Anthony Muthurajah Joins No Treble with New Bass Lesson Series

Introducing Anthony’s Bass Corner (ABC): Voice Leading with Random Triads

We’re excited to welcome bassist and educator Anthony Muthurajah as a new contributor to No Treble! Anthony will be joining us twice a month with a new column called Anthony’s Bass Corner (ABC), featuring bass lessons accompanied by instructional videos. Each lesson will be published exclusively on NoTreble.com, with the videos available on both Anthony’s YouTube channel and the No Treble YouTube channel.

Originally from Bahrain and of Sri Lankan heritage, Anthony is now based in New York City. He began his musical journey as a drummer before making the bass his primary instrument. Over the years, he’s performed and recorded with artists including The Brand New Heavies, Matt Garrison, Rez Abbasi, and Frederic Yonnet. He’s also released two albums as a bandleader, “Road Not Taken” (2019) and “Perennial” (2021). Anthony brings a wealth of experience as a performer and educator, and we’re looking forward to sharing his knowledge with the No Treble community. For his first lesson, he’s exploring voice leading with random triads and how this approach can open up new melodic possibilities on the bass.

Voice Leading with Random Triads (Video at the bottom)

Triads are probably one of the first few things you learn in music, especially if you started out on guitar, piano, or any chordal instrument. They form the foundation of harmony as we know it, and they are remarkably simple to construct.

On a fundamental level, we only have 4 basic triads:

1. Major: 1 – 3 – 5
2. Minor: 1 – ♭3 – 5
3. Augmented: 1 – 3 – ♯5
4. Diminished: 1 – ♭3 – ♭5

As bass players, we typically mess around with triads and do our best to incorporate them into our playing. We might eventually get into inversions and try to use them in our grooves or solos. These are all great approaches, but the resulting sounds can start to feel limiting after a while.

Here’s the thing, though: Triads aren’t the limiting factor—it’s our limited perspective as bassists. With that in mind, I want to share one of my favorite ways to practice triads: voice leading.

Using Non-Diatonic Triads

The idea here is extremely simple. We start by taking two triads that are completely unrelated. They don’t need to have any harmonic or key center relationship, nor do they need to share the same quality. For example, let’s look at two minor triads: F♯m and Dm.

Let’s break down what happens when we move between them:

• F♯m = F♯ – A – C♯

• Dm = D – F – A

Here are a few key observations:

1. A is a common tone. It acts as an anchor note, allowing us to pivot smoothly between the two triads.
2. Opposing half-step motion. F♯ moves down a half step to F, while C♯ moves up a half step to D. Two voices move by half steps in opposite directions to land on the new triad.
3. Inversions happen naturally. You don’t need to force or overthink inversions—let smooth voice leading guide you, and inversions will naturally result. (This applies to any chord movement!)

I recommend picking two random triads and shedding them for 5–10 minutes a day. You don’t need a rigid system to choose your triads—be as random as you like and have fun with it! Eventually, you can chain together a third triad, then a fourth, a fifth, and so on.

In the next lesson, we’ll look at applying voice leading to diatonic triads, so stay tuned!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7FZV1Cql1k