Finding right key

[Rick Martin]

One of my boogie woogie songs does seem to start out in Eb.
I can start my bass riff on the 6th fret of the A string and swing it from there....more or less. Or I could start on the first fret of the D string....right? But it looks like I can't get an Eb from the E string unless I go up to the 11th fret. So I find it's best for me to use that 6th fret on the A string. Am I making sense up to this point?

 

[furtim]

A little bit off topic now... but hey, that's me. I'm starting to get locked into flat keys now as a result of my jazz band playing. Whenever I see a B, I subconsciously HAVE to play it flat. There's just no other way to do it. =)

Unfortunately, I sound really dumb now when I have to sightread things and I'm playing Bb instead of B and F instead of F#. =/

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Rick Martin
One of my boogie woogie songs does seem to start out in Eb.
I can start my bass riff on the 6th fret of the A string and swing it from there....more or less. Or I could start on the first fret of the D string....right? But it looks like I can't get an Eb from the E string unless I go up to the 11th fret. So I find it's best for me to use that 6th fret on the A string. Am I making sense up to this point?

Well now you know why we like 5-strings, with that nice Eb at the 4th fret!!

But as Ed keeps saying(!)don't get hung up on fretboard patterns. You don't always have to play the root and anyway, Jazz progressions usually mean that when playing a song in Eb you will have a lot of other chords in there besides EbMaj7.

The scales cover the whole fingerboard and you really need to see the scale everywhere - not just starting at one place on the board, or you will get "locked in" to a certain way of playing that will be hard to break out of. Try playing a third away from the roots instead and building scales in thirds upwards - this was a recommendation from Ed Friedland to avoid this "root-centered-ness" that can afflict bassplayers.

Also when you say "riff" - in most Jazz-type things you are aiming for a flowing line that isn't necessarily just a repeating pattern, but which changes to suit what else is going on. It might help to look at some of Ed Friedland's stuff on BassPlayer's site or his books like "Building Walking Basslines" etc.