Jazz Band

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by stephanie
Oops...silly me...I do have another question:



I'm afraid I'm a little confused by what you mean by this. A "two feel"? I'd play D for 2 beats then G for 2 beats, then the same for the next measure?

No - it means 2 notes per bar, as a rule - of course you can throw in grace notes and leading tones. but the general "feel" is one note on beat 1 of the bar and 1 on beat 3, as Jon said .

I was probably misleading/simplifying, in my earlier posts, as I was trying to get across the concept of creating a walking bass line in Jazz and not paying too much attention to the particular tune.

Often, older Jazz tunes will stick to 2 notes per bar for the head and then go into 4 per bar when it goes to the solos.

I must just say, though - wow a thread where pkr2 was civil to me - this must be a an incredible rarity!!

 

[Pacman]

Originally posted by stephanie
I might be looking at the wrong part, but I was looking at the CMaj7 at the end of the second A section. On my chart the next measure (which begins the B section) is Gm7 C7, to which I used G as the first note of the measure.

Oh! Okay, well in that case, you're on an A, and you could continue downward, to the root (always a good choice), or you could hit the Bb, the third of Gm7. That would set you up for a nice Bb, B (leading tone) then C on beat 3 which is the root of the C dominant.

Well, thank you very much again for helping me with this. I am getting a little obssessed with walking bass, I think, and feel the need to know everything.

Well, being obsessed with walking bass can last your whole life! (Ask Ron Carter ) I've recently begin to get back into actually writing bass parts as excercizes, and it's the most amazing thing - it can last your whole life! And that's cool

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Yeah - it's something I don't do enough - I'm just too lazy! I always find it amazing when you see transcriptions of walking bass lines from the Jazz greats. Double Bassist magazine has been running a series on creating walking lines and the latest issue has a whole Rufus Reid line which is fascinating, but they also compare approaches with short examples from Milt Hinton, Wilbur Ware, Scott La Faro, Ray Brown, Ray Drummond, NHOP etc etc.

 

[stephanie]

Thanks again guys. I think I understand it now.

 

[Elle]

I recently joined a county renowned Jazz group about 4 weeks ago as their old bass player semi-left. I'm a self taught player and have been basically reading tabs for the two years that I've been playin'. So, it was quite difficult when I was given all these fab tunes in bass clef.

However, I spose I'm quite lucky that I've been playing the piano since I was about 8 years old and I've always been good at sight reading so that helps.

My advice is if you know some basic notes then you can work it out from there by using your basic theory. I'd also take a pencil along with you, and if you've got one, take a guide which shows you which notes are where on the frets (I do this and so does the guitarist next to me - it's not cheating honest!). If you get to a note that you're stuck on then scribble the tab position above/below it. I find that this helps. And if you can take the music home with you, then practise, practise, practise and scribble, scribble, scribble, until you feel comfortable!!

Finally, don't panic! Everyone has been in the position you're in!

Hope this helps!

 

[SpecialEd]

I am not going to harp too much on the song itself, but one thing that will do a lot of things for you in the long run is learn to read music. Start with bass clef (which is also known as F clef, because the two dots surround the F note) and after you have mastered that move on the trebel clef. By learning/teaching yourself you will:
1) grow as a a musician
2) improve your ability to handle situation. Example: if someone gives you tab you can read it, likewise if someone gives you a piece of music you can read it.
3) also it gives you an ability (or trick as some people like to call it) to add to your little black bag of trick that you can whip out and use at any given moment.

Bass Clef (F clef) is read: The notes on the left are for the lines on the staff and the notes on the Right are for the spaces. (the E at the bottom, just below the staff is on a line called a ledger line, and it appears as a short line below the staff, the F is right above that ledger line and just below the bottom line of the staff, the G is the bottom line of the staff, and so on. The B sits in the space above the staff)
A___________________B
F___________________G
D___________________E
B___________________C
G___________________A
E__F

And for the Trebel clef reading will be the same way. (The same thing is for the C it sits on a ledger line and the G at the top sits on top of the staff)
F____________________G
D____________________E
B____________________C
G____________________A
E____________________F
C__D

I hope that this is clear and helps you out, be sure to read the directions carefully.

 

[BASSnSAX]

Originally posted by RETSAMPALS
i hear ya man....
i just got promoted up to the higher jazz band (lol)
well now i have a buncha music to learn!!! and the thing is i CAN read music...but all my life i've been trained in treble!!! so it's a little hard reading that music when i think a C is an A and whatnot

oh well good luck in learning and i need to practice myself!

Yeah man, same here, I play saxophone and have for a good 6 years now, and then last year, I joined jazz band and started reading bass clef last year. It's still somewhat of a challenge, but it helped a lot. Now if only I could haul my Modulus Q6 to jazz practice...and not be confused by 9/4 and 7/4 and 14/8 time...

 

[stephanie]

Ummm...are ppl still replying to me in this thread or the original poster? Because I kind of ran away after seeing the word tab in a jazz-related question...

By the way, I can read bass clef and treble clef very well and am starting on learning tenor clef. My question was just about some walking bass 'rules'.

Oh, and I am happy. My teacher liked the line I wrote for "Satin Doll". So thank you again for all you help with it.