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Jeff Berlin discussing music education part 3
- Thread starter john turner
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Hi guys,
I'm trying something with my Bass Majors over Spring Break. I took only TWO of Jeff's patterns from his Beyond Chops Column in Bass Player of August 1998 "Wake Up Call" (Thanks Commreman!)
Here's what they are doing:
We took 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 and we're all playing them out of time over one of the following 3 tunes:
Autumn Leaves
All The Things You Are
Stella By Starlight
On Autumn Leaves the chords are:
Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 etc.
So the 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 is:
(Am7) C-E-G-A (D7) A-C-D-F#(Gmaj7) B-D-F#-G (Cmaj7) G-B-C-E etc.
If you take each consecutive pair of chord tone groups there is about 5 years of work just on one Jazz Standard. I chose Standard Tunes because that's the likely vehicle they'll be dealing with. The object is not to play these studies in Performance through the Standard, but to increase harmonic awareness and feed the student's subconscious with how this all sounds.
So far, everyone's really motivated with this and we'll see what transpires in their playing.
More of this type of stuff, please!
Hi guys,
I'm trying something with my Bass Majors over Spring Break. I took only TWO of Jeff's patterns from his Beyond Chops Column in Bass Player of August 1998 "Wake Up Call" (Thanks Commreman!
Here's what they are doing:
We took 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 and we're all playing them out of time over one of the following 3 tunes:
Autumn Leaves
All The Things You Are
Stella By Starlight
On Autumn Leaves the chords are:
Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 etc.
So the 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 is:
(Am7) C-E-G-A (D7) A-C-D-F#(Gmaj7) B-D-F#-G (Cmaj7) G-B-C-E etc.
If you take each consecutive pair of chord tone groups there is about 5 years of work just on one Jazz Standard. I chose Standard Tunes because that's the likely vehicle they'll be dealing with. The object is not to play these studies in Performance through the Standard, but to increase harmonic awareness and feed the student's subconscious with how this all sounds.
So far, everyone's really motivated with this and we'll see what transpires in their playing.
Good stuff.
That's where Adam is going with me. Last night he told me once I learn all the modes and have them down cold, I'll start learning what modes match which cords. The mode practice is for the fingering and economy of motion. He wrote out a few chords for me and told me which mode the match.
It was very, very cool. I can see where I am going to end up, and now I have to put the work in to get there.
Cool! It's great to have a designated practice space.
The entire room is my "man cave". If I were Superman, it'd be my fortress of solitude. Here's another view of it:
You should hear what my B and E string sound like with all the tools rattling in those metal drawers. It's UGLY!
Logical indeed. Two full octaves from one hand position makes sense to me.
That, and I love to reach back and rattle teeth with the B string.
It has not veered of the path, maybe it is taking its responsibilities seriously. The "good stuff" as you call it is still there for those that want it, but maybe that privilage is being subsidised by teaching the correct way to aproach modern music ideas. These very courses and the players that pay for them pay for the "good stuff".
As i believe is the case with most books...no tab, no deal. The players that buy the book because it has tab subsidise it for those that want notation. Welcome to the real world folks
This is great.Hi guys,
I'm trying something with my Bass Majors over Spring Break. I took only TWO of Jeff's patterns from his Beyond Chops Column in Bass Player of August 1998 "Wake Up Call" (Thanks Commreman!
Here's what they are doing:
We took 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 and we're all playing them out of time over one of the following 3 tunes:
Autumn Leaves
All The Things You Are
Stella By Starlight
On Autumn Leaves the chords are:
Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Cmaj7 etc.
So the 3-5-7-R and 5-7-R-3 is:
(Am7) C-E-G-A (D7) A-C-D-F#(Gmaj7) B-D-F#-G (Cmaj7) G-B-C-E etc.
If you take each consecutive pair of chord tone groups there is about 5 years of work just on one Jazz Standard. I chose Standard Tunes because that's the likely vehicle they'll be dealing with. The object is not to play these studies in Performance through the Standard, but to increase harmonic awareness and feed the student's subconscious with how this all sounds.
