The IIB Monthly Newsletter
Volume 10, Number 4
Hello fellow bassists and friends!
Welcome to the latest issue of the International Institute of Bassists newsletter!
Welcome to the latest issue of the International Institute of Bassists newsletter!
The Next Session Of Jazz Bass Lines Begins June 1 - Enroll Today!
Jazz Bass Lines is a beginner to intermediate level course that explores all of the fundamental components of walking bass line construction. During this comprehensive 12-week course, you will acquire a vast knowledge of improvisation techniques by studying the bass lines of the most prominent jazz bassists. Following a systematic and guided approach of analysis, Jazz Bass Lines examines the key elements of walking bass line creation. This course begins by concentrating on the basic building blocks of bass parts including intervals, triads, seventh chords, and scales. As the course progresses, you will be introduced to concepts including walking bass line cells, rhythmic embellishments, the two feel, and the utilization of those components in practical application. Students will analyze transcriptions, play-alongs, and essential listening tracks of classic walking bass lines to assist in learning the proper integration of technique, sound, and feel. Special emphasis is placed on the 12-bar blues song form along with a collection of legendary bass tracks recorded by Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and Paul Chambers. By the end of this course, not only will you possess a deeper awareness of what makes a walking bass line great but you will also have expanded your fretboard familiarity, developed an incredible set of skills that will provide you with a greater understanding of how the bass functions within a band, and feel more confident in your ability to improvise effectively over jazz standards. From the basics of traditional walking bass line construction to more advanced contemporary principles, Jazz Bass Lines is designed to establish the essential foundation and indispensable vocabulary that is necessary for bassists interested in the art of improvising bass lines. This course is a must for anyone passionate about becoming a proficient bass player and serious about furthering their knowledge of improvisation. ... Read More!
Bass Tips Of The Week
Soloing Techniques: Miles Davis' Solo On "Straight No Chaser"
One of the most effective ways to learn how to solo involves the transcription, analysis, emulation, and manipulation of the phrases recorded by your favorite soloists. Similar to learning a new language, soloing involves studying and using a vocabulary to express and develop ideas. Because note choice, rhythm, and phrasing are too many variables to consider at the beginning, transcribed solos that have been recorded by your favorite musicians will initially limit your focus and help establish a solid foundation so you don't feel overwhelmed with all of the possibilities that are available to you as a soloist.
Keep a collection of transcribed solos by your favorite bassists, saxophonists, trumpet players, pianists, and guitarists. This archive may consist of solos you've personally transcribed as well as solos you've acquired through other resources. Even though there are a number of outstanding bass soloists including John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, be sure to check out the solos of other great instrumentalists like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Oscar Peterson.
As bassists, we devote most of our time to practicing grooves since our primary function in an ensemble is to provide support within the rhythm section, and as a result, bassists are generally not the best soloists. While bassists such as John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin spent time analyzing bass solos early in their development, today they are considered elite bass guitar soloists because they have spent a significant amount of time studying solos that were recorded by their favorite horn players, pianists, and guitarists which they then assimilated into their own approach. By examining the solos played by horn players, for example, you are presented with a different approach to playing bass since horn players don't have to deal with the same physical limitations that are imposed by a fretted bass guitar.
After you transcribe the lines of your favorite soloists, practice playing them along with the recordings by memorization without referring to the notation. Listen very deeply to how the master soloists communicate through the language of improvisation. Strive to not only play all of the notes and rhythms perfectly but also emulate the sound and feel that has been captured on the recordings as close as possible. Pay particular attention to all the little nuances and inflections that soloists often incorporate into their phrases, and try to make an emotional connection to the solos. Once you understand how they arrange their phrases, you will be able to utilize that knowledge and create more sophisticated solos by altering the basic structure of your favorite phrases through melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement and then assimilate those ideas into your own solos.
As a soloist, one technique of melodic interpretation involves the varying of phrase lengths. This can be accomplished through either phrase extension (prolongation) or phrase compression (reduction). Phrase extension can be applied by simply making the durations of notes longer or including notes not found in the original melody. Phrase compression is a technique where a portion of the phrase is omitted or note durations are shortened.
