Double Bass REALLY Learning a tune

[Dimmik]

I have a recital in a few months and I wanted to go with a mariner theme simply because no one ever does. So, I picked "We Be Three Poor Mariners" but I wanted to play it through several times, each time done differently. I found a very basic sheet music rendition but using this technique you've outlined here, I'm thinking a jazzy run-through with a walking line and playing it through in triplets. Hmmm...yes...that may just be the ticket! Thank you, sir! I can't wait to get started now!

 

[Roland De Aragon]

I'm gonna try this with my students. thanks

 

[Steve Freides]

Rufus Reid also recommends learning some piano to help get the theory part down. There is something to be said for the way a keyboard lays everything out in a linear fashion. Can't hurt.

Every musician should play some piano. Every music school I've attended and taught at required it.

In my undergrad school, everyone had to play 3 simple song in all 12 keys - everyone who was a music performance major. In graduate school, all the conductors, composers, theory majors, and pianists had to be able to realize a figured bass, play from an orchestra score, and other things like that.

If you can't at least play through a simple, 4-part church hymn at the keyboard, you need to step up your piano game, IMHO - doesn't matter what instrument you play.

On piano, my way of really learning a tune is to play it from memory in all twelve keys. I come up with a simple arrangement for myself, based on a Real Book (or similar) lead sheet, and to play the same voicing in every key.

-S-

 

[Michal Herman]

I have question about part 3 "THE EXERCISE"
Do you recommend playing all parts of exercise in 60bpm tempo, or maybe to gradually get faster to standard "normal" tempo?

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Yes, stick with that tempo. This is not an exercise to build technical facility, it's about building your ears.

 

[Ant Illington]

I bookmarked this a long time ago under another profile and I started last night after a month of interval ear training which is great but I'm ready to start getting out of the vacuum for developing my ear.

I am having a hard time picking out 4 songs based on 1) your parameter along the lines of suggesting melody being half-note based and 2) my parameter of not wanting to put the cart before the horse in picking a song that unbeknownst to me is too much for a beginner. I have The Real Book sixth edition, Bass Clef (and yesterday I ordered your Walking Bassiscs).

I'm an electric bassist who has long known that my ear is way behind. I can play fairly well but I end up remembering things mechanically instead of with my ear- even though I understand exactly what I am playing from a theoretical point of view. I've long suspected that in the long run, it's much easier to memorize 12 dang pitches and some common chord movements and they you have the world at your fingertips but no... 20 years of mechanics and I probably can't hear/hum 2% of the bass lines I've learned!

I know that I should work with someone privately but I have an irregular schedule. I have lots of time for practice but an odd schedule that doesn't allow me the same days off every week. I'm even thinking of signing up for a community college class and just missing days because I really want to learn with some structure (hopefully I can make your structure work alone for now). I can play fairly well and I understand diatonic theory, I read music, I have keyboards and I can spell out any chords on the piano, and I even "understand" some jazz stuff- like secondary dominants, melodic and harmonic minor don't scare me or totally escape me. Anyway, my goal now is to hear better because, well, that's what music is and all of the theory just explains what the great ear already understands implicitly.

Question 1: I think that I will be okay using Autumn Leaves, All the things you Are, perhaps Misty. I've looked at virtually every song mentioned by people in this thread and a lot of them seem more advanced. Blue Monk is "simple" but I'm not sure about it's practicality. Can you recommend one more appropriate one for beginner (even if its Blue Monk) and verify that Misty is appropriate (not too busy of a melody)?

Question 2: Should I have all 4 of the melodies down cold before moving on to the next step? Or can I get one melody down and start working on the next step for that song while still learning the melodies of the others? I'm just afraid it could take me a long time to get 4 modulating melodies down cold and in my brain. For instance, last night I learned and memorized how to play the melody of Autumn Leaves but I can't sing all of it without bass/piano in hand. Particularly, the accidentals throw my brain/ear and I have no idea how long it will take me to get past just that. I just want to get this right so if the right way is to learn and be able to sing all 4 melodies first, so be it. Maybe I am THAT far behind.

Questions 3: I've read and re-read and it seems as though all of this practice is supposed to be just bass alone (without even simple keyboard backing tracks). Please confirm. However, with the advent of things like iRealPro where one can easily enter a basic or advanced chord progression, change keys/tempos easily, I wonder if you would say it's beneficial to work things out over 60 bpm chord progressions rather than a naked metronome. Again, I want to do it the right way and just wondering if anything has changed or if I missed anything.

