• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

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

#41
Seanto said:
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.
Click to expand...
I see.

www.basslessonslosangeles.com
 
#42
Huy Nguyen said:
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.
Click to expand...
Cool.

www.basslessonslosangeles.com
 
#43
I always start w Rhythm Changes and a simple Jazz Blues, played very slowly (55bpm-60bpm)

Rufus Reid scales/arpeggios, then onto transcribed walking basslines.

After that I usually play some charts I've been working on (learn the melody and the changes) or try to lift something of Ray Brown's or Ron Carter.

If you don't have the iRealB app, get it. Best 12 bucks I ever spent.
 
#44
Interesting experience yesterday....
I'm on extended holiday/travels and played a bass in a shop yesterday for the first time in 5 weeks (had to - massive bass cravings).

My playing was VERY melodic, as I've only been able to sing these few weeks. Interesting to spot the mindset shift in such a short time.

Note to self: spend A LOT more time internalising those melodies from now on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom Lane
#45
Other than some intonation exercises, yeah internalizing melodies and harmonies seem to be all I'm doing now. Keeps me plenty busy. I don't bother practicing improvisation really, more like melody manipulation/mutation. That and trying to figure out chord changes by ear and comparing what I picked up vs what's on a chart.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Groove Doctor and Tom Lane
#46
Lots of aural transcribing in the last 6 to 9 months: Got the Miles Davis solo from "Doxy" in my ears and under my fingers, Always wanted to learn Ray Brown's "Night Train" solo and finally did; Learned a large portion of George Coleman's "Stella by Starlight" solo on the Miles Davis album My Funny Valentine; am currently working on J.P.'s solo on "My one and Only Love" in Eb. There are others but those are the biggies. Lots of bowing etudes; some Bach & Hayden; Three octave scales; 2 and 3 octave arpeggios; sight reading; running new tunes; always working on soloing through "Giant Steps", "Tricotism", "Stella", "Body and Soul" many more......., ear training; So, lots and lots to keep me interested and busy. Then playing gigs about 4 nights a week.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seth Miller, Eric Hochberg and Tom Lane
#47
I'm in a band band doing Ellington, working through transcriptions of Aaron Bell and Jimmy Blanton. Lot's of tunes in Db which is challenging. There are some open string notes but mostly working on either boxing or shifting. It's all good intonation practice, makes me realize how I need to keep my hand open and visualize note location
 
#49
I re-worked a bunch of old & tired arpeggios to sound more melodic.

Root-5-8-9-(slide)10... (trill) 9^10^9 -8-5.
Repeat but with Dorian arpeggio: 2-6-9-10-11 etc. - then Phrygian arp. - thru all modal arpeggios up to the octave higher.

The keys player heard me play that the other day warming up and loved it. He said it sounded like a song d/t the expression & feel I conveyed it with.

Best fun doing I've had doing scales/arp's in years!!
 
#50
Good day dedicated to practice. 6+ hours. Usually I practice my scales, play a few tunes arco and pizz and transcribe until my ear dies, but today I just concentrated on arco major scales. Up, down, particularly down, 3 octaves, an octave at a time, starting in the middle of the scale, melodic fragments in all registers and different spots on the neck, really trying to hone in on locating the note I want anywhere on the fingerboard without searching, leveraging the harmonics up to the B on the G-string. So far, I find that I still need to *set* the scale in my ear by playing it once before I try something more advanced than open strings. I need to find a way to find any note anywhere on the fingerboard right away without any false starts. I think it's just practice, a bit of muscle memory, a rough idea, visually, of where the harmonics are, no?

