Which Book For Chord Studies?

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Lots of reasons.

First, in order to use the proper chord for a melody, or the proper melody for a chord, you have to hear it in your head, know what it is, and reproduce it. Bass is very limited in how many notes you can play at once. So it's hard to learn how extended chords are supposed to sound when you can only play a few of the voices in the chord.

Second, by learning keyboard, you can learn from other instruments more easily. Bach was a much better bassist than any of us here ever will be, but you have to be able to read treble and bass clefs for his lines to make sense.

Third, and you may not get this point until you've tried learning theory on a keyboard, a keyboard is laid in such a way that it's really visually easy to see thirds, which are the building blocks of modern harmony. You can stack thirds on top of each other all day long on the piano, but on a bass, you end up really stretching just to play two consecutive thirds in a chord.

Fourth, inversions, inversions, inversions. Not just that they're easier to see on a keyboard, but they're much easier to hear as well. Unless you're playing way up on the fretboard, basses aren't great instruments for playing dense harmonies on. Nothing against basses- few composers put difficult intervals on the lowest keys of a piano, either.

Fifth, which is a follow up to the fourth reason, basses really aren't great chordal instruments. They excel at single notes, double stops, and the occasional 3 or 4 note chord, but that's about it. Even the greatest bassists imply harmony more than dictate it. By this I mean they will play the 2-4 notes that are most important to getting a harmony across, rather than playing full voicings.

That last may be controversial here, but it's true. Every great bassist I've heard who has been able to incorporate complex chordal ideas in their bass playing has also had keyboard facility.

Sixth, cause it's a new way to look at music, which is fun.

Seventh, cause it will only make you a better bassist.

Lyle, those are some very good reasons. I still would like to obtain a book about bass chords and chord formation (I do think it will aid in showing what voicings will work best on bass), but I am also more interested in learning some theory on the keyboard (I had it set up differently than most-I wanted the keyboard to simply be the background to play melodies on the bass off of). I still think that it's not necessary to learn another instrument in order to apply theory to bass and learn chords (otherwise solo bass playing wouldn't work), but I can see now how it might be easier. If it makes it any clearer as to what I was after, an example would be Mike Dimin's solo take on "Autumn Leaves." To be able to see a chord progression, and then figure out how to play along with those chords with normal non-chordal lines (meaning single notes lines) as well as be able to make your own chord voicings for more complex chords.

 

[Chris A]

Lyle, those are some very good reasons. I still would like to obtain a book about bass chords and chord formation (I do think it will aid in showing what voicings will work best on bass), but I am also more interested in learning some theory on the keyboard (I had it set up differently than most-I wanted the keyboard to simply be the background to play melodies on the bass off of). I still think that it's not necessary to learn another instrument in order to apply theory to bass and learn chords (otherwise solo bass playing wouldn't work), but I can see now how it might be easier. If it makes it any clearer as to what I was after, an example would be Mike Dimin's solo take on "Autumn Leaves." To be able to see a chord progression, and then figure out how to play along with those chords with normal non-chordal lines (meaning single notes lines) as well as be able to make your own chord voicings for more complex chords.

Mike's book can explain that to you, it explains enough for you to understand and go explore chords on your own. It's not that big of an investment, either.


Chris A.

 

[Lyle Caldwell]

There's no such thing as a "bass chord." Notes are notes, intervals are intervals, and you can play any intervals on bass that A) are physically possible for you and B) sound good to you (hopefully they'll sound good to others too).

I don't mean that you have to fully learn another instrument- you don't have to give a piano recital. But if you get a theory book and it shows an example of a 4 part harmony, you can learn the lesson much more quickly if you can play it on keys rather than playing one or two parts of it on bass.

Think of it as a two-pronged approach. You will be learning theory on keys and on bass at the same time. You can take a theory lesson, program it into the keyboard, and then play against it with your bass. Best of both worlds.