Thanks,
Tony

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Question 1: I think that I will be okay using Autumn Leaves, All the things you Are, perhaps Misty. I've looked at virtually every song mentioned by people in this thread and a lot of them seem more advanced. Blue Monk is "simple" but I'm not sure about it's practicality. Can you recommend one more appropriate one for beginner (even if its Blue Monk) and verify that Misty is appropriate (not too busy of a melody)?

Those are three good starters, I'd pick something else along those lines. Maybe something in a minor key? ALONE TOGETHER, YESTERDAYS, HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN, something like that? But just so we're clear, it's not that the MELODY is half notes, the melody can be any combination of rhythms. you start the improv part of the exercise with half notes.

Question 2: Should I have all 4 of the melodies down cold before moving on to the next step?

Believe me, learn all 4 before you move on.

...learned and memorized how to play the melody of Autumn Leaves but I can't sing all of it without bass/piano in hand.

I'd leave off the "singing" part right now (that was someone else's suggestion, not mine), learn to PLAY the melodies. The work you do learning to play the melodies will help in the singing part down the line. But singing I consider to be a different part of the ear training process that you work on starting with intervals, not part of this exercise.

Questions 3: I've read and re-read and it seems as though all of this practice is supposed to be just bass alone (without even simple keyboard backing tracks). Please confirm.

Confirmed, it's just you and the metronome.

However, with the advent of things like iRealPro where one can easily enter a basic or advanced chord progression, change keys/tempos easily, I wonder if you would say it's beneficial to work things out over 60 bpm chord progressions rather than a naked metronome.

Again, for this exercise, an adamant NO. Having a tool that can give you the harmonic structure of a tune, that you can loop over certain sections, etc. is great for working your way through gnarly progressions and such. But it defeats the purpose of this exercise. You work on the melody so that it is so ingrained, you work on the chord line so THAT is ingrained and you can begin to hear both the melody and the chord line/harmony AT THE SAME TIME and then you work on the improvisational part so the you can hear the melody and the harmony and your improvised line ALL at the same time. The only real way to hear if your improvised line is communicating the song you are playing is to hear it stand alone, with nothing else to lean on.

With the changes chugging by with some kind of playalong, you don't get to clearly hear how your line is making the tune audible to the world.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

You should be charging for this ****.

 

[Ant Illington]

Those are three good starters, I'd pick something else along those lines. Maybe something in a minor key? ALONE TOGETHER, YESTERDAYS, HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN, something like that? But just so we're clear, it's not that the MELODY is half notes, the melody can be any combination of rhythms. you start the improv part of the exercise with half notes.

Believe me, learn all 4 before you move on.
I'd leave off the "singing" part right now (that was someone else's suggestion, not mine), learn to PLAY the melodies. The work you do learning to play the melodies will help in the singing part down the line. But singing I consider to be a different part of the ear training process that you work on starting with intervals, not part of this exercise.

Confirmed, it's just you and the metronome.

Again, for this exercise, an adamant NO. Having a tool that can give you the harmonic structure of a tune, that you can loop over certain sections, etc. is great for working your way through gnarly progressions and such. But it defeats the purpose of this exercise. You work on the melody so that it is so ingrained, you work on the chord line so THAT is ingrained and you can begin to hear both the melody and the chord line/harmony AT THE SAME TIME and then you work on the improvisational part so the you can hear the melody and the harmony and your improvised line ALL at the same time. The only real way to hear if your improvised line is communicating the song you are playing is to hear it stand alone, with nothing else to lean on.

With the changes chugging by with some kind of playalong, you don't get to clearly hear how your line is making the tune audible to the world.

Thank you very much, Ed.

Yesterdays it is and I will first learn all 4 songs before moving on.

Indeed, I found that I mis-recalled a later post of yours telling us to seek tunes with the harmonic movement being half notes (two chords per bar).

At risk of irritating you, though I was just making sure I understood correctly, in "2. Learn the Melody" you indicated that one should learn the melody so well that you can SING (your all caps!) it if somebody drags you out of bed at 4am. I will certainly forgo learning the melodies so well that I can sing them- that would really crush my bass practice time.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Yeah, that was a little hyperbolic. I was just trying to emphasize getting away from reading the melody and internalizing it.