So far, everyone's really motivated with this and we'll see what transpires in their playing.
I came up with another similar idea from another of Jeff's old BP columns. The article is titled Charlie & the Four-Bar Factory, from Nov. 2000. The idea is to take a II-V-I progression & write a 4-bar melodic line. (I've just mixed & matched the exercises from the article Commreman's shared with us & the exercises from Jeff's book & the Bass/Trombone chord studies book, to create the line.)
Then write a second melody to the same 4 bars, using the chord "good" stuff again, just something different to the original line. So now there's two 4 bar lines of music, in C it would be...
Line 1
|Dm7|G7|Cmaj7|Cmaj7|
Line 2
|Dm7|G7|Cmaj7|Cmaj7|
Next thing is to switch bars from each line to create new lines of music, so you could write/play line 1 but switch out the first bar for the first bar of line 2. Do all the combinations of switching bars in & out from the 2 original lines & you get 16 different lines of music. Now transpose to all 12 keys...192, 4-bar lines, of melodic "good stuff" to write out & play through.
It's bloomin' crazy the amount of stuff you can get out of these exercises
Motorcyclist and bassist! You're my people!
My garage isn't nearly so big, or so clean, but it's got that same Markbass combo with a 1x15 extension cab, my '08 Concours 14, my '06 Suzuki M50, and my roommate's Sportster Iron. Along with the various shelves full of motorcycle gear, tools, junk, etc.
If you're a computer guy for a living we might just have to be friends.
Motorcyclist and bassist! You're my people!
My garage isn't nearly so big, or so clean, but it's got that same Markbass combo with a 1x15 extension cab, my '08 Concours 14, my '06 Suzuki M50, and my roommate's Sportster Iron. Along with the various shelves full of motorcycle gear, tools, junk, etc.
If you're a computer guy for a living we might just have to be friends.
IT Manager for my company. An uber geek extrodinare.
- Jun 25, 2007
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You'll be a good Bass player!
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Time will tell.
I've been working on Jeff's chord tone exercises from the old BP article. Its going great- no big mysteries there for me. But it is helping me really learn my bass better as I actually think about each and every note as I play it- not just mindlesss patterns. The chord tone exercises are also helping my think beyond always starting on the Root and working my way up toward the Octave, or always starting at the Octave and working my way back to the Root.
I busted out some old BP issues recently, in the August 2004 issue there is an article by Adam Nitti (Chads teacher I believe). Its called "Intro to Chordal Improvisation".
The idea behind the article is to give some options to use when playing over a certain chord, in situations where there may not be many chord changes in the music. It is supposed to help us "move around the neck" instead of staying in one position playing the same few things.
In my own words (for the most part)... According to the article....
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you wanted to solo over a static Cm7 chord, you could of course use the Cm7 arpeggio- but that will only get you so far. So to expand- we can use notes from the C Dorian mode, now we have 7 notes to work with.
Furthermore, C Dorian could be expanded to include Bb major, since C Dorian is basically the Bb major scale, it just starts on the 2nd degree and ends on the 8th. Its also safe to say that we can use any mode built off the Bb major scale, and still retain the C Dorian "sound".................................... but "we will also be able to move around and play ideas stemming from any of Bb major's seven scale degrees".
So we can take a sequence of arpeggios harmonized in the order of the Bb major scale we come up with.
(1) Bbmaj7, (2)Cm7, (3) Dm7, (4) Ebmaj7, (5) F7, (6)Gm7 and (7) Am7b5
-----------------------------------------------------------
The article was not written out in Notation or in TAB, it was just written out sort as I've done above. In order to help me understand it better, and help me with my notation reading, I wrote it all out in bass clef.
I then wrote out the Bb major scale- and of course all of the notes of the arpeggios in the article fell within Bb major.
So if I ever need to play over over a static _m7 chord I know there are lots of options, and now I know how to find them. However, I am not sure exactly how I would go about applying this concept over a _maj6 chord. I guess I am wondering if there is some sort of formula that would apply to that as well. Or perhaps the answer is that I simply need to know what mode/modes the maj6 chord falls into, and how to harmonize arpeggios that using each scale degree, that all fall within a certain key?
