a little period at the end of a sentence.

Here is a recording posted by Rick Suckow that is supposedly the master tracks from the original recording:

And here it is written out:

bass lick tempo 125 4/4 | C c8 g a c8~ c g8 a c8 | c8 g a c8~ c g8 a c8 | G g+ d e g~ g d e g | g d e g~ g d e g | Dmin d a b d~ d a b d | d a b d~ d~ d e4 | F f8 c d f~ f c d f | G g d e8 r g8 a8~ a8 g |

So just put on a drum loop (at about 125 bpm )and practice playing this line evenly, steadily, and let every note get that thud. Even though this might be considered an easy song, making it sound great and groove is never easy and takes concentration.

Sometimes that last measure could be notated even more syncopated like this:

bass lick tempo 125 4/4 | G g+ d e8 r g8. a16~ a8 g |

He really anticipates some of them, but they are not that syncopated, it just feels like they are. He is grooving but kinda floating at the same time. Listen to the track to get into his feel, that is the most important thing for a track like this.

Enjoy!

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.

Pentatonics, Downbeats and Chord Tones. Oh My.

Here is some more stuff about pentatonics that goes along with the first post on this blog about pentatonic patterns, ala Mr. Bergonzi.

First off, there are the positions, or modes or whatever you want to call them. I have seen them called both things, but all I am referring to is just playing the notes of the pentatonic scale, but starting on notes other than the root.

Simple. It's the same exact scale, no notes change from the original formula. Just start on a note other than the root and go up (or down) the rest of the notes in the scale in order. Simple.

For example, in G min Pentatonic the notes are:

G - Root
Bb - Third - even though this is the second note in the scale, it is usually referred to as the third, as it is a third away from the root.
C - Fourth away from the root.
D - Fifth away from the root
F - Seventh (minor, or a whole step down) from the root

Those are the notes you get starting from the root, and it is a very familiar finger shape that you were probably shown right away by someone when you started playing.

It looks like this on the neck:

Wonderful. But there are other shapes that fit that same scale that are not as common and are not always shown or explained right away, one for each of the remaining notes of the pentatonic. I won't explain all of them here, because they are contained in that nifty little pdf right under this paragraph, and you can see for yourself what the shapes are when you start a minor pentatonic from each note, or degree if you will (if we are going to be all music school about it) of the a minor pentatonic scale. This doc has Gmin, Amin and Emin in it.





The shapes are the same for every pentatonic (if you have a normally tuned bass), so once you memorize them, you have all of them for the pentatonics. Well, for the minor ones anyways. There are other pentatonic scales (lots and lots) that will have a slightly different fingering, but the same concept applies. All you do is start the scale on each note to get the different shapes for that type of scale - major, minor, half-demolished fallopian minor, whatever it is. The third shape will always be the third shape for that type of scale.


Okay. So what. Why do you care about this? Because you are sick of playing your solo by starting on the root of the chord you are on and going up the pentatonic scale, thats why! So now you don't have to, you can start on the THIRD of the scale or the FIFTH and get into some new places on the neck. Far out.

But there is even more to this.

First, a small diversion into the idea of strong beats and weak beats. The best place to get up to speed on this is to read a book by Hal Galper called "Forward Motion". There is the link, and here is a link to the first page that describes the basic concept.

Super quick, the idea of Forward Motion and implying the chord you are on in the strongest possible way is this:

1. Beats 1 and 3 of a measure are strong, (Galper calls them "Release" beats) 2 and 4 are weak(er) (He calls these "Tension" beats). This is all in good ol' 4/4 of course.
   
   
2. If you play chord tones of the chord you are on (the root, the third, the fifth or the seventh) on downbeats it implies the harmony and outlines what chord you are on in a stronger way. Much stronger. Downbeats meaning, if you are counting eighth notes, the numbers "1", "2", "3" and "4" are the stronger downbeats, not the "ands" (or upbeats) that go in between. Just wait, you will see.
   

Now there is a LOT more to it than that and lots of people have expounded upon this idea in lots of ways - Galper, Jeff Berlin in his chord tone book, and Ed Friedland talks about it in his "Bass Improvisation" book also. Lots of sax players and piano players talk about this stuff all over the net also. It is a pretty well understood and recognized phenomenon.

Great. SO WHAT.

Well, this is so what - now we can look at the different modes/positions/patterns of the minor pentatonic scale and figure out which one is the "strongest". In other words, all things being equal, which one of those patterns is the musical equivalent of the loudest way to shout, in one measure "Hey fools! I am playing G min Pentatonic, Yo!"

To figure this out, lets count the following items in each mode/position/pattern of the scale that occur during one measure:

1. Count occurrences of the root note. It is still the boss and tells the chord the loudest.
   
2. Count occurrences of chord tones. Tells everyone if it is minor or major or what is up.
   
3. and extra special - the count occurrences of chord tones on those strong downbeats of the measure. This just hammers it home.
   

So what do we get...? Which mode/pattern/position of the minor pentatonic scale is the absolutely strongest one, outlining the current chord you are on by using the most chord tones and putting them in the most powerfully rhythmic position possible?

Is it when you start from the 5th? From the third?

I won't spoil it by giving away the answer, but the answer is contained in the PDF below, which has pictures and everything shows you the the answer. It may surprise you which one it is. Props to whoever comments first with the answer.

A new Bass Blog and Pentatonics

Yea, that's just what the world needs, another musician blogging about a ridiculous monkey wrench of an instrument - the electric bass. Well, that's what you are getting. Welcome to it. Talking about all things bass and improvisational.

First up - Pentatonics. Where would we be without them? Some people say better off, but I say, nay!

Pentatonics get a bad rap because they are so easy to get under your fingers initially and are the ultimate oh-no-I-am-lost-what-can-I-play-scale so they get played a lot. A lot a lot. So they get called tired, worn out, and cliched. Sure, they can be, but any set of notes can have that happen to them, but for some reason the pentatonics get the brunt of it. No one says the mixolydian scale sounds tired or is over played do they? Okay, well maybe the blues scale gets it's share of abuse too, but pentatonics get it the worst probably.

Pentatonics are as hip as you want to make them be. Jaco used them in every solo he ever did just about and some of his most famous licks (like the unison line from Havona or almost his entire distorto solo on Word of Mouth) are almost all pentatonic. Some other guys named Coltrane, Hancock, and Metheny use them all the time and they sure don't sound cornball when those guys play them. You can play super inside using them, or you can get way spacey Sun Ra outside with them.

The bible on pentatonics for improvisational use is a book by a sax player from Boston named Jerry Bergonzi. He has an entire series of books about improvisation and one completely devoted to just pentatonics. They are not just for sax, they work for any instrument. The books are highly highly recommended if you are looking for material to work on for improvised music.



Bergonzi is big into patterns and recipes, ways of creating re-usable phrases and making lick factories so you don't just get a single lick you get a process and a pattern for making a lot of licks on any kind of chord or with any kind of scale.

His pentatonic book outlines a simple process for creating lines and starts you off with a set of 4 ascending lines and 4 descending lines as an example. Those same lines are in the PDF below converted into bass clef since he only does treble clef in his book. These lines work really well on bass!

There is a lot more in his book than just these patterns. He discusses what pentatonics to play when and how to get outside incrementally if you want by using different pentatonics over different chords. Go check 'em out on the web at http://www.jerrybergonzi.com/books.htm .

Here he is blowing over All The Things You Are and using some of his stuff.




The Pentatonics - download or print. Contains Cmin, Amin, Emin, Dmin, Gmin, and Fmin.