 

[Michael Eisenman]

You should be charging for this ****.

He does, when you buy his book.

 

[PocketSpaghetti]

I know I've typed this a few times in the past, but there've been a couple of requests, so here we go again.

First let me say that this isn't anything that I came up with on my own, this is the approach my teacher uses that he got from his teacher, Lennie Tristano. And for what it's worth, I think ANYBODY at ANY LEVEL will benefit from studying one on one with a player who has a deeper understanding than they do. The following set of exercises work BEST when you have some objective, knowledgable person who can listen to what you are doing and provide guidance to keep you moving in a focused and progressive direction.


1. PICK A TUNE - something from the "standard" repertoire; my 4 tunes are STELLA BY STARLIGHT, THESE FOOLISH THINGS, BODY AND SOUL and ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE. When you pick a tune , you want to find the most vanilla version of the melody that you can. Look in older "fake" books, pull it off some Judy Garland record whatever. The idea is to get as close to the composer's concept of melody and changes than you can. The REAL BOOK (old ones, not the Sher or Leonard versions) tend to contain somewhat dubious transcriptions of specific recordings; again the idea is to get the composer's idea, not Sonny Stitt's version of the composer's idea. Kind of like the game Telephone or doing a book report from reading somebody else's book report; you stand a better chance of coming up with "your" interpretation if you know what the actual original was.
2. LEARN THE MELODY - set the metronome at quarter note=60bpm and PLAY the melody through. Over and over and over and over and over and over so that you can SING the melody if somebody drags you out of your bed at 4am. Get off the paper as soon as you can, I've found that learning the lyric that goes with the melody is a great way to internalize the melody.
3. PLAY A CHORD LINE - what do I mean by "chord line"? Simply this, a line that arpeggiates the changes but with a couple of important parameters:
A. PROXIMITY - you want to use not only root postion arpeggios but also all inversions to maintain "close" fingering and common voices through the tune. For example, a progression of D-7 G7/ Cmaj7 - instead of D F A C G B D F C E G B (root position, root position, root position) one choice could be D F A C D F G B C E G B (root, 2nd inversion, root).
B. IN TIME - the chord line shoudl reflect the harmonic rhythm of the tune. If the chord lasts one bar, the chord line is quarter notes. If half a bar (two beats) the chord line is eighth notes. One beat would be 16ths, two bars would be half notes. Let me know if this is not clear.

3. THE EXERCISE
PART 1 -with the nome at qnote=60bpm( and without the sheet), play one chorus of the melody and one chorus of the chord line, then one chorus of the melody. This is getting the sound of the melody and the sound of the changes in your ear.
PART 2 - For the purposes of this exercise, use the major scale for all major7th chords, the mixolydian for all dominant 7th chords and the dorian for all minor chords. Play one chorus of melody, one chorus of chord line and then improvise one chorus of half notes, ending with one chorus of melody. The half note chorus should try to emphasize MELODY over BASS LINE, you are not "walking two feel" but buidling a melody. It may be a little mechanical at first, but once you relax and let your ear start telling your fingers what notes to use, you can really get to some nice melodic material. Again, this is MUCH harder to do without somebody listening to your progress form teh outside, if you insist on doing this without a teacher, RECORD all of your exercises and listen to them without your instrument in your hands. When you get to the point that you are consistently creating some nice music with half notes, move to the next part of the exercise.
PART 3 - Play a chorus of melody, a chorus of chord line and then play 1 chorus in the following manner: the first 3 bars of each 8 bar section play the melody and then starting on beat ONE of bar 4 begin your improvised line of half notes. So you will have (in a 32 bar tune) 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised. Again, don't move on the first time you get this to sound like music, wait until you hit that every time.
PART 4 - as above, but the improvised chorus will have the 3 bars of melody dropped into a different place for each 8 bar segment( moving melody). That is, if you start the first 8 bars with meldoy, NO OTHER 8 bar section can start with melody.
PART 5 - as above, the improvised chorus now becomes only improvised half notes and rests. You should play (approximately) as many beats rest as you play measures of half note per 8 bar section.

When you've made it through this whole exercise, you start over and use quarter notes for the improvising rhythmic "denomination". And so one through accent 1 eighth notes, accent 2, accent3 , accent 4, accent 1 triplets, accent2 accent 3, 16ths etc.


