This week we’re going to take a look at some basic aspects of jazz harmony in the shape of Secondary Dominant Chords What You Need To Know… I’m going to assume two things before we start this lesson A basic knowledge of chords and chord construction A knowledge of the basic diatonic chords in a…
This week I’ve got a brief, simple exercise for you that will test your knowledge of keys, arpeggios and harmony. I personally think that less than 1 per cent of bass players will play it right on the first attempt simply because it isn’t the kind of exercise we generally practice. Obviously, any player with…
This week we’re going to look at Triads! A triad is a three note chord. We’re going to look at how they’re constructed and how to apply them in our bass lines. Why Learn About Chords? Arpeggios and chord tones (the individual notes of a chord) are essential in creating bass lines even if you…
This week I’ve got a great little music theory exercise for you that will help with learning the notes on the neck, some essential arpeggios, the chords within a major key and the circle of 5ths! The Basic Exercise For this exercise we will be playing through the chords of the major key in order,…
When you think music ‘theory’ a lot of you out there probably start thinking about stuff like Scales or maybe Chord Tones or maybe even the whole study of Functional Harmony. Well, that’s all useful and important stuff to learn but there’s a very small area of ‘theory’ bass players often neglect and it’s something…
In this Music Theory For Bass lesson we look at the modes of the harmonic minor scale What Is The Harmonic Minor Scale? The harmonic minor scale is exactly the same as the natural minor scale except the 7th is raised to make it major instead of minor. C Harmonic Minor Scale– C D Eb F…
In this Music Theory For Bass lesson we look at the modes of the melodic minor scale What Is The Melodic Minor Scale? The melodic minor scale is a variation on the natural minor scale. It contains a flattened third like the Natural Minor, but the sixth and seventh are major instead of minor. Melodic…
When bass players take lessons or watch lessons online they tend to be force fed a diet of Chord Tones, Chord Tones, Chord Tones! But you might be wondering why we need to concentrate on these notes first and foremost. You might also be wondering where all the other notes come into the equation. In…