Tag Archives: 6-string bass exercise

6-String Bass Exercise – String Skipping Three Notes Per String – Bass Practice Diary 156

May 4, 2021 jccoxjazzbass 1 Comment

6-String Bass Exercise – String Skipping Three Notes Per String – Bass Practice Diary – 4th May 2021

This is one of those exercises that you do when you know a scale well, and you want to find a new way to practice it. There are two techniques I’m practicing here, string skipping and three notes per string. You can use this idea in solos. It will help your scale lines sound less like scales.

Three Notes Per String

The three notes per string idea works really well on 6-string bass. Three notes per string across six strings gives you eighteen notes. So, with a seven note scale like a major scale you can achieve two octaves plus a fourth without shifting positions on the neck. The idea does also work on four strings but you only get twelve notes per position which is a range of less than two octaves.

String Skipping

String skipping or crossing strings, is what I call playing consecutive notes on strings that are not next to each other. So, playing a note on the fourth string and then one on the second string, for example. You need to cross the third string to be able to do it, and it can be awkward at high tempos. There are plenty of other ways to practice that. You could play a scale using 6th intervals for example. But I choose to add this element to my three notes per string exercise, partly because it’s an essential technique to practice, but also because it sounds cool.

If you’d like to see more 6-string bass videos and exercises. I’ve put all of my 6-string bass videos into one playlist on YouTube. You can find it here.

Bass Blog

Octave Shifting Exercise on Bass – Bass Practice Diary 152

March 30, 2021 jccoxjazzbass

This Exercise Might Drive You Crazy! Octave Shifting on Bass – Bass Practice Diary – 30 March 2021

This is an exercise I came up with during a lesson with one of my students. The student in question asked me if we could work on some octave displacement ideas. The idea being that you can start a line in one octave and shift into another octave somewhere in the line. It’s actually a very musical way to liven up your lines and bass fills. Here’s a simple example.

Octave Displacement Line - A Major — Octave Displacement Line – A Major

It’s essentially just a descending A major scale. It starts on the root note on the 14th fret of the 1st string and it descends to the fifth, E, on the 14th fret of the 2nd string. Then, instead of playing the 4th, D, on the 12th fret of the same string, you can play the open string and continue the scale one octave below. If you’re asking why? try using this as a bass fill on a tune in A major, or any of the modes of A major. It’s a simple way to make a scale sound like it’s not just a scale.

This exercise could drive you crazy

But that’s not the exercise that I’m sharing with you today. In the the lesson we asked the question, how can you practice thinking in two different octaves? And that’s when I came up with this exercise. I warn you, this is an exercise that messes with your head. It also leads to some big left-hand stretches. So it presents a technical challenge as well as a mental one.

The concept is simple. Take any scale in two octaves. Then play the scale, but shift octaves after every single note. So, you play the first note in the lower octave and the second in the higher octave. Then the third in the lower octave and the fourth in the higher etc. Here is the exercise written out both ascending and descending in the key of A on 4-string bass.

Octave Shifting Exercise - A major - 4-string bass — Octave Shifting Exercise – A major – 4-string bass

Here is an extended version of the same exercise written for 6-string bass. This time the key is Bb major.

Octave Shifting Exercise - Bb major - 6-string bass — Octave Shifting Exercise – Bb major – 6-string bass

Bass Blog

Diatonic 7th Arpeggios with Approach Notes Exercise – Bass Practice Diary 138

December 15, 2020 jccoxjazzbass

6-String Bass Exercise – Diatonic 7ths with Approach Notes – Bass Practice Diary – 15th December 2020

I’ve spoken recently in my Bass Practice Diary videos about how the addition of chromatic approach notes to diatonic exercises can immediately create a jazz sound in your lines. This “approach notes” exercise is a development of that idea. I’ve featured a few 6-string bass exercises in my videos this year. This one involves playing descending diatonic 7th arpeggios, with a chromatic approach note before the start of each four note arpeggio.

Diatonic 7th Arpeggios

I’ve demonstrated this idea in the key of C major. Because it’s always the easiest key to demonstrate an idea that relates to diatonic harmony. The idea of diatonic 7th chords is simply that you build four note chords by taking the 1st (root), 3rd, 5th & 7th notes of the major scale. You can then repeat this pattern of taking alternate notes, but starting on different degrees of the scale. There are seven different notes in a major scale, hence there are seven different diatonic 7th chords in any major key.

In the example above I’m playing each arpeggio ascending, starting from the root. For the purposes of this exercise I’m playing the arpeggios descending, starting from the 7th and finishing on the root.

Descending *Diatonic 7th Arpeggios in the Key of C Major*

Chromatic Approach Notes

The term chromatic approach note simply means taking a note that is a semi-tone (half tone) away from your target note, either above or below. Then playing the chromatic approach note immediately before you play the target note.

In the case of this exercise, the target note is the 7th of each arpeggio, which is the first note that I’m playing for each one. I’m adding a chromatic approach note before the 7th each time.

Diatonic 7th Arpeggios in C Major with Chromatic Approach Notes

There are two reasons why I’ve done this. One is because the addition of chromatic approach notes creates the sound of a jazz line, as I already mentioned. And the second reason is that it creates an odd number grouping of notes. The four note arpeggios become a five note sequence with the addition of the approach notes. The odd number grouping creates a rhythmic variation that makes this sound less like an exercise and more like a musical line.

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6-String Bass Exercise – Major Triads in 12 Keys – Bass Practice Diary 128

Video October 6, 2020 jccoxjazzbass 1 Comment

6-String Bass Exercise – Major Triads in 12 Keys – Bass Practice Diary – 6th October 2020

Last week I featured three exercises for 5-string bass, this week I’ve got an exercise for 6-string bass. In this exercise, I’m playing major arpeggios. It’s fairly typical, when practicing exercises like this, to go through 12 keys. However, I wanted to make this exercise a bit more interesting than just playing twelve major triads one after the other.

The Exercise

6-String Bass Exercise - Major Triads in 12 Keys — 6-String Bass Exercise – Major Triads in 12 Keys

I’ve added an extra element by playing the triads as a five note grouping. Rather than playing root, 3rd, 5th, root, I’m playing 3rd, root, 3rd, 5th, root. The five note grouping adds a timing element, causing the chord changes to alternate between happening on and off the beat.

The triads move in fifths, but in the opposite direction to the conventional cycle of fifths. Rather than going from C to F, I’m going from C to G, up a fifth rather than down a fifth. The reason for this is that I’m playing the major 7th note at the end of each arpeggio, but that major 7th note is then being treated as the major 3rd of the next arpeggio. This leads to the sequence of fifths that you see in the exercise.

Johnny Cox Music