Friday, January 02, 2009

Chord Tone Improvisation

Hi,

One of the best ways to create bassline is by using chord tone,which are the notes in a chord.

Let use Cmaj7 for an example.

The notes in a Cmaj7 are C E G B (1 3 5 7).

What people tend to do is when the other musicians strike a Cmaj7 chord, we bass player naturally play the C, which is the root note,or sometimes followed by E -> G-> B than to the next chord.

You can start simple improvisation by experimenting different placement of the note. i.e 3 1 5 7 or 5 1 3 7, or 3 5 1 7 or 7 5 3 1 and which ever ways you can come out with.

By doing this, you will break the fix pattern of playing 1->3->5->7.

Hope this helps.

Have fun

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for tip!

It's easy when we practise arpeggios as a bass player that we mix them up like you suggest.

Getting out of the habit of plaing 1,3,5,7 gets boring it that is all you do :)

benjso28 said...

You can play the chord tone at different position of the neck. Occasionally you can play 1+3 or 1+5 forming a chord.