I've got a lot to learn!
It seems this article really has given me a taste of one of the ways to "open up the fretboard". Its something I've needed for a long time. I can jam along with a group by either being given the chords, or by finding them by ear. However, when jamming on a static chord- I am at a loss as to how to keep it fresh. I just can't reliably wander out of a strict 1 or 2 octave scale based on the Root of the static chord. Nor can I really recognize chord structures and note intervals in jazz, at least not as easy as I can in everything else I listen to.
Can anyone else expand on this idea of how to figure out ways of opening up the music/fretboard- that directly relates to that article?
I busted out some old BP issues recently, in the August 2004 issue there is an article by Adam Nitti (Chads teacher I believe). Its called "Intro to Chordal Improvisation".
The idea behind the article is to give some options to use when playing over a certain chord, in situations where there may not be many chord changes in the music. It is supposed to help us "move around the neck" instead of staying in one position playing the same few things.
In my own words (for the most part)... According to the article....
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you wanted to solo over a static Cm7 chord, you could of course use the Cm7 arpeggio- but that will only get you so far. So to expand- we can use notes from the C Dorian mode, now we have 7 notes to work with.
Furthermore, C Dorian could be expanded to include Bb major, since C Dorian is basically the Bb major scale, it just starts on the 2nd degree and ends on the 8th. Its also safe to say that we can use any mode built off the Bb major scale, and still retain the C Dorian "sound".................................... but "we will also be able to move around and play ideas stemming from any of Bb major's seven scale degrees".
So we can take a sequence of arpeggios harmonized in the order of the Bb major scale we come up with.
(1) Bbmaj7, (2)Cm7, (3) Dm7, (4) Ebmaj7, (5) F7, (6)Gm7 and (7) Am7b5
-----------------------------------------------------------
The article was not written out in Notation or in TAB, it was just written out sort as I've done above. In order to help me understand it better, and help me with my notation reading, I wrote it all out in bass clef.
I then wrote out the Bb major scale- and of course all of the notes of the arpeggios in the article fell within Bb major.
So if I ever need to play over over a static _m7 chord I know there are lots of options, and now I know how to find them. However, I am not sure exactly how I would go about applying this concept over a _maj6 chord. I guess I am wondering if there is some sort of formula that would apply to that as well. Or perhaps the answer is that I simply need to know what mode/modes the maj6 chord falls into, and how to harmonize arpeggios that using each scale degree, that all fall within a certain key?
I've got a lot to learn!
It seems this article really has given me a taste of one of the ways to "open up the fretboard". Its something I've needed for a long time. I can jam along with a group by either being given the chords, or by finding them by ear. However, when jamming on a static chord- I am at a loss as to how to keep it fresh. I just can't reliably wander out of a strict 1 or 2 octave scale based on the Root of the static chord. Nor can I really recognize chord structures and note intervals in jazz, at least not as easy as I can in everything else I listen to.
Can anyone else expand on this idea of how to figure out ways of opening up the music/fretboard- that directly relates to that article?
Yep, Adam is my teacher.
That's exactly what he's teaching me (or going to teach me). Right now I'm working on learning the modes and getting them under my fingers. Yesterday he showed me the next step, and that was the chordal improvisation. He put on a backing track, and showed me how to play up and down the neck, in the same key signature, using the different modes. He told me that we'll get into talking about which chords go with each modes as soon as I get the modes burned into my brain.
I sit and watch him play using the stuff he's showing me, and it's awe inspiring. If I learn what he tells me, I'll literally be able to play up and down the fretboard with ease. It seems so far away, but Adam assures me that learning the modes so I can play them "unconsciously" will make it easy.
Dang...now I want to go practice, but I have to hit the sack soon. Got to teach newbie motorcycle riders in the morning. First class of the season. Hello Spring!
