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Transposition tips

T

tandc

Guest
Feb 10, 2014
12
1
#1
OK, I'm a learner, but can pick up pretty complex basslines after some practice. For instance, I'm pretty happy with the work I've done on Duran's 'Rio' - a personal bass fav of mine.

It's in A, and I've got it down pretty good.

Turned up for a rehearsal and told them I could play Rio - they kicked into the song but it was in G. "Just play it a tone down man" ... was the cry.

This didn't go well at all for me, as I seemed to have two options. 1) tune the bass down, or 2) re learn the whole thing in the lower key.

Long term, The second option is obviously best, so I'm wondering, does anyone have any decent tips for transposing basslines down, aside from learning all the notes on my fretboard properly and turning ito a proper bass player? :laugh:

Hope this is not a stupid question. Over the years people have hit me with common sense facts about playing that have really aided me. First one I remember was when I was perplexed at all of the notes on a piano. A friend told me - "ok, just remember that D is between the two blacks, and G and A are between the three blacks". That sorted it all out for me, and set me on my way. Sometimes these kind of tips can really help clear the fog.
 
#3
What smeet said. Songs I'll be gigging with I normally transpose my fake chord sheet music to Nashville Numbers. Why? If the vocalists wants it in another key, like happened to you, no sweat, Nashville Numbers lets me use the new key in a matter of seconds.

With Nashville numbers I take a marks-a-lot pen and write through the A chord with a 1, the D chord with a 4 and the E chord with a 5.

Key of A = A, Bm, C#m, D, E, F#m, G#mb5
Nashville = 1, 2....3.......4...5..6.......7

And of course I live by/with the major scale box...

Major Scale Box.
G~~|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D~~|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A~~|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E~~|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string​

OK I'm now in the key of 1. If they want it in G I start on the 3rd fret 4th string which happens to be a G. The G is now 1, the C is 4, etc. Same pattern.

If they wanted it in C, no problem I'd just start on the 4th string 8th fret - same pattern.

Here is how to transpose on the fly from D to E with a marks-a-lot pen. The video gets a little confulated on what sharps or flats. If you put the D key with the E key under it all the sharps and flats all fall into place. If you need help with this here is a cheat sheet. Chords In The Key Of D


Here is how to use Nashville numbers.



I like to keep the lyrics so I can keep up with when to change chords so I use that marks-a-lot and A's become 1's, etc.


Good luck.
 
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#4
While I really enjoy the Nashville Numbers System (it's saved my butt on a handful of gigs), I find that it only works on tunes that I would label as "traditional." Even ones that stretch out a little bit, or have a major reliance on open strings due to a particular lick end up not working with Nashville Numbers. I did a fill-in gig with a group that did Steely Dan's "Josie," except they did it one and a half steps down from the original key. I showed up for rehearsal only to find that they transpose it after learning it in the original key. I mucked my way through it for rehearsal, but ultimately needed to take it home and rework it prior to the gig.

I'm not sure if the op's example of Rio falls into these categories as I've never learned the tune. If it does work, then go Nashville by all means!
 
#5
tandc said:
OK, I'm a learner, but can pick up pretty complex basslines after some practice. For instance, I'm pretty happy with the work I've done on Duran's 'Rio' - a personal bass fav of mine.

It's in A, and I've got it down pretty good.

Turned up for a rehearsal and told them I could play Rio - they kicked into the song but it was in G. "Just play it a tone down man" ... was the cry.

This didn't go well at all for me, as I seemed to have two options. 1) tune the bass down, or 2) re learn the whole thing in the lower key.

Long term, The second option is obviously best, so I'm wondering, does anyone have any decent tips for transposing basslines down, aside from learning all the notes on my fretboard properly and turning ito a proper bass player? :laugh:

Hope this is not a stupid question. Over the years people have hit me with common sense facts about playing that have really aided me. First one I remember was when I was perplexed at all of the notes on a piano. A friend told me - "ok, just remember that D is between the two blacks, and G and A are between the three blacks". That sorted it all out for me, and set me on my way. Sometimes these kind of tips can really help clear the fog.
Click to expand...

I really wish more people would ask these kinds of questions...you're on the right path just by recognizing this much...

One of my (many) music teachers over the years would throw out the line "any song, any key" occasionally, and would launch into playing the song I was working on in 5-6 different keys right there on the spot. This was on the trumpet, mind you, nothing quite so easily visible as a piano keyboard, or a bass fretboard to look at for reference points.

Not that I can always do this easily with every song, but I will say that the bass fretboard does have a high degree of predictability for playing things in different keys. Like smeet and the others have said above, it's a matter of learning how the instrument can be approached in a reliable and predictable manner.

This is very different than just learning a bunch of muscle-memory actions and replaying them over and over until a song can be played in one key only. This is the difference between a guitar hero expert and a musician who happens to play the guitar.

In the 4-piece band I play with, we decide every song's best key based on our singer's needs. She is fantastic, and like any vocalist, does her best job when the key suits her strengths. We first hack through a tune, then, if it's a keeper, we change the key (sometimes more than once in short succession) until it sits right for her.

Now I'm the one who occasionally says "any song, any key", and the lessons I found difficult back in the 80's and 90's suddenly have paid off big-time.

Playing songs with fewer open strings is a big start--remember that every song in A, Bb, C, C#, D, and Eb has it's root no lower than the fifth fret on the E string (on a four string bass in standard tuning). You can cover a lot of ground from one place on the bass if you don't need to rely on open A's and D's, or the first position Bb's and Eb's.

Good luck, you'll get this thing down.

Shane
 
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#6
wow,all great stuff guys, thank you. I'll give Nashville numbers some looking at when I get more time, very interesting.The best tip here for me though, is the lesser use of open strings. there's a few in Rio, so I'll relearn that and cut out the opens. Again, thanks guys.
 
#7
Not the easiest tune to transpose on the fly, especially as a 4 strring tuned EADG can't get down to the bottom D necessary to play it a whole tone lower than the record.

By the way, the key is E minor for the intro and verse and E for the chorus. It goes into C#m for the instrumental section. This is a really useful recording for anyone wanting to get it dead right.

 
#9
This is supposedly one of the advantages of a 5 string bass. You learn from the start to avoid open strings so things like transposing and key shifts are simpler.
My first year I played everything in the fret space from 5 to 8. This year I've worked my way down to include 2 - 5.

But even given that, it's not easy to transpose 'on the fly'. Unless a song is totally riff based aand muscle memory will suffice, I like to know the names of the notes I'm playing (at least the root notes and then I can take it to intervals) and as I'm still pretty new to this, admittedly that thinking slows me down -- for now. I'm working on that transition from thinking to listening -- again takes some effort.
I do feel this is one of those skills that separates the player who knows music from the player who knows songs.
 
#10
One way to make transposition-on-the-fly less challenging is to think of your lines not as a sequence of absolute notes (and absolute note names), but rather as a sequence of intervals between the notes.

It's much easier to think "Go up a tritone, down a halfstep, down a minor sixth, up an octave" in any key than it is to think "um, okay, what does Bb-E-Eb-G-g become if my starting note is now (for example) C?"
 
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#12
Transposition is a skill and takes some time and work. I learned this as a professional french horn player, they have to transpose every concert, but that's another story.

Good suggestions here in terms of dealing with note intervals or shapes and patterns. My first bass teacher suggestion never using open strings so that was ingrained. Who knows if that's really worth the effort. One thing that can help is singing all the lines you have to learn. If you have to transpose from a written part, getting used to 'seeing' the interval above or below the given note is the ticket, but that does take some time and practice.
 

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