Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson: Embellishment of Fixed Bass Lines
This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF, Kindle Book and the all-new paperback formats. So far we’ve covered Anchors, Pivots, and now Lead-Ins… This is all fine for jazz, you might be thinking, but what the heck does this have to do...
Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson: Lead-Ins
This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF, Kindle Book and the all-new paperback formats. So far we’ve covered Anchors and Pivots in previous columns. Roots and fifths – the bread-and-butter of the working bassist. Now we start to get into the really...
Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson: Pivots
This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF, Kindle Book and the all-new paperback formats. Last week we talked about “Anchors”. We introduced the idea of “Pivots” as “the primary oppositional tone to the root (or anchor). Here is some more discussion of...
Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson: Anchors
This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF or Kindle Book formats. We left off last week with an overview of the topics we’ll be covering in this series. The material this week is foundational; I doubt that you’ll be running to the...
Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson: Anchors, Pivots and Lead-Ins
This is the first chapter of “The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass.” Be sure to check out Jon’s previous lesson, Melodic Bass Lines, as well as the complete The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass in downloadable PDF or Kindle Book formats. I hope you, the bassist-reader, find the material useful; it’s an approach to the construction of bass lines based...
Melodic Bass Lines
We’ve all heard about “chordal scales.” Chordal scales are useful; they contain the chord tones—we really need those!—and a set of neighbor and passing tones that will sound reasonably and reliably good. Chordal scales are emphasized in a lot of teaching methods. Are they the basis of what we need to know as bass players? Do we make our lines...