Jazz Education (Private)コミュのBass Line (editing)

The basic idea of a Jazz bass line (in the swing, bop, hard bop and groovin' 4 beat sense of the word) is to create an outline of the harmonic structure of the tune that speaks to the tune's unique cadence. He (or she) wants to help create a basic pulse (along with the drummer),
develop the tune's rhythmic drive and concept and at the same time "hold down the bottom" - - This, more than anything else is very important. As an example, many bass players get carried away thinking about what scales or chords they can play over any given chord or set of chord changes - - while this type of thinking isn't entirely wrong, it isn't entire right either. The reason is because as a bass player you need to be more concerned with WHERE YOU'RE GOING than WHERE YOU'RE AT, for this reason a good bassline is constantly MOVING TOWARDS its next note, not playing from it. If you can think like this, constructing basslines are very easy, and the good news about this is you can actually get away with not knowing a single scale, chord or mode and still kick a pretty good bass line... The catch is, if you are a serious musician you really need to know EVERYTHING that's going on in the group... not just your part.

So let's begin...

First a Jazz tune at any given time has 3 basic parts...
and Top, Bottom and Middle (or atleast you can think of it like that.)

The top is the melody note.
The bottom is the root tone of the chord.
In the middle are the basic tones that harmonize the chord, in particular the third and seventh.

If all the members of the group are doing their job, in theory no member of the group needs to play more than one or two musical tones at a time, and you'd still get a rich four part harmony. Take a G-7 chord...

If the bass player is playing the Root,
A guitarist the third and seventh,
and sax player the ninth...
here is what the band would sound like.
(Play the note in parenthesis in the bass.)

(G) Bb F A

You can add the fifth to that harmony, because there's a good chance the bass player is going to hit on it somewhere in the bar anyway...

(G) Bb D F A

So as you can can see, as musicians in an ensemble play, even though they may only be conscious of the notes they're playing, they're actually creating some rather rich chord harmonies - - if everyone is doing their job.

Now back to bass...
In Jazz a key concept in melodic composition (and bass players do play a type of melody!) is COUNTERPOINT.
To put it simply, the different instruments are playing different melodies (!) at the same time - - but they all fit together. A bass walk is a type of melody, but it is a melody that is meant to COMPLIMENT what the soloist is doing, not compete with it. That means if they bass player were to play the same scale and notes as the soloist, unless there was a very specific rhythmic concept and purpose, odds are it would be like talking over the soloist. In addition, the soloist or listener would not be able to hear the changes of the tune and this is very important because Jazz is based on CALL/RESPONSE. The solosit is supposed to be listening to these changes (even if he/she already knows them) and speaking to them.

So how is this done?

Simply - - as mentioned, the bass player gets the root.
If the change is a G-7 chord leading to C7 in the next bar, two things are very clear about the basslines...
There's going to be a G on the first beat of the first measure and a C on the second beat of the second measure, so its going to look something like this...
G __ __ __ | C

Next comes other tones. And as far as a really adept bass player is concerned there are two big ones...
The Root and
"neighboring chromatic tones".

ROOT/FIFTH movement is a bass player's best friend.
There are two reasons - - THE FIFTH is a very neutral tone... doesn't really effect what the soloist is doing very much, rarely clashes, and doesn't change the meaning of the chord very much. Second - - V I movement is the most basic chord movement in Jazz... Or let's put it like Jazz, the most natural movements in Jazz are...
UP A FIFTH
DOWN A FOURTH
A fifth up from G would be D.
A fourth down would be... D.
Either way its the V...

Now, put your left hand on the keyboard as follows...
Pinky on the ROOT.
Index finger on the FIFTH.
Thumb on the ROOT.

G D G

In a bass line you could use this pattern very easily...

G D G __ | C

The next question is how to get to C...

The oldest trick in the book in a walking bass line is simple... Hit it from a step above or below...
There are two reasons why this works...
1. Tension/Release.
2. The note a half step above the root is the TRI-TONE
of its fifth.
Ex. Fifth of C is G. The tri-tone of G is Db
Hence Db to C and G to C are the same thing.