Besides altering the melodic vocabulary within a phrase using the techniques of extension and reduction, phrases can be modified through rhythmic displacement. Rhythmic displacement is a basic musical concept that involves taking a figure and manipulating it by simply shifting notes from their original position to other beats within the music. Effective rhythmic phrasing is an essential aspect of sustaining rhythmic interest. When presenting a speech, the best speakers will pause in order to allow the listeners to absorb the information. Great soloists take the same approach and will incorporate pauses so that the listeners can process the musical ideas being expressed. A completely different solo phrase can be created by just changing the place within the measure where you begin and end phrases as well as manipulating the length of the phrases.
Have you ever sat through a speech where the speaker talked in a monotone voice throughout the entire presentation? Just as a skillful speaker will use different inflections during a speech, sophisticated soloists will integrate various articulation techniques, dynamics, and vibrato into their phrases. Instead of just playing the notes without accents, you can breathe life into your phrases by using articulations such as grace notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. You can also assimilate different degrees of dynamics and vibrato according to your personal taste. If, as a soloist, you don't insert a combination of both melodic and rhythmic interest into your solos, listeners will simply tune you out as they would someone speaking in a monotone voice so you should always try to maintain interesting and varied phrasing.
Learn as many melodies as possible because they usually contain repetition and the best target notes, and experiment with improvising phrases using variations on those melodies. This is a great way to understand how ideas relate to each other which will help you expand and personalize your own ideas. Melodies can begin early, start late, speed up, or slow down, and the accompaniment will continue. By learning how to play and interpret melodies, you will acquire the ability to break free of outlining every chord change that is played because you will learn to hear the chord progressions moving underneath your phrases instead of using specific note choice to constantly remind you of the chord changes. As you learn more melodies, you will acquire a sense of the independence the melodic instrument has from the accompaniment.
In this lesson, we will study a blues-based solo recorded by Miles Davis on "Straight No Chaser." Throughout a career that extended five decades, Davis released a collection of landmark projects spanning bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, and fusion music. He also discovered some of the most important figures in jazz music such as John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, and many others. This solo on "Straight No Chaser" features an extensive collection of melodic phrases over the 12-bar blues in F. Since the 12-bar blues is the most common set of chord changes utilized in the jazz repertoire and the foundation of numerous jazz standards, you can take your favorite phrases from this solo and easily incorporate them into other jazz tunes. ... Read More!
Jazz Improvisation: 5-Note Scale Cells
Understanding the relationship between the horizontal and vertical construction of music is an essential aspect to expanding your musical vocabulary and becoming a successful improviser. When discussing the harmonic structure of compositions, musicians utilize scales to represent tonal centers, and while improvising melodic phrases, you have two options as a soloist. You can play notes in skips or you can arrange notes through a series of steps. If you move by skips for more than two notes, your phrases will start to imply a chord formation, and if you move in steps for more than two notes, your phrases will suggest a scale form.
As you study transcriptions of renowned solos, you will notice that rarely will a soloist run up or down a scale in its entirety over the course of a solo because most musicians frequently change directions. If you analyze solos that were recorded by Charlie Parker, seldom will you find a phrase where he played a complete scale in an ascending or descending fashion without pausing. However, there are certain players that have made more use of scales in their improvisations. During his modal period, Miles Davis and John Coltrane would often play a phrase that contained an entire scale. Since most musicians simply don't run scales up and down during a solo, it makes sense to practice scales in smaller cells or fragments. Using scale fragments will allow you to alter directions more easily and also provide you with greater melodic freedom than playing whole scales.
In this lesson, we are going to utilize scales as melodic cells. We won't be dealing with entire scales but rather scale cells or scale fragments. The most common scale in Western-based music is the major scale. It features a particular arrangement or formula of whole steps and half steps. Besides the major scale and its related modes, there are many other scales that are built using different combinations of whole steps and half steps including the modes of the melodic minor scale, the half-step/whole-step symmetrical diminished scale, the whole-step/half-step symmetrical diminished scale, and the whole tone scale. Each of these scales can be broken down into smaller scale fragments consisting of two, three, four, and five-note cells. ... Read More!