 

[tim99]

The notes:

|--5--|-----|--6--|-b7--|--7--|--1--|
|--2--|-b3--|--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|
|--6--|-b7--|--7--|--1--|-----|--2--|
|--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|-----|--6--|
|--7--|--1--|-----|--2--|-b3--|--3--|
|-----|--5--|-----|--6--|-b7--|--7--|
|-----|--2--|-b3--|--3--|--4--|-----|
|-----|--6--|-b7--|--7--|--1--|-----|
|-b3--|--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|-----|
|-b7--|--7--|--1--|-----|--2--|-b7--|
|--4--|-----|--5--|-----|--6--|-b3--|
|--1--|-----|--2--|-b3--|--3--|--4--|
|--5--|-----|--6--|-b7--|--7--|--1--|
|--2--|-b3--|--3--|--4--|-----|--5--|
|--6--|-b7--|--7--|--1--|-----|--2--|

Major and minor chord triad root position:

|--5--|-----|-----|-----|
|-----|-b3--|--3--|-----|
|-----|-----|-----|--1--|

Major and minor chord triad first inversion:

|--1--|-----|-----|
|--5--|-----|-----|
|-----|-b3--|--3--|

Major and minor chord triad second inversion:

|-b3--|--3--|-----|
|-----|-----|--1--|
|-----|-----|--5--|

Three string 7th chord root position:

|-----|-----|-b7--|--7--|
|-b3--|--3--|-----|-----|
|-----|-----|--1--|-----|

Four string 7th chord root position:

|-----|-b3--|--3--|-----|
|-----|-b7--|--7--|-----|
|-----|-----|-----|-----|
|-----|--1--|-----|-----|

 

[tim99]

To be able to see a chord progression, and then figure out how to play along with those chords with normal non-chordal lines (meaning single notes lines) as well as be able to make your own chord voicings for more complex chords.

What you are talking about is called "chord-melody" playing style. You may have to transpose the song to a different key to get all the melody notes working on the highest two strings. You play the melody on the highest two strings, and then at chord moments, as you determine, you play a melody note on "top" of a chord inversion of the chord or chord substitution for that moment. You may want to look at stringing one of your five string basses E to C to do this.

You can use my continuous bass notes chart above and your new chord knowledge to play the chords with the melody note on top. Think this way. If the chord is C Major, and the melody note is a D, play a "C Major with a 2 on top". Once you figure out that "vocing", or "inversion", you know every "Major chord with a 2 on top". Do not get confused and call this a 9th chord or you will not have it in the right place inside your brain to bring out when you need it. And you play this chord while looking at and thinking about the 2 (D) as the anchor position. Please realize that this chord may not even have the 1 (root) in it. Since you are thinking about and looking at the melody notes on the first and second strings, you are playing chords based on those notes.

Good luck.

tim99.

 

[tim99]

Some people believe that if you play a bass chord it sounds better up the neck, some say 12 fret or higher, but I think that is extreme. I play them on lower frets. Some say if you play a note on the E string in a chord you should skip the A string notes because playing E string notes and A string notes together gets muddy. I agree with this. Spread out those lower tones.

Same thing when you play on a keyboard. Play the root notes only as an octive in the left hand, and then the other chord notes and melody notes in your right hand. If you try to play the entire chord in close triads in your left hand it will sound muddy. Spread out the chord to make it sould nice. There is a book named "How to Play from a Fake Book" that talks about this.

+1 on Mike Dimin's book:

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[PhatBasstard]

I like Mike Dimin's Chordal Approach book. I got it for Xmas a couple of years ago, and it pretty much confirmed the bits and pieces I was doing before, but put them together more conprehensively. It's a small book and a quick study.


Chris A.

I agree. I can't say enough good things about Mike Dimin's book. Plus he has a very straight forward, easy to understand aproach to explaining chord substitutions. Excellent!

 

[Davehenning]

Jack DeJohnette is a great piano player as well as a great drummer.

John Pattitucci is a good keyboard player.

I hear that Mike Pope can rip it up on piano.

There are many more examples....

I second Rich Appleman's Chord Studies for Electric bass. It not only helped my ears, but it is an excellent book for improving one's reading skills.

Steve Swallow is also a very good pianist. (listen to the duet album "Hotel Hello" wt. Gary Burton)

And to make is even worse, DeJohnette can lay it down on the big bass as well! lefty or righty!

