Another One for the Bass Players – E Blues

Here is another practice track for the bass players. It is an E 12 Bar blues. The rhythm part is played with all dominant 7th chords, while the lead guitar plays with the E minor pentatonic scale. Here are the chords:-

|E7               |                 |                  |                |

|A7               |                 |E7             |                |

|B7               |A7            |E7              |E7           |

Try constructing bass lines from your dominant 7th chord arpeggios. Add in the 6th for a classic blues bass line. For your runs, try the the myxolydian mode from the root of each chord.

 

G major II-V-I practice track

This practice track is intended for bass players who are getting to grips with there II-V-I progressions. The key is G major, with a basic jazz feel, the backing track contains guitar playing the chords and drums doing a slow tempo swing. The chords are

||: Am7      |D7                 |Gmaj7         |                : ||

You can try some of the following exercises:

(1) Play the root note of each chord on beat one of each bar. Find as many different root notes as you can in different regions of the neck.

(2) Modify exercise 1 by playing up or down the scale from the root note when you land on the chord Gmaj7. Play one neat per beat.

(3) Repeat exercise 2, but playing up or down from the root note of the other chords.

(4) Try playing up or down from the root notes of each chord in the progression.

(5) Once the first four exercises are going comfortably, try exercise 1 again, but this time land on the 3rd of each chord. Repeat exercise 3 and 4, but playing up or down from the 3rd.

(6) Repeat exercise (5), but landing on the 5th, and again landing on the 7th.

Repeat all exercises using all 5 moveable major scale fingerings, and the open fingering.

Gmajor 2-5-1 Jazz progression without bass

Bass Practice Track – E Minor Pentatonic

I thought it would be cool for my bass students to play along with a track that I am working on for an album by “The Robert Bloodwood Experience”, which is the name of my blues and groove band. So I have taken out the bass and the vocals, leaving just the drums and guitars.

It is predominantly an E minor groove, occasionally changing to G and then to A. See if you can figure out where by listening. Play along using the E minor Pentatonic scale. Remember that simple with a good feel is often the best option for bass.

practicetrackversionNoBassNoVocals

 

Practice Track: A Minor Blues

Here is a practice track for beginning or intermediate guitarists to sharpen up their minor blues solos. The Key is A minor – so use the A minor Pentatonic. For a more sophisticated approach, you can also make excursions into the D minor Pentatonic over the D minor Chord. For the E7 chord, try an E minor pentatonic, with some half tone bending on the G! That will take the G up to a G# to match the chord tone in the E7 chord (E, G#, B, D)

Another approach is to use the A natural minor scale, switching to the A harmonic minor scale (or just bending the G’s to G#) over the E7. The tempo is slow and the rhythm is steady to give you plenty of scope for exploring.

A minor Blues

|Am         |               |                 |                    |

|Dm         |               |Am           |                    |

|E7           |Dm         |Am           |                    |

The chords are a standard blues progression, but in a modern style, there is no final E7 chord in bar 12. Instead you will hear four distinctive organ stabs to alert you that you are coming back to the top again.

 

Practice Track: Groove Bass

Here is a practice track for bass players. It is in the key of G minor, at a medium tempo. There is only one chord – a G minor played throughout, but interest is created by interspersing rhythm accompaniments and lead tracks using various guitar sounds and organ styles. This track is ideal for sharpening up the G minor pentatonic chops. The minor pentatonic scale is great for all kinds of groove based music, and is also useful for rock and blues as well. There is no bass line recorded on this track, so see if you can play along, and create some bass lines using the G minor Pentatonic scale. A good rule of thumb to start with is to play the root note on beat one of each bar. Have fun exploring!

Bass_Gm_Grrove

If you are not familiar with the G minor pentatonic scale, here is a fret board diagram. It shows two scale shapes that you can play with just fingers 1 and 3, which is easiest for less experienced players. In each case, start with your third finger on a G, and use your first finger to slide between fret one and fret 3 on the A string, or fret 8 and 10 on the D string.

Minor ii-V-I in A minor

The minor ii-V-I is one of the key progressions in all kinds of jazz. The two chord has a flat 5, and the V chord may have a flat nine or a sharp five. They are great fun to improvise over using a harmonic minor scale. The following practice track is in A minor, with a bossa nova feel. An example of a tune using this progression is “Black Orpheus”, otherwise known as “Menha de Carnival”. While any of the A minor scales will work over the progression, the A harmonic minor picks up the “b5” in B minor and the 3rd and the b9 in the E, so will match most closely with the progression.

||: Am                    |Bm7b5              E7b9      : ||

A minor 2-5-1

Enjoy!