This AIN'T quick; I've been studying with Joe for about 10 years now and I'm only up to accent 3 triplets with moving melody. But after about 7 or 8 months of starting this exercise (and a few others) , the amount of sense I made whiel improvising increase exponentially. And all the work I've put into really tearing apart these 4 tunes has translated into me being able to learn and play SO many more tunes. And has increased (along with the other ear training I'm doing) my ability to play tunes by hearing my way through them. If the piano player really knows the tune or if I can hear the melody in my head clearly enough , I can pretty much hear my way through the tune.

This is fantastic. Thanks so much for taking the time to post this

 

[PocketSpaghetti]

I know I've typed this a few times in the past, but there've been a couple of requests, so here we go again.

First let me say that this isn't anything that I came up with on my own, this is the approach my teacher uses that he got from his teacher, Lennie Tristano. And for what it's worth, I think ANYBODY at ANY LEVEL will benefit from studying one on one with a player who has a deeper understanding than they do. The following set of exercises work BEST when you have some objective, knowledgable person who can listen to what you are doing and provide guidance to keep you moving in a focused and progressive direction.


1. PICK A TUNE - something from the "standard" repertoire; my 4 tunes are STELLA BY STARLIGHT, THESE FOOLISH THINGS, BODY AND SOUL and ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE. When you pick a tune , you want to find the most vanilla version of the melody that you can. Look in older "fake" books, pull it off some Judy Garland record whatever. The idea is to get as close to the composer's concept of melody and changes than you can. The REAL BOOK (old ones, not the Sher or Leonard versions) tend to contain somewhat dubious transcriptions of specific recordings; again the idea is to get the composer's idea, not Sonny Stitt's version of the composer's idea. Kind of like the game Telephone or doing a book report from reading somebody else's book report; you stand a better chance of coming up with "your" interpretation if you know what the actual original was.
2. LEARN THE MELODY - set the metronome at quarter note=60bpm and PLAY the melody through. Over and over and over and over and over and over so that you can SING the melody if somebody drags you out of your bed at 4am. Get off the paper as soon as you can, I've found that learning the lyric that goes with the melody is a great way to internalize the melody.
3. PLAY A CHORD LINE - what do I mean by "chord line"? Simply this, a line that arpeggiates the changes but with a couple of important parameters:
A. PROXIMITY - you want to use not only root postion arpeggios but also all inversions to maintain "close" fingering and common voices through the tune. For example, a progression of D-7 G7/ Cmaj7 - instead of D F A C G B D F C E G B (root position, root position, root position) one choice could be D F A C D F G B C E G B (root, 2nd inversion, root).
B. IN TIME - the chord line shoudl reflect the harmonic rhythm of the tune. If the chord lasts one bar, the chord line is quarter notes. If half a bar (two beats) the chord line is eighth notes. One beat would be 16ths, two bars would be half notes. Let me know if this is not clear.

3. THE EXERCISE
PART 1 -with the nome at qnote=60bpm( and without the sheet), play one chorus of the melody and one chorus of the chord line, then one chorus of the melody. This is getting the sound of the melody and the sound of the changes in your ear.
PART 2 - For the purposes of this exercise, use the major scale for all major7th chords, the mixolydian for all dominant 7th chords and the dorian for all minor chords. Play one chorus of melody, one chorus of chord line and then improvise one chorus of half notes, ending with one chorus of melody. The half note chorus should try to emphasize MELODY over BASS LINE, you are not "walking two feel" but buidling a melody. It may be a little mechanical at first, but once you relax and let your ear start telling your fingers what notes to use, you can really get to some nice melodic material. Again, this is MUCH harder to do without somebody listening to your progress form teh outside, if you insist on doing this without a teacher, RECORD all of your exercises and listen to them without your instrument in your hands. When you get to the point that you are consistently creating some nice music with half notes, move to the next part of the exercise.
PART 3 - Play a chorus of melody, a chorus of chord line and then play 1 chorus in the following manner: the first 3 bars of each 8 bar section play the melody and then starting on beat ONE of bar 4 begin your improvised line of half notes. So you will have (in a 32 bar tune) 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised, 3 bars melody, 5 bars improvised. Again, don't move on the first time you get this to sound like music, wait until you hit that every time.
PART 4 - as above, but the improvised chorus will have the 3 bars of melody dropped into a different place for each 8 bar segment( moving melody). That is, if you start the first 8 bars with meldoy, NO OTHER 8 bar section can start with melody.
PART 5 - as above, the improvised chorus now becomes only improvised half notes and rests. You should play (approximately) as many beats rest as you play measures of half note per 8 bar section.

