Double Bass Jazz vocabulary: a discussion

[LeleLele]

Hello there, lowdown brethren!

My name is Lele, I'm 31 and I currently live in Turin, Italy. Nice board you have here!

I've been obsessing about phrases, patterns, licks and the like for a long, long time now.

I started out playing things I found in books (the Aebersold about II-V-I or Patterns for jazz) over and over in all keys. Result: tendonitis.

Then I stumbled upon David Baker's How to play bebop and I wore myself down tackling his tonic-centered licks (T235, T353, T765...). Result: chronic tonic slavery.

Then I lost faith in the method and I neglected vocabulary for months.

Now I'm back on it again. Here's what I've been doing lately:

1) Pull a phrase I like from a solo somewhere.

2) Sing it until it's in my head

3) Run it over different harmonic backgrounds (single chords, two chords, II-V-Is, turnarounds, sections of standards, major and minor blues forms)

4) Record a loop record a loop and use the phrase as a starting point to experiment on. Then I find something I really like, write it down and do it all over again with that

Do you think this is the right way? How do you people do it? I'm looking for new ideas so please join in and add to the discussion!

Thanks and have a wonderful day!

Lele

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Works for me. Between 2 & 3, I try to play the phrase in 12 keys. I'll also play the phrase very very slow as I learn it. Painfully slow.

You should also considering running the phrase over different rhythmic backgrounds (Ballad, bossa, fast swing, med swing, samba, waltz, 5/4, 6/8, etc). You can also mess with rhytmic displacement. Start the phrase on 1, and of 1, 2, and of 2, etc. Or you can play in a way where the prhase crosses the barline. I haven't tried it but it sounds like a cool exercise.