Practice Track: A minor blues

The Blues form is one of the basic forms for jamming in rock, jazz, and of course blues. Here is a practice track to help get your chops up to speed on the A minor blues. The chord progression is a typical blues variant, with minor I and IV chords. Often a V chord appears in the last bar of a blues, however this final V chord is often omitted as in this case!

There are many possibilities for soloing over such a progression, a good starting point is the notes of the C major scale, which may also be referred to as the A natural minor scale, or the Aeolian mode of C. This gives us both a flat 9 (F) and a sharp 9 (G) to play over the E7 chord. Alternately, we can use the A minor pentatonic scale, which is in realty a subset of the C major notes, omitting the F and the B. Using the A minor pentatonic, be sure to try bending your G up a semitone  on the E7, and try bending your D up a tone on the Am.

An alternative approach is to bass your playing around the chord arpeggios. We can use the Am7 arpeggio over the Am, the Dm7 arpeggio over the Dm, and the E7 arpeggio over the E7 chord.

We can drop in some colour notes to our arpeggios, seconds work over all three chords, while a major sixth sounds good over the Dm (creating a minor sixth sound). We can drop a #5 (C) in on the E7 (creating an E7#5 sound).

Another possibility is to play with the A harmonic minor scale over the E7, where it has the necessary G# to match with the G# in the E7 chord. This give a  little bit of a gypsy jazz flavour over the straight ahead rock backing. Harmonically, the harmonic minor can work over all the chords – try it out and see it you like it!

Here is the practice track. There are four repetitions of the progression. Play the tune over the first, then take two choruses for a solo, then play the tune again. You will hear the rhythm in the organ count you back to the top in each bar 12, which will help you know where you are in the progression, so you can pick up the tune in the right place again!

 

Rob’s Minor Blues

Practice Track – Autumn Leaves

Many jazz compositions are built up on the II-V-I progression. An example is the tune Autumn leaves, which alternates between II-V-I progressions in G major and E minor (the relative minor of G). This set of practice tracks will help you to develop your soloing over a major II-V-I and its relative minor II-V-I, such as in Autumn Leaves.

First we will develop skills in the major II-V-I, with a IV chord added at the end. With the added IV chord, we go right around the circle of fourths into the minor II-V- I. Here is a practice backing track for the major II-V-I-IV. Use the G major scale to improvise.

||:Am7      |D7         |Gmaj7      |Cmaj7     : ||

II-V-I-IV-GMajorLoop

Next we develop up our minor II-V-I. Use an E minor scale to improvise – the melodic minor scale with a (C# and D#) is suggested by the melody, however the b5 of the F#m and the b9 of the B7 are C, which indicate the harmonic minor scale. You can also experiment with the natural minor scale (same notes as G major), which gives a #9 sound over the B7. Constructing a melody using the arpeggio notes of each chord (especially 3rds, 7ths and altered tones) on beats 1 and 3, or all down beats in eighth note passages will always sound strong!

||:F#m7b5      |B7 (b9)    |Em          |                   : ||

II-V-IEMinorLoop

Now we can alternate between the major and minor, as in the tune autumn leaves:

||:Am7      |D7         |Gmaj7      |Cmaj7     |

|F#m7b5      |B7 (b9)    |Em          |                  : ||

|F#m7b5      |B7 (b9)    |Em          |                  |

|Am7      |D7         |Gmaj7      |Cmaj7     |

|F#m7b5      |B7 (b9)    |Em          |                  |

|F#m7b5      |B7 (b9)    |Em          |                  :||

autumnleavesStyleProgressionPracticeTrack

Have fun – and devote plenty of time to working with these practice tracks, as they will give you a solid foundation which will help you in your improvising on many jazz tunes. In a future note I will talk some more about strategies for soloing over these chords!

Practice Track: Finger Picking Blues

This practice track provides a finger style blues rhythm backing, ready for your improvisations using the E minor pentatonic scale. The chords are

||:E7         |               |A7          |             : ||

You can also try combining the E7 and A7 arpeggios over the appropriate chord, to augment the minor pentatonic. There is plenty of room for the so called “blue” notes in this style – the b3 (G), the b5 (Bb) and the b7 (D). Experiment with hammer on’s, pull offs, and combinations of hammer ons and pull offs, using them to lock into the triplet feel. Bends and reverse bends sound good on the b3 (G), the 4 (A) and the b7 (D), but stick to reverse bending the A on the A chord!

Play with these ideas, and ideas of your own, and explore what sounds good to you!

Finger Picking Blues Rhythm Track