How do you practice harmony

[JamPlay]

When studying harmony it's cool to think in terms of a center point with everything revolving around that center point. We often refer to this center as the tonic. Everything around the center has a vibe, a name, a connection to the center. We as musicians learn how to hear music, codifying it, relating it to a key (center), a scale, a mode, a shape ((ie.blues riff).. So, are there any questions or study habits that folks want to talk about? share? Love working with harmony.. As a student, and we are all students, it's fun dissecting music. Figuring music/ songs out and charting it either on paper or by ear occupies much of my time. Bass players must develop their ears to become sound citizens in an ensemble. Let's too not forget rhythm and groove. While studying harmony it's cool and necessary to keep the groove and rhythmic pocket in tact.. If you want to discuss practice routines that foster solid rhythmic skill, let's do it here too. With both harmony and rhythm workouts you have healthy practice routines.

 

[sambass0124]

I study harmony/ theory by

1. Reading books
2. Wiki
3. Google
4. Youtube (which is very great because sometimes theories are a bit abstract, on Youtube people demonstrate theories by playing guitar/ piano - this links up theories and sound)

To practice ... I use Chordbot to play chords and I play bass to jam ... sometimes I use guitar to play chords - it helps me get the sound what I'm studying.

I'm not a pro player ... just my 2 cents.

 

[JamPlay]

sanbass0124, you make a key point here...when studying chords, harmony, it's much more effective when you get off the page, and into your ears. As you mentioned, playing the chords, hearing the chords, gets the sound of what you're studying in the air. That's always been my favorite practicing tool. Taking it a step further, finding a chord progression from a song, learning a series of chords strung together, helps you to remember chord structures. Over at Berklee College of Music we refer to this as the "harmonic rhythm" of a song.

 

[EastCoastThump]

In addition to the chord tones, learn the melody. That will help with voice leading and will expand your vocabulary.

For example, knowing that at a particular beat the melody is on a perfect fourth and heading to a major third might have you reconsidering whether the major third is your most interesting chord tone choice for the bass there.

 

[Jipley0]

By no means am I knowledgeable in theory - I can hardly read the bass clef - but I also love some good harmony.

One way that I play around with harmony is with my looper pedal. I'll play a track that I know well and experiment over top of it by playing the same shapes/patterns but starting in different places until I come up with something that I enjoy listening to. Then if I'm feeling adventurous I'll try and do a 3rd track and make it as huge as possible.

Now if someone asked what I was doing and what notes I was playing I'd have no idea. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[sean_on_bass]

I learn harmony by learning songs and understanding the harmonic progression of said songs. For me, its jazz standards primarily right now. Its helped me see(and hear) common threads between different songs. I am now at the point where i can write out a pleasing progression without an instrument in front of me, because i can recall many different examples.

 

[JamPlay]

Seanto, thanks! this is the reference that exemplifies ear training at its best. The fact that you can write out music, recalling the vibe, the sounds, from your head w/o bass or any other instrument in hand is fantastic. Nice! Learn songs by ear, subsequently getting on your bass and playing along. Now you have it down! Also, you'll be able to recall the harmonic progression much easier since you figured it out sans bass. You also have a paradigm in place to recall the harmonic progression. This is solid practicing! Now, it takes time and effort to get to this point. Recommend taking easier songs, with not too much harmonic movement at first. Build your lexicon of chords and chord progressions from there.

 

[sean_on_bass]

Great points. I agree, this doesn't happen overnight. It took me probably about 4-5 years to get to this point and was comprised of hundreds of hours of listening, practicing alone, and playing with a group...and i still have a ton of room to grow.

 

[GastonD]

I will also learn to do some basic cords on the bass and work a bit on the comping to a song at hand. But my main approach to seeing how harmony works on the bass is by doing what Garry Willis presents in his book "Fingerboard Harmony for Bass".