David Freisen told me that when he learned to intonate well, he practiced his scales against a recording for 10 hours a day for 18 months. I am finding dedicated practice very rewarding in my facility on the instrument. I realize that a lot of college students take this for granted, but as an adult learner, I got bad advice - from teachers! - for years before latching on to technical proficiency. Listening and watching the masters and better teachers has really helped.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seth Miller
#53
Tom Lane said:
Good day dedicated to practice. 6+ hours. Usually I practice my scales, play a few tunes arco and pizz and transcribe until my ear dies, but today I just concentrated on arco major scales. Up, down, particularly down, 3 octaves, an octave at a time, starting in the middle of the scale, melodic fragments in all registers and different spots on the neck, really trying to hone in on locating the note I want anywhere on the fingerboard without searching, leveraging the harmonics up to the B on the G-string. So far, I find that I still need to *set* the scale in my ear by playing it once before I try something more advanced than open strings. I need to find a way to find any note anywhere on the fingerboard right away without any false starts. I think it's just practice, a bit of muscle memory, a rough idea, visually, of where the harmonics are, no?

David Friesen told me that when he learned to intonate well, he practiced his scales against a recording for 10 hours a day for 18 months. I am finding dedicated practice very rewarding in my facility on the instrument. I realize that a lot of college students take this for granted, but as an adult learner, I got bad advice - from teachers! - for years before latching on to technical proficiency. Listening and watching the masters and better teachers has really helped.
Click to expand...

Funny you'd mention this now. When I studied with David at one point he sent me away saying something like, "develop an exercise that addresses a problem you haven't worked on enough." What I came back with was a land-marking exercise of simply playing a three octave scale coming back to the first position root every other note creating ever increasing intervalic leaps up the board and back down.

What you're describing is kinda where I took that concept arpeggiating it and playing melodies changing octaves in patterns and randomly but always coming back to a single reference point on the instrument. After a long layoff from the DB I've started working on this again just these last couple of days. It's difficult to get going but when it starts to click there's a place where the conscious effort diminishes and some kind of tactile/aural singing intuition starts to take over. Up until now the reference has always been a low note. Today I got the Michael Moore inspired idea to work it from the top of the instrument down. Serious mind**** for me so far.

I am so dreading starting a several month day gig that's coming up. Having the time to live by inspiration's clock is seeming more than ever like a necessity rather than the luxury it's about to become.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom Lane
#54
Huy Nguyen said:
Oh I should say, some recent changes at home now avail me to a mirror to practice in front of. It's been a few years but it's such a useful tool now that I'm back in front of it!
Click to expand...

There's a lot to be learned from the mirror. Here's a selfie of the one I scored years ago. Makes practicing very informative:
Practice mirror.jpg


The little side mirrors are kind of neat because they can be angled so the right hand only shows up in the right mirror and the left hand only in the left, which somehow makes it easier to catch technique errors that are specific to one hand or the other.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Jeff Bonny, Treyzer and Marc Piane
#55
Today I was fooling around with a digital delay and a wah pedal. Seldom do double bassists use pedals; and I only know of the one Charlie Haden recording using a wah pedal. (With Keith Jarrett back in the early 1970s.) Using effects is an interesting way to hear how your bass can sound.
I have also been working on Nature Boy, bowing the melody; and on Blues for Sarka, also bowed, like George Mraz does it in the original recording with Tommy Flanagan. Again, the bow is unforgiving for intonation!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brian DeJesus
#56
Dan Berglund of the Esbjorn Svensson Trio has a good balanced approach to using effects on the double bass. They're not a group anymore(Esbjorn passed away n 2008), but they created some very beautiful music texturally through using acoustic and electric effects. Definitely check them out!

Today,by ear, I learned the melody and bassline/riff "Sudden Moment" by Mats Gustafsson of The Thing. I don't know how he wrote it out (or if he even did), but the bassline is a 12 beat pattern that i divide into bars of 3-2-3-4. Note wise its a simple riff in d flat, though i love riffs that are hard to count yet they dance. The melody plays against the riff and occasionally meets up. Haven't figured out the nuts and bolts to it; and i probably won't because i love the song too much haha. just glad to get it under my fingers.
 
#58
Started off warming up the right hand, then the left, then intonation (major and minor scale 2 octaves over all 4 strings) then my metronome practice which is 2 and 4 at 30 and play 5-10 chorus of a blues, then 2 rhythm changes and up tempo till I can't play/keep with the metronome (today I got to 160 on 2 and 4)

Then I played through one of the Bach cello suits and started a simandel étude.

I'm about to go back and start learning a few tunes. Tomorrow's my transcribing day
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back