So now look at this bass line...
G D G Db | C

Very smooth connection.

Now let's look at another change...
G-7 C7 | F

Common sense...
G __ C __ | F

As for the notes in between try the chromatic rule...
G Db C Gb | F
boom ! Smooth connections... Not a single "scale" or "chord tone" thought about... and as a bonus, no matter where the guitarist is comping, the chord is harmonized.
In addition, the walk is strong because the V I movement is constant, even between the changes.

Of course, this is not to say that scale and chord based walking should never be used, but it should always be combined with this "forward momentum" sensibility...
For example...
G- | C7 | F =
G A Bb B | C D Eb E | F

Here there's a walk, but the Bb goes to B, not C,
giving it that V I cadence...

(In contrast, an amateurish player would be more likely to play G A Bb A | C E G C | F
This line in most cases would not be so good because it doesn't "connect" the changes.

And here's another example of the logic...
if G-7 | C7 =
G A Bb B | C D Eb E | F
the tri-tone of B is F... F to C is a V I progression.
Listen...
(F) A Eb
(C) Bb E

In gospel music, there is a type of V I progression know as AMEN cadence. It is taken advantage of in Bobby Timmon's Moanin'. In church, when there's a call response the congregation would shout, "Amen!"
(G) F B Db
(C) E Bb D

As for thirds... Thirds are good for "walking to the fifth" - - example, you have two or more bars of the same chord.
If you were to play the Root too many times it would sound redundand... and the effect of the walk would be defeated. Ex. C7 = C G C Db | C G C Db...
so you might want to play G in the second bar instead...
C __ __ __ | G __ __ __
(When you play the fifth instead of the root it "suspends" the chord. It still has the same shape, but becomes "ambiguous" - - it is not clear whether it is major or mainor. Sus chords can give a tune a suspended or "floating effect" since suddenly they don't have to go anywhere (since the basic laws of chord resolution no longer apply.) - - This ambiguity at times is good...
but since the purpose of "swinging" is to walk the changes, you usually don't want to suspend the cadence... unless its to provide a special effect or transition. However, in the case of a two bar walk, it lightens things up and keeps the walk going...
C (down to) E F F# | G A Bb B | C

So a basic walking pattern is the root down to the third or the root up to the third (thumb to pinky, or pinky up to middle finger in most cases) - - then a chromatic walk to the fifth.

As for fingering - - a very basic rule is - -
Try to keep your pinky and thumbs hovering over the root as often as possible. There are different hand shapes but basically if you're walking up, pinky goes on the root. If you're walking down thumb goes on the root.
If you're playing up pinky on root, index finger on fifth is a safe hand position.. If you're playing down, thumb on the root, fourth finger on the fifth is a safe position.
Rule for chromatics... I usually use the same finger for both notes (so I can keep my hand in shape to play the line off the root without having to "unsquench" it).
Sometimes I might go 2 1 if I'm playing from a black key down to the root.
Ex.
G Db C Gb | F = (up to Db, down to C, down to Gb)
5 2 1 2 1

In landing on my thumb, the implication is that the rest of the line is going to be played down, since it would break the flow of the phrasing to move my hand all the way to a position that would allow me to move up.
So by the time I get to the F, my fourth finger is already hovering over the C below it, though its possible my pinky might be aiming for the E... either way HAND SHAPE implies MELODY/CHORD SHAPE.

In practising bass lines, you want to work on playing from the root to the fifth up and down in all keys, in and out of order.
Root up to Fifth (5 2 fingering) *not 5 1 - - it wastes fingers, since if your index finger is on the fifth, it frees your thumb to grab another note !)
Root down to fifth (1 4 fingering) *again, usually not 1 5 as it disables the ability of your pinky to go anywhere.
Root to Fifth to Octave (5 2 1 - - a very natural hand position)
And finally, chromatic to root... II V | I patterns, all keys. Going up sometimes I do 5 2 2 5 | 5