How do I further develop melodic playing?
 

Hi

New at bass, guitarist with background in all styles including classical. Wondering how to develop melodicism with bass? Any particular pieces or studies to look into?

Thank you. :)

Transfer everything you know to bass. What you like keep what you don't throw away.
Transcribe every bass line, sax line, vocal, solo etc... and keep it in your book of knowledge.

I found this free e-book well worth my time.

http://archive.org/details/exercisesinmelod00goet

It's free, however, you will have to wade through the first 30 pages, before you get to the good stuff.

Have fun.

Play melodies... Seriously. Every little song that comes to your head from Happy Birthday to Twinkle Twinkle. All the TV theme songs you can remember. When you learn new songs on bass, don't just learn the bass part, learn the melody.

Try to phrase and breathe like the vocalist when you play the melodies.

Excellent free resource!

For me listening to a lot of Motown and soul really helped getting my head in the right place for playing more melodically.

Thanks. @ Art, when playing melodies.....when it pertains to songs you wont be playing often (Twinkle, Twinkle), do you just go ahead and learn them all the way or is it just a quick fig out melody excercise?

If I may jump in. I believe your question is how much of the song do you play. I think you will find that with simple tunes all the verses will contain the same melody, different lyrics, but, same melody. If you know the melody to one verse you know the melody for the entire song. Yes the chorus may change. The point of the exercise is to get you playing some melodies. So, to your question, one verse or at least enough to where everyone can recognize what song you are playing.

Somewhere over the rainbow comes to mind. First 7 notes of this should give everyone enough to know the song you are playing, but, go on and finish one verse.

Art makes a good point of leaving room for the tune to breath. The vocalist will be pausing, your tune should also pause, that e-book I listed points to three close notes then a leap of at least a 3rd. People like to hear four note phrases. A string of notes becomes noise quickly, however, if that string is broken into phrases we like to listen to that.

An example of improvising a melody. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0iZ1j00wSU Copy down the hints that appear on screen.

Have fun.

That is a really cool book. Thanks for posting that.