 

[JamPlay]

GastonD, Gary Willis is wonderful and has done some real hip clinics at Berklee's Boston campus. He's actually a member of Berklee faculty now teaching at our Valencia Spain campus.. Wondering if you could sum up a few salient points from the book that have struck a nerve with you and influenced your practiced habits..

 

[GastonD]

Sure... The bottom line is being able to switch smoothly from one chord to another, and the first phase in doing it entails taking two chords and figuring out their "shapes" in the same position on the neck (in the book Willis does the "figuring out" part for you) and then take a comfortable tempo and play quarter notes, going in the same direction as far as possible in that position before moving back. Naturally, you do not start each chord on its root, but go to the closest tone of the next chord. He starts the drilling process with the II-V progression, later moves to II-V-I etc.

The methodology also includes eight notes, extensions etc, but this is the essence of it and I find myself using it do deal with any new peace of material.

 

[JamPlay]

Nice...this technique is formerly known as voice leading.. And it works so smoothly when you connect chords via the next closest chord tone .... I like thinking of it as the airport concept... You depart on your note, play a shape, then arrive on another note, and this note has some significance to the next chord...beyond chord tones, you can mess around with chord scales and achieve some real cool bass ideas, yielding shapes and patterns. As your ear gets used to an idea, you develop it, and familiarize yourself enough that it becomes part of your lexicon. Now, you have it ready to use at a moments notice. Thanks for explaining how you work from Gary's book. Very cool!!

 

[henry2513]

I was lucky, so lucky to take a good chunk of skpye lessons from him and here are my insights.

In addition to the stuff already mentioned about Willis's fingerboard harmony, the other part to his method is connecting these chord shapes using different finger positions, you either start your idea using the 2 or 4 finger. But, in my opinion, the most important part about his method is the strong beat, weak beat concept where you can play chord tones on the strong beat, the 1 and 3 and passing tones, extension, etc, really whatever on the 2 and 4. Another concept that folds into his approach is that when you're working in major diatonic harmony you are never a whole step away from the next chord tone. All this allows you to play more fluid, linear lines - if you choose. It really gives you a command of the instrument.

He's got exceptions, etc when you venture into minor that work with his approach.

Here's what's really cool about the lessons. When I started with him I thought "ok now I'm going to learn the secrets blah blah..." Actually, 90% of what we covered was in his books! How he taught it to me is almost exactly how he presents it in his books. We just applied the info to standards instead of specific exercises.

The other 10% were technique related questions.

 

[JamPlay]

I was lucky, so lucky to take a good chunk of skpye lessons from him and here are my insights.

In addition to the stuff already mentioned about Willis's fingerboard harmony, the other part to his method is connecting these chord shapes using different finger positions, you either start your idea using the 2 or 4 finger. But, in my opinion, the most important part about his method is the strong beat, weak beat concept where you can play chord tones on the strong beat, the 1 and 3 and passing tones, extension, etc, really whatever on the 2 and 4. Another concept that folds into his approach is that when you're working in major diatonic harmony you are never a whole step away from the next chord tone. All this allows you to play more fluid, linear lines - if you choose. It really gives you a command of the instrument.

He's got exceptions, etc when you venture into minor that work with his approach.

Here's what's really cool about the lessons. When I started with him I thought "ok now I'm going to learn the secrets blah blah..." Actually, 90% of what we covered was in his books! How he taught it to me is almost exactly how he presents it in his books. We just applied the info to standards instead of specific exercises.

The other 10% were technique related questions.

Thanks henry2513,
The concept of applying exercise routines, harmonic and rhythmic fluency to jazz, R&B, or rock standards is the perfect amalgamation of technique and music making...after all, would you prefer to go out and see/ hear someone performing scales and arpeggios, or a group playing standards, new music, etc. I find when teaching and practicing myself, the joy lies in being able to fluently embrace a song, play bass to it, improvise to it, and feel comfortable being functional along with being artistic while performing with a group. Sounds like lots of good material was worked on in those lessons. Thanks again for sharing your experience working with a master player such as Gary Willis.Cool!!