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

tim99-thanks for the info! It's going to take me a bit to disect and understand it, but I appreciate your help

 

[jimjwl]

Thanks for the responses, guys. Ed, the reason I just can't just write down my notes and know the chord is that I've had no formal theory training and often I'm not positive on how to write out exactly what I'm playing (for ex. I don't know about sus. 4ths).

It sounds to me, like you don't presently have a -representation- for writing them down...

What if you were to come up with a standard for which octave you were in and you just wrote the notes on plain notebook paper, like "C#, octave 2" or something like that? Your open E note is just under three octaves below what's called "middle C", if you want to use that as a reference point.

If you don't actually know the notes on your bass, you could take up learning them by running slow chromatic scales on each string from bottom to top and back down again, naming the notes out loud, and maybe even singing the notes with lyrics being the name of the notes.

So, for example, you could run from the E string, and assuming a 17-fret neck, the notes would be E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, and A. Notice how I use sharps for the inbetween notes; when going down, I'll use flats: A, Ab, G, Gb, F, E, Eb, D, Db, C, B, Bb, A, Ab, G, Gb, F and E. If you know the notes, you're in a better position to write them down.

About Sus-4: In the system of theory in place today for western music, chords are built in thirds, example, a "C major triad" is C, E, and G. The "distance" between C and E is a third (of some kind), and the distance between E and G is a third of some kind. Notice there are three letters involved in each third: C D E (1 2 -3-) and E F G (1 2 -3-). That is why they're called thirds, and this is what supports the statement "Chords are built in thirds".

We can also look at this C major triad another way: the C is the "root", and the other notes are a "distance" above the root, so C to E is a third SO we call E the "third" of the chord and finally C to G (C D E F G, 1 2 3 4 -5-) is the "fifth".

The following is something of a special rule or exception: If I want to have a C major triad with a "sus 4", then I REPLACE the third (the E) with another note which is a "fourth" above the root. What note would that be? A fourth would be counted 1 2 3 4, and from C, C D E F. SO: F is the "sus" note in the C triad, and since we are replacing the E, we now have the Csus4 triad: C, F and G; and now you have a chord that has a "root", a "fourth" (the "sus" note) and a "fifth".

Had you noticed that the above information (a major triad, how it's constructed, how to change it into a sus4 triad) is -generic-? Your selection of books is much greater for getting the kind of information you want about the subject of chords than about the (very specialized) subject of chords as played on a bass.

A book containing the information of how scales, chords, and modes relate to each other written by someone who has far more knowledge of the subject (and how it relates to my instrument) than I seems like a pretty good learning aid, particularly since I'm not able to get a teacher at the moment. I also work best with a visual reference.

• Generic:
  • "All About Chords", E. D'Amante
  • "Modern Harmonic Technique" vols I and II, by Gordon Delamont
  • "Chord Studies for Trombone" or "Chord Studies for Electric Bass", publ Berklee Music, by Phil Wilson and Joe Viola (why is this one generic? Because it's written music originally for horn transposed to bass range)
  • "The Jazz Theory Book", publ. Sher Music, by Mark Levine
• Specific to bass:
  • "Fingerboard Harmony for Bass" by Gary Willis

I'm looking to learn both how to determine every individual note in a given chord,

Very good! Here, you're after chord naming information. You might be able to use the other direction too: Given a pile of notes, what is the name of the chord which that forms. All of the information here is in the generic pile.

This particular quest is about 9 weeks worth of material in a very fast-moving class.

and to be able to play those chords (or their voicings) on my bass. And my reasoning for wanting to learn this stuff using bass specific books? Well, why not? I have the option open to me. I also thought that bass-specific books could highlight the best way to voice a chord on four or five strings that would normally be played with more notes on say a piano or guitar.

The thing is, you need to learn the chords, and there are not many books that deal with bass chords, given that the bass is so poor an instrument for playing chords. If you know generally what the notes of each chord are, and you know where the notes are on your bass, then: you can build your own voicings. The Delamont books I cited above has a section on the physics of chord voicings (this section is in volume I pages 25-36); things like why chords sound muddy if played too low. This information is definitive as the basis for constructing voicings.

The only other thing I can suggest, is why not take some video lessons from Gary? You have to have one of a number of programs he uses on his side, DSL or better bandwidth, a camera, a mixer and a mic.

-Jim