Soloing to chord changes

[nathanmcnathan]

Hi everybody, I'm pretty new to soloing to chord changes, and I'd like some help. I want to learn how to do it to Donna Lee, because although I don't know how to play the head on bass, I know the tune in my head, and I can hear the changes really well, and I can sing the melody off the top of my head. I think what would help is just some insight to the changes, and to understand them better - right now, I have a really hard time soloing over changes, everything just sounds like walking. Any suggestions to help solo over the changes would really help. Thanks!

[Pat Harris]

If you're just starting to blow through changes, "Donna Lee" may not be the best choice. It's usually a pretty burning tune and the key signature doesn't give you many "bass friendly" licks/vocabulary to use. That said, if you love the tune, you can make it happen. You may want to take a look at tunes like "Autumn Leaves," "Beautiful Love," "Blue Bossa" or even some blues tunes that have more ii-V movement or harmonic embelishments in them.

The best place to start for me, is to just be able to play proper scale/chord notes in 8th notes through each chord so you can get used to not having "bass player disease" and hitting the root on each chord change. Another place to start would be to actually steal some licks that you like from Charlie Parker on a tune like "Donna Lee" and employ them in your own playing.

That's the short answer...
All the best,
Pat

[nathanmcnathan]

That sounds good... I'll have to give it a try. Thanks!

[chop_1992]

Donna Lee is based on the chord changes to the (very old) standard called "Back Home Again In Indiana" . . . which is often just called "Indiana." The melody to Indiana is pentatonic and scalar and bass-friendly, so you might want to learn that melody first. Indiana is also in F, which is more bass-friendly than the Donna Lee changes in Ab.

Once you can walk, play the melody, and solo on Indiana in F, then see if you can transpose it to Ab. When you can play Indiana in Ab, then you are well on your way to playing over Donna Lee.

You can hear Christian McBride playing Indiana (arco solo) on a trio record with Gary Burton here.

You can also make jokes about the bridge to Indiana (there is none . . .)

John

[nathanmcnathan]

That sounds great. Thanks!