Here are some sound clips of this bass bundled with another lesson. We'll stick with the G major scale, brush the topic of "modes" ever so slightly, and learn some arpeggios. The first clip is slow and square on purpose, I want you guys to be able to play along if this is new to you. Feel free to speed up the exercise on your own if you're up to it.
So first up, you can read about what an arpeggio is
here. Not much to it, we're just outlining a chord one note at a time ascending and/or descending. This exercise will get you familiar with the arpeggios of all 7 chords in the Major scale. In G Major, those chords are:
Gmaj7
A-7
B-7
Cmaj7
D7
E-7
F#dim
I've been talking about G Major in terms of numbers like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
G A B C D E F#
But it might help to think of them now as:
G: I
A: ii
B: iii
C: IV
D: V
E: vi
F#: vii
Capital letters denote major modes (I, IV and V are all major), and lower case letters denote non-major modes (ii, iii and vi are minor, and vii is diminished). They also each have a Greek name associated with them (I=Ionian, ii=Dorian, iii=Phrygian, etc.). I like to teach people those terms eventually, but at the beginning it just adds a layer of unnecessary complexity. Let's stick with numbers for a while!
So we're going to play arpeggios consisting of the pitches 1, 3, 5 and 7 in each of the 7 modes.
The Gmaj7 arpeggio is simply 1 3 5 7 (or G B D F#)
When we switch to A-7, 1 3 5 7 is A C E G (or 2 4 6 8 if G Major is your reference).
Similary, for B-7, 1 3 5 7 is B D F# A (or 3 5 7 9 if G is your reference). And on and on.
So in
this clip, I'm going up and down each arpeggio, starting at I, then ii, then iii, etc. on up to I again (albeit an octave higher).
Here's the same clip with just the chords - try playing the arpeggios yourself over these chords.
Here's one way to finger these:
I (Gmaj7): E:3 A:2 A:5 D:4
ii (A-7): E:5 A:3 D:2 D:5
iii(B-7): E:7 A:5 D:4 D:7
IV (CMaj7): E:8 A:7 A:10 D:9
V (D7): E:10 A:9 A:12 D:10
vi (E-7): E:12 A:10 D:9 D:12
vii (F#dim): E:14 A:12 A:15 D:14
I (GMaj7): E:15 A:14 A:17 D:16
So what do you do with this kind of stuff? Nobody wants to sit in their room and plays scales and arpeggios all day. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, you do have to do it a little bit if you want to internalize it. But you also need to apply it in a real musical situation if you want to make it a natural, effortless part of your playing. Jerry's
Invalid Link Removed solo over in the Roscoe forum is a great example of using this stuff with a healthy does of rhythm to make it interesting (both to the player and to the listener).
And
here's some of me noodling in an quasi-arpeggiated fashion using this orange SKB-3006. The chords are D7, C and G (or V, IV, I in mode terms). Try all 7 of the arpeggios over each of these chords. Some will fit like a glove, and some might sound a little "out".
HINT: Really try the arpeggios that are a third above or a third below the chord (B-7 or F#dim over the D7, etc.). That can sound hipper than playing the D7 arpeggio over D7. You can make some hay addressing the chord directly with the matching arpeggio, but it gets old fast.
In the clip, I "address the changes" in the first pass, meaning I use the same arpeggios as the chords. In the second pass, I use B-7 over the D, A-7 over the C, then back to B-7 over the G and the D at the end. Try it yourself,
here are the rhythm tracks.
Now I just need someone to give me an exercise to help me break out of my typewriter approach to rhythm when I solo... I do a phrase, pause, do another phrase, pause, do another phrase, pause... I can hear it while I'm playing, but it REALLY sticks out when I hear myself recorded... it drives me CRAZY that I can't seem to fix that on my own!! Help me, Dr. Jerry!
