Phrasing

Which I guess, begs the question, if you're a beginner, (hey, we're in the same boat there), why are you being taught to solo before being taught how to play jazz walking bass lines? Isn't it, "first learn walk, then learn fly..."?

 

Well - that was what I was trying to get at in my post. It's very easy to get stuck in that walking line thing, outlining the changes and signposting the one. If you just practice this to the exclusion of everything else, then your solos just don't sound like solos, but rather - more walking lines!

I think you have to study everything together and see how one applies to the other and vice versa. If you are going to be playing Jazz as a bassplayer then you will be expected to play a decent solo. If we're talking about learning this stuff just for experience and broadening your learning then soloing is probably just as valuable as learning walking lines.

In any case - both are illustrating theory and also showing how you can use that theory in a practical situation.

 

Stephanie said about "If the guitarist is playing, say, a G major chord, are we allowed to, say, play a bit of the G major scale and then go off into the C major scale? I think this is what my teacher was trying to show me, but it's hard to explain here."

I think the key word here is "allowed" - I would guess that your teacher is trying to get away from that and say well - it's not a case of what's allowed but what sounds right to you in the context.

So if we're talking about chromatic notes - they are "allowed" as long as they sound OK to you. If they don't, then you almost certainly won't be able to play them convincingly enough for them to sound right to anyone else.

Similarly if someone tells you that a particular weird scale will fit over these chord changes, it's really no good unless you can hear how it fits and sounds right or you won't really be able to use it no matter how much you study the theory.

We are talking hard stuff here! But I think once you get started on this path there is a lot you can work on by yourself.

What helped me more than anything was getting a machine (Roland MicroComposer) in which I can programme chords and rhythm. So I will, for example, put in the machine a 32 -bar chord sequence - piano chords and simple drums, then set it to loop and practice playing walking lines and solos for as long as it takes on my own.

You can do the same thing with Aebersold play-along - although they don't loop for ever! Which is how long it takes!