Double Bass Jazz: What have you played/learned today?

[Tom Lane]

1 hour of scale work 2 octaves in fourths( working through different interval each day) using a four system practice method!
1 hour ed fuquas arpeggio excercise!
1 hour on bach cello suite 2 prelude
1 hour on a new tune satin doll changes melodie chord tones and approaching the chord tones from surrounding notes.

1 hour bass transcription
1 hour solo transcription
1 hour cherokee through different keys.
1 hour ornithology into different keys!

Wow! 8 hours! I'm so jealous! Lot's of great stuff there, how's your intonation and time?

 

[Basscat125]

the joys of being 17 on summer break eh? its improving everyday... im working with drones on my scales so thats helping to keep it more accurate. tp accuracy is somethig im striving towards!

 

[Groove Doctor]

Yesterday: learning/refining the 12 new songs for today's rehearsal. Lots of aural stuff - working out bass lines, charting/ song structures (usual prep as I'm the MD).

 

[punkjazzben]

Today I'm listening. Mingus et al.

Listening should part of every routine, IMO.

 

[Jbassrockboy]

I I , v, 1 's , concentrating on strong beat, weak beat concepts and singing along with the inversions that I am playing

Just try to develop my basics and for me it's like I have a long walk of a journey in front if me .. Lol....

Listening to Paul chambers ...

 

[eric.damstra]

The melody of Coltrane's Naima as a bowing exercise.

 

[davidhilton]

Recorded Maiden Voyage....

 

[cpaterso]

Yesterday I played Blue in Green in a duo gig. Realized I had no real clue what to play over this great tune.

So today, played on it with a backing track from YT; and worked on playing the head arco. Also worked from a sheet that has the tune analyzed bar by bar for pertinent scales. (Yes, I know, the chord/scale approach has a down side, but it was interesting to try it out. I got a few ideas.) THEN realized that working from the melody was a good plan too. Will do more on this song tomorrow (and for a few years on.)

 

[davidhilton]

Yesterday I played Blue in Green in a duo gig. Realized I had no real clue what to play over this great tune.

So today, played on it with a backing track from YT; and worked on playing the head arco. Also worked from a sheet that has the tune analyzed bar by bar for pertinent scales. (Yes, I know, the chord/scale approach has a down side, but it was interesting to try it out. I got a few ideas.) THEN realized that working from the melody was a good plan too. Will do more on this song tomorrow (and for a few years on.)

I'd like to hear more of how the "chord scale approach has it's downsides.
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[pnchad]

honest to gosh this was my exact practice routine in about 1976

I dusted off my copy of Rufus Reid's The Evolving Bassist today.

The first section of open string exercises is still a real workout after a while (albeit a slow-burning one). I used to just use the bow, but going the first part (before the triplet section starts) using pizz makes me realise how much work I need to do on developing a fluid right hand technique.

I also went through his natural and harmonic minor exercises - good for your left hand and intonation - plus I did some sight reading from the Rhythm Changes walking bass section, which eventually starts to challenge how well you have the changes internalised as his lines get more complex.

I'm gradually working up to my old routine, which was in four parts:

- warm-up/open strings: exercises from Rabbath or Rufus Reid, focusing on getting a nice, full sound
- scales and arpeggios: pick a key a day and use Rabbath Vol. III for fingering patterns (two/three octaves and three fingerings + three or more rhythmic patterns), OR do main scale/chord types in 12 keys over two octaves going around the cycle of fifths/fourths without stopping
- walking: scalar, chordal, chromatic approaches; a tune a day (this section used to be an etude when I was focusing on classical)
- melody and improvisation: a tune a day, or a familiar tune in a new key (...and this section used to be orchestral repertoire or solo material)

I still remember those first 6 pages or so - the open string rhythmic exercises were just excellent for getting a great sound and sharpening reading kills

for me it's been about rhythm figures in reading (I've always needed help there)

 

[chicagodoubler]

I was doing business nonsense all day and when I sat down to practice, it was too late for the big bass; my neighbors have a toddler and the electric has been taking up too much of my time...
So I practiced funk bass lines on my new analog synth.

Boogie On Reggae Woman kicked my butt more than anything has in a while. Stevie's synth bass parts are absolute mastery.

I know someone will turn up their nose at this, as many jazz purists turn up their noses at playing the pork chop, but more and more, this skill set is becoming part of a professional working bassist's tool kit. The bassists I know who make the most money in the industry double or triple, and synth bass is part of the job requirement for many top-level gigs. It's amazingly fun as well.