One of the most effective ways to learn how to solo involves the transcription, analysis, emulation, and manipulation of the phrases recorded by your favorite soloists. Similar to learning a new language, soloing involves studying and using a vocabulary to express and develop ideas. Because note choice, rhythm, and phrasing are too many variables to consider at the beginning, transcribed solos that have been recorded by your favorite musicians will initially limit your focus and help establish a solid foundation so you don't feel overwhelmed with all of the possibilities that are available to you as a soloist.
Keep a collection of transcribed solos by your favorite bassists, saxophonists, trumpet players, pianists, and guitarists. This archive may consist of solos you've personally transcribed as well as solos you've acquired through other resources. Even though there are a number of outstanding bass soloists including John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, be sure to check out the solos of other great instrumentalists like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Oscar Peterson.
As bassists, we devote most of our time to practicing grooves since our primary function in an ensemble is to provide support within the rhythm section, and as a result, bassists are generally not the best soloists. While bassists such as John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin spent time analyzing bass solos early in their development, today they are considered elite bass guitar soloists because they have spent a significant amount of time studying solos that were recorded by their favorite horn players, pianists, and guitarists which they then assimilated into their own approach. By examining the solos played by horn players, for example, you are presented with a different approach to playing bass since horn players don't have to deal with the same physical limitations that are imposed by a fretted bass guitar.
After you transcribe the lines of your favorite soloists, practice playing them along with the recordings by memorization without referring to the notation. Listen very deeply to how the master soloists communicate through the language of improvisation. Strive to not only play all of the notes and rhythms perfectly but also emulate the sound and feel that has been captured on the recordings as close as possible. Pay particular attention to all the little nuances and inflections that soloists often incorporate into their phrases, and try to make an emotional connection to the solos. Once you understand how they arrange their phrases, you will be able to utilize that knowledge and create more sophisticated solos by altering the basic structure of your favorite phrases through melodic interpretation and rhythmic displacement and then assimilate those ideas into your own solos.
As a soloist, one technique of melodic interpretation involves the varying of phrase lengths. This can be accomplished through either phrase extension (prolongation) or phrase compression (reduction). Phrase extension can be applied by simply making the durations of notes longer or including notes not found in the original melody. Phrase compression is a technique where a portion of the phrase is omitted or note durations are shortened.
Besides altering the melodic vocabulary within a phrase using the techniques of extension and reduction, phrases can be modified through rhythmic displacement. Rhythmic displacement is a basic musical concept that involves taking a figure and manipulating it by simply shifting notes from their original position to other beats within the music. Effective rhythmic phrasing is an essential aspect of sustaining rhythmic interest. When presenting a speech, the best speakers will pause in order to allow the listeners to absorb the information. Great soloists take the same approach and will incorporate pauses so that the listeners can process the musical ideas being expressed. A completely different solo phrase can be created by just changing the place within the measure where you begin and end phrases as well as manipulating the length of the phrases.
Have you ever sat through a speech where the speaker talked in a monotone voice throughout the entire presentation? Just as a skillful speaker will use different inflections during a speech, sophisticated soloists will integrate various articulation techniques, dynamics, and vibrato into their phrases. Instead of just playing the notes without accents, you can breathe life into your phrases by using articulations such as grace notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. You can also assimilate different degrees of dynamics and vibrato according to your personal taste. If, as a soloist, you don't insert a combination of both melodic and rhythmic interest into your solos, listeners will simply tune you out as they would someone speaking in a monotone voice so you should always try to maintain interesting and varied phrasing.
Learn as many melodies as possible because they usually contain repetition and the best target notes, and experiment with improvising phrases using variations on those melodies. This is a great way to understand how ideas relate to each other which will help you expand and personalize your own ideas. Melodies can begin early, start late, speed up, or slow down, and the accompaniment will continue. By learning how to play and interpret melodies, you will acquire the ability to break free of outlining every chord change that is played because you will learn to hear the chord progressions moving underneath your phrases instead of using specific note choice to constantly remind you of the chord changes. As you learn more melodies, you will acquire a sense of the independence the melodic instrument has from the accompaniment.