When you've made it through this whole exercise, you start over and use quarter notes for the improvising rhythmic "denomination". And so one through accent 1 eighth notes, accent 2, accent3 , accent 4, accent 1 triplets, accent2 accent 3, 16ths etc.


This AIN'T quick; I've been studying with Joe for about 10 years now and I'm only up to accent 3 triplets with moving melody. But after about 7 or 8 months of starting this exercise (and a few others) , the amount of sense I made whiel improvising increase exponentially. And all the work I've put into really tearing apart these 4 tunes has translated into me being able to learn and play SO many more tunes. And has increased (along with the other ear training I'm doing) my ability to play tunes by hearing my way through them. If the piano player really knows the tune or if I can hear the melody in my head clearly enough , I can pretty much hear my way through the tune.

This is fantastic. Thanks so much for taking the time to post this

 

[Josh Kneisel]

I need to practice now....

 

[J_Bass]

I just found out about this thread and I can not wait to get started, this is a gem, thank you very much!

I play the electric bass, but it doesn't matter, it suits all the instruments.

 

[IamGroot]

Ed Fuqua's approach is a good one.

I was inspired by upright players who played what they heard in their head like counterpoint, rather than relying on patterns. I guess it is what Eds method leads you to do. But at some point you stop thinking theory and let your fingers go to where the melody you hear in your head.

I take a jazz std like Autumn Leaves or Stella and jam on that single tune for a half hour or more. And I am still growing.

 

[bass183]

Anyone tried this Lennie Tristano exercise that Ed Fuqua posted? I've been meaning to work on this when I was in school. Now I'm out and have the time. Wow, it's a bear! Holy smokes, what a mental focus workout!! I'm only at the half note melody line. Working on Night & Day. Playing a half note "solo" at 60bpm is tough. I will suggest learning the melodies by ear instead of off the page. The memorization comes much quicker that way, plus you get some ear training work in at the same time. Just my 2cents! Okay, back to work.

 

[MikeDavis]

Anyone tried this Lennie Tristano exercise that Ed Fuqua posted? I've been meaning to work on this when I was in school. Now I'm out and have the time. Wow, it's a bear! Holy smokes, what a mental focus workout!! I'm only at the half note melody line. Working on Night & Day. Playing a half note "solo" at 60bpm is tough. I will suggest learning the melodies by ear instead of off the page. The memorization comes much quicker that way, plus you get some ear training work in at the same time. Just my 2cents! Okay, back to work.

Excellent! I think you’ll find it very worthwhile. I studied with the same teacher as Ed and did this same method. This exercise made the biggest impact in helping me move beyond playing tunes as if trying to solve a puzzle and instead hearing and developing my personal line.

Based on what you wrote about focus. If it’s helpful, for me it isn’t about focus in a straining sense. It’s more of a relaxed focus with the goal of developing a space where one is open and listening more deeply. For me it is all about developing that music making space which you take with you when improvising with others.

 

[IamGroot]

Ed Fuqua' s method is paydirt. Proven, effective. Becomes 2nd nature with practice.

I am taking private jazz improv with a pro sax player next semester. What the instructor wants for each lesson prep is essentially Eds exercises plus analysis.

Ps, this method isnt limited to jazz.

 

[bass183]

I just found out about this thread and I can not wait to get started, this is a gem, thank you very much!

I play the electric bass, but it doesn't matter, it suits all the instruments.

Exactly. I told a friend of mine about it who plays guitar. Fyi, I do believe the exercise initially came from the pianist Lennie Tristano. I studied for 4 years at a conservatory w/ a bassist who plays in Lee Konitz's band, one of Tristano's most famous students. What I was taught is very similar to what Ed Fuqua posted on here. Ed's or Tristano's approach is a little more refined and includes a step-by-step process, which I like. I did also study with others who taught me to use "jazz licks" to get the vocabulary down, of which I am not completely opposed to as long as I have an understanding of the theory behind those licks (which I do), otherwise it's just regurgitated nonsense.

Anyway, this is a challenging process. Mainly, because of the really slow tempo. lol. Good luck!