 

[tonemachine]

Today I played an F blues (beginner here!) I can read the music pretty fluently so I feel like I made progress!

Li

I was doing business nonsense all day and when I sat down to practice, it was too late for the big bass; my neighbors have a toddler and the electric has been taking up too much of my time...
So I practiced funk bass lines on my new analog synth.

Boogie On Reggae Woman kicked my butt more than anything has in a while. Stevie's synth bass parts are absolute mastery.

I know someone will turn up their nose at this, as many jazz purists turn up their noses at playing the pork chop, but more and more, this skill set is becoming part of a professional working bassist's tool kit. The bassists I know who make the most money in the industry double or triple, and synth bass is part of the job requirement for many top-level gigs. It's amazingly fun as well.

I second that...I recently played with a keyboardist who also has a business of setting up private upscale gigs all over the country and he mentioned that he loves using the guys who can double on synth bass for authentic song covering. The more you know...

Thanks for all the practice ideas, everyone.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I'd like to hear more of how the "chord scale approach has it's downsides.
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Hal Galper has some youtube videos discussing this concept, but i can't remember the names of them. I believe he was saying something along the lines of that the chord/scale approach is a limited/constrained view, and that a good concept should be limitless. He also describe this concept as a shortcut for teaching improv to students. He instead seemed to advocate improvising off the melody notes and chord tones or "guide tones," rather than superimposing a scale pattern over each bar of a tune.

 

[Robert Strickland]

Recorded Maiden Voyage....

Electric bass?

 

[davidhilton]

Hal Galper has some youtube videos discussing this concept, but i can't remember the names of them. I believe he was saying something along the lines of that the chord/scale approach is a limited/constrained view, and that a good concept should be limitless. He also describe this concept as a shortcut for teaching improv to students. He instead seemed to advocate improvising off the melody notes and chord tones or "guide tones," rather than superimposing a scale pattern over each bar of a tune.

So ur statement is in reference to a hal galper video, not ur actual experience. Thats what I thought.

 

[davidhilton]

Electric bass?

Oh my bad, eclectic bassists aren't welcome here?

 

[Huy Nguyen]

So ur statement is in reference to a hal galper video, not ur actual experience. Thats what I thought.

Don't be silly. Seanto didn't say whether or not he experienced first hand, but regardless, that doesn't negate the message.

Plenty of people have experienced what Hal has talked about, and Mr. Galper isn't neccessarily the first to invent that view. I'm a subscriber to the idea that music is much much bigger than what theory attempts to describe. Most "music theory" is a bunch of arbitrary relationships someone has come up to create devices that may create good music, but it's not a prerequisite.

Chord/Scale approach is a flat linear (2 dimensional) way of thinking - that is it's major downside. It teaches people to have to translate sounds through a single tonality (or a serially moving tonality) - like learning to speak spanish by coming up with a phrase in english and then translating it. It works but it's inefficient and cumbersome. IME, it's far better and easier to think melodically and throw all the conceptual ideas out the window when playing. i.e. Closing the bulkhead door as Chris likes to put it.

 

[sean_on_bass]

So ur statement is in reference to a hal galper video, not ur actual experience. Thats what I thought.

Well, it's one perspective on improvisation, of many. My experience is somewhere in between. For songs i know well, melody and all, i am not really thinking as much in chord/scale relationships but letting the melody guide me as to where to go, and simply hearing nice melodies in my head since the tunes harmonic progression is so ingrained. For songs i might be playing for the first time on the spot, yeah i might fall back to chord/scale relationships just to get through the tune and deliver an acceptable product.

I did not make the original comment though, but was merely backing it up with some context. I think most here would agree with the concept set forth by Hal, he's a guy that undeniably knows what he's talking about, you'd be a fool not to listen.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

It's just a tool and if used heavily can create a very mechanic sound because that's what it is: a device.

Somehow it has been elevated to the state of being an unavoidable "truth". It can certainly pass when you use it just to "get by". Any device by itself will not automatically generate emotional content. I think that's why most new players can play with a lot of flash and spark. Lots of uses of devices but not much in terms of connecting to the heart and/or audience. That stuff you can't teach (or maybe you can but it's really difficult).

I'm in a big Paul Desmond kick right now and I find everything he does musically is absolutely brilliant. A master of melody nonpareil.

 

[travshorts]

This is nice thread. It's interesting to see the process from so many different players. Let's be careful not to turn it into some kind of dick waving contest. Those threads are so boring.