In this lesson, we will study a blues-based solo recorded by Miles Davis on "Straight No Chaser." Throughout a career that extended five decades, Davis released a collection of landmark projects spanning bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, and fusion music. He also discovered some of the most important figures in jazz music such as John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, and many others. This solo on "Straight No Chaser" features an extensive collection of melodic phrases over the 12-bar blues in F. Since the 12-bar blues is the most common set of chord changes utilized in the jazz repertoire and the foundation of numerous jazz standards, you can take your favorite phrases from this solo and easily incorporate them into other jazz tunes. ... Read More!
Jazz Improvisation: 5-Note Scale Cells
Understanding the relationship between the horizontal and vertical construction of music is an essential aspect to expanding your musical vocabulary and becoming a successful improviser. When discussing the harmonic structure of compositions, musicians utilize scales to represent tonal centers, and while improvising melodic phrases, you have two options as a soloist. You can play notes in skips or you can arrange notes through a series of steps. If you move by skips for more than two notes, your phrases will start to imply a chord formation, and if you move in steps for more than two notes, your phrases will suggest a scale form.
As you study transcriptions of renowned solos, you will notice that rarely will a soloist run up or down a scale in its entirety over the course of a solo because most musicians frequently change directions. If you analyze solos that were recorded by Charlie Parker, seldom will you find a phrase where he played a complete scale in an ascending or descending fashion without pausing. However, there are certain players that have made more use of scales in their improvisations. During his modal period, Miles Davis and John Coltrane would often play a phrase that contained an entire scale. Since most musicians simply don't run scales up and down during a solo, it makes sense to practice scales in smaller cells or fragments. Using scale fragments will allow you to alter directions more easily and also provide you with greater melodic freedom than playing whole scales.
In this lesson, we are going to utilize scales as melodic cells. We won't be dealing with entire scales but rather scale cells or scale fragments. The most common scale in Western-based music is the major scale. It features a particular arrangement or formula of whole steps and half steps. Besides the major scale and its related modes, there are many other scales that are built using different combinations of whole steps and half steps including the modes of the melodic minor scale, the half-step/whole-step symmetrical diminished scale, the whole-step/half-step symmetrical diminished scale, and the whole tone scale. Each of these scales can be broken down into smaller scale fragments consisting of two, three, four, and five-note cells. ... Read More!
News
Be sure to check out the latest books, DVD's, CD's, and gear. ... Read More!
Marcus Miller - The Best Of Marcus Miller
Stanley Clarke - Jazz In The Garden
Brian Bromberg - Hands
Adam Nitti - Liminal
Aguilar Amplification Welcomes Justin Meldal-Johnsen To Its Artist Roster
Marcus Miller - The Best Of Marcus Miller
Stanley Clarke - Jazz In The Garden
Brian Bromberg - Hands
Adam Nitti - Liminal
Aguilar Amplification Welcomes Justin Meldal-Johnsen To Its Artist Roster
Advertising Special On The IIB!
If you purchase a 6-month advertising package, not only will you receive 2 months of web site advertising for FREE, but your banner will also appear in each monthly newsletter during that 6-month period for FREE! That is a savings of $150 off the regular 6-month newsletter advertising rate! In September, 1999, the IIB delivered its first monthly newsletter to less than 100 subscribers. Today, the IIB's newsletter reaches over 15,000 bass enthusiasts each month! The International Institute of Bassists is a bass-centric web site aimed specifically toward the art of contemporary bass playing and the study of the bass tradition. Since its founding in 1997, the IIB has established a long-time presence on the internet and grown into one of the largest and most popular interactive bass-related web sites found online. As a viewer of the IIB, you can read exclusive interviews with bass virtuosos including Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Jeff Berlin, Gary Willis, Alain Caron, Matt Garrison, Keith Horne, and Brian Bromberg to name just a few. Viewers of the IIB also have access to free, downloadable lessons which are published by a staff of highly-respected instructors such as Michael Manring, Todd Johnson, Ray Riendeau, and Berklee College of Music professor Jim Stinnett. In addition to these lessons and interviews with the bass greats, viewers have access to interviews with the founders of manufacturing companies, bass shops, and bass events along with the latest bass-related news, reviews, and streaming media. Plus, viewers can also watch selected instructional, concert performance videos, and live bass clinics on IIBtv as well as communicate with other bassists around the world through the IIB chat room. ... Read More!