Here are some of Adam's exercises:
http://www.adamnitti.com/lessons.shtml
You'll also find lots of Adam's stuff in Bass Musicians Magazine. The archives are here:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Wow! Who is that handsome guy on the June/July cover?
Roy Vogt
Supporting Member
- Sep 20, 2000
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- Endorsing Artist: Kiesel Basses, Ampeg Amplification, Hotone Ampero II effects
A major 6th chord could be either the Imaj7 (Bbmaj7 in this case) or the IVmaj7 (Ebmaj7). Either one will support a major 6th chord with the IVmaj7 giving you a #11 to boot. The key as I see it with Adam's exercise is that with each mode the most important "home base" in the improvisation are the tones that define the chord-in the case of your example they are C-Eb-G-Bb. I sometimes take the basic scale/mode patterns I teach and have the student find a Cm7 in each of the other modes.
Again, back to the analogy of building a house. The chord tones have to be there at some point to reinforce the tonality. If I'm always emphasizing Bb-D-F-A then my listener will hear a Bbmaj7, not a Cm7. That other diatonic scale/mode is a piece of sheet rock-without the framing of the chord tone it won't support anything.
Here's another idea: Take each mode (let's say C Dorian for this example) in a key and play all the scale tones in 3rds. Instead of C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C you'd play:
C-Eb-G-Bb-D-F-A
If you keep going up with each of these the 2nd, 4th and 6th of the scale would become the 9, 11 and 13.
Try this with all the modes and you'll get some new sounds. The one Funky note in all of this is a regular 4 or 11 against a major 3rd-it can be a real Ear-bender....That's why a lot of players like the Lydian sound against a Major 7 chord due to the #11 giving a little more space. The 11 is not so problematic against a Minor sound.
If I have time I'll try to write this out.
Gosh. This sounds a lot like my lessons.
It also makes sense, not complete sense, but I'm getting more and more pieces to my puzzle.
It also makes sense, not complete sense, but I'm getting more and more pieces to my puzzle.
Roy Vogt
Supporting Member
- Sep 20, 2000
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I'm a huge "logic" guy. I HAVE to know why something is the way it is. I am enjoying learning about music, but much of it is simply over my head at this point in my journey.
I had a lesson last night, and I can't emphasize enough the value of a good teacher. He showed me what I'll be able to do when I become proficient with what he's wanting me to learn, and it's amazing. I'm really not that far away from doing some really good stuff, I just have to keep working at it.
My bass is an Ibanez BTB 1305e. I've only seen one other like it for sale, and that's here:
http://www.theperfectbass.com/explo...103200101&W=STORE&P=N&S=1001081&U=1&SS=1&CR=Y
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I bought mine used and didn't pay a bunch for it.
Here's my rig, and where I do all my practicing. I moved my chair and music stand out of the way, but I spend a lot of time here:
If one of those two monitors over there is attached to a computer of some kind, might I recommend getting Band in a Box www.pgmusic.com. It will generate a Robo-Band backup for any chords you type in it and they've recently added real samples for most instruments. There are B in a B files for the Real Book all over the internet. You can set tempos as fast or slow as you like. I prefer using this over Practicing/Performing with a metronome because you can hear the chord changes from the Piano or Guitar. It makes the Chord Studies for Bass material and the approach tones a little easier to hear, IMO.
Not as good as a real group of players, but better than a metronome or drum machine.
Roy Vogt
Supporting Member
- Sep 20, 2000
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Sad, but true. A glimmer of hope is that once I've taken the time to explain some reading strategies and given them some easy Bach to work on, most of my students find TAB a distraction and a drag and come up with their own fingerings.As i believe is the case with most books...no tab, no deal. The players that buy the book because it has tab subsidise it for those that want notation. Welcome to the real world folks
Being an uber geek extraordinaire, there is indeed a computer connected to those monitors.
I'll give Band in a Box a look see. Sounds very very cool.
- Apr 1, 2000
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Huge BIAB fan here, too! Once you spend a little on the "real drummer" sets, the experience gets even better. Works really well for composition, too, if you're a hack piano player like me...
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