The IIB Giveaways
Each month, the IIB gives its viewers the opportunity to participate in various monthly giveaways. Sponsored by: D'Addario, Planet Waves, LightWave Systems, Ibanez, Markbass, Line 6, Epifani Custom Sound, Evidence Audio, Nordstrand Pickups, Zon Guitars, Comfort Strapp, and BassBooks.com. To become eligible to win products including basses, amplifiers, speaker cabinets, combo amps, effects, strings, instrument cables, pickups, gig bags, straps, gift certificates, DVD's, CD's, books, lessons, t-shirts, and more!
ENTER TO WIN TODAY! ... Read More!
ENTER TO WIN TODAY! ... Read More!
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers - Volumes 1 & 2
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers are comprised of selected tracks that have been recorded by many of today's premier bass artists including Marcus Miller, Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Gary Willis, Adam Nitti, Norm Stockton, Ray Riendeau, Tom Kennedy, Yves Carbonne, Gerald Veasley, and many more.
2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
As a subscriber, you will receive the following benefits:
The IIB Monthly Giveaways - Each month, your name will be entered in all of our various giveaways providing you with the opportunity to win basses, amplifiers, speaker cabinets, combo amps, effects, strings, instrument cables, pickups, gig bags, straps, gift certificates, DVD's, CD's, books, lessons, t-shirts, and more! ... Read More!
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers - Volumes 1 & 2 - You'll receive access to the IIB MP3 Bass Samplers which feature selected tracks that have been recorded by many of today's premier bass artists including Marcus Miller, Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Gary Willis, Adam Nitti, Norm Stockton, Ray Riendeau, Tom Kennedy, Yves Carbonne, Gerald Veasley, and many more. 2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
Bass Tips Of The Week - You will have access to a huge database of lesson material that has been written on subjects such as Classical & Jazz Music Theory, Sight Reading, Ear Training, Bass Line Construction, Right & Left Hand Technique, Soloing, Jazz Improvisation, Slapping, Tapping, Chordal Techniques, Harmonics, Fingerstyle Funk, Altered Tunings, and Concepts For Solo Bass Playing. All of the lessons are available as downloadable PDF files.
There are over 90 individual lessons and over 100 MP3 play-alongs currently available for download within the IIB Subscriber's Area.
By becoming a subscriber, you will help keep this resource online for you and others to enjoy in the future.
The IIB MP3 Bass Samplers - Volumes 1 & 2 - You'll receive access to the IIB MP3 Bass Samplers which feature selected tracks that have been recorded by many of today's premier bass artists including Marcus Miller, Michael Manring, Stuart Hamm, Gary Willis, Adam Nitti, Norm Stockton, Ray Riendeau, Tom Kennedy, Yves Carbonne, Gerald Veasley, and many more. 2 HOURS OF MUSIC! ... Read More!
Bass Tips Of The Week - You will have access to a huge database of lesson material that has been written on subjects such as Classical & Jazz Music Theory, Sight Reading, Ear Training, Bass Line Construction, Right & Left Hand Technique, Soloing, Jazz Improvisation, Slapping, Tapping, Chordal Techniques, Harmonics, Fingerstyle Funk, Altered Tunings, and Concepts For Solo Bass Playing. All of the lessons are available as downloadable PDF files.
There are over 90 individual lessons and over 100 MP3 play-alongs currently available for download within the IIB Subscriber's Area.
By becoming a subscriber, you will help keep this resource online for you and others to enjoy in the future.
CLICK HERE To Subscribe Today For Only $9.95 Per Year!
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Editor: The IIB
April 2009
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Thanks so much for your continued support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Editor: The IIB
April 2009
To Unsubscribe from the IIB's monthly newsletter, simply go to: http://www.instituteofbass.com and submit your e-mail to be removed.
