Tag Archives: Jazz Exercise

Bass Blog

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

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.

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

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
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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Triplet Timing Exercises for Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary 123

Video

Triplet Timing Exercises for Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary – 1st September 2020

This is my third video of timing exercises for bass guitar. The previous two videos both involved playing odd number note groupings as 16th notes in 4/4. In this video, I’m changing the subdivision and I’m playing four and five note groupings as triplets in 4/4. All of these triplet timing exercises are written with 8th note triplets. However, if you want to take the exercises a step further, you can make them harder by using quarter note triplets or 16th note triplets.

The Exercises

The first exercise involves playing four note groupings. I’m using two arpeggios in the key of C major, a Dm7 arpeggio and a Cmaj7 arpeggio. You can use any four note grouping to do this. Four note groupings played as continuous triplets in 4/4 will arrive back on beat one after two bars. So, I’ve put the note C on beat one of bar three to complete the exercise. You can loop the exercise as many times as you want to.

Timing Exercise - Triplets in Groups of Four
Timing Exercise – Triplets in Groups of Four

Another way to play four note groupings would be to play a scale, four notes at a time. This is a C major scale played descending from G, the fifth.

Playing five note groupings as triplets is harder. The next exercise lands back on beat one at the beginning of bar 6.

Timing Exercise - Triplets in Groups of Five
Timing Exercise – Triplets in Groups of Five

Finally, this last exercise combines the four and five note groupings. It’s actually a bit more straight forward than playing just the five note groupings, because four and five makes nine. So, this is effectively a grouping of nine. And because nine is divisible by three, it fits into triplet rhythms quite nicely.

Timing Exercise - Triplets in Groups of Four and Five
Timing Exercise – Triplets in Groups of Four and Five
Bass Blog

Timing Exercise #2 – Sixteenth Notes In Five Note Groupings – Bass Practice Diary 121

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Timing Exercise on Bass Guitar #2 – 16th Notes in Five Note Groupings – Bass Practice Diary – 18th August 2020

This week’s timing exercise features five note groupings, played as 16th notes. Last week I featured a similar exercise with three note phrases. You can make exercises like this by using any odd number grouping, and then playing those groupings as continuous 16th notes in 4/4.

Odd Number Rhythmic Groupings

The larger the grouping, the more rhythmic possibilities it creates. For example, five note groupings can be counted as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Da-Di-Gi-Na-Dum). Or you could count 3+2 (Ta-Ki-Ta, Ta-Ka) or 2+3 (Ta-Ka, Ta-Ki-Ta). However, a seven note grouping would give more options, 4+3, 3+4, 2+3+2, 5+2 etc.

The idea of playing odd number rhythmic groups, is that it creates a continuously moving polyrhythmic feel against the four beats in a bar of 4/4 and the four 16th note subdivisions in each beat. The idea of these exercises, is that they systematically go through every possible rhythmic placement of a five note grouping of 16th notes in a bar of 4/4, before arriving back on beat one at the beginning of the sixth bar.

Three Variations of The Exercise

In the first exercise, I’m playing five note arpeggios in the key of C major.

Five Note Groupings - Two Arpeggios in C Major
Five Note Groupings – Two Arpeggios in C Major

As you can see, I play the tonic, C on beat one of bar 6. If you can hit that note on the downbeat, then you know you’ve played the exercise correctly.

The second variation of this exercise is a variation of the first exercise. This time, I’m playing the five notes as three and then two.

Five Note Groupings - Three and Two
Five Note Groupings – Three and Two

The third variation also uses the three and two idea. However, this time I’m using an ascending G major scale.

Five Note Groupings - Three and Two
Five Note Groupings – Three and Two – G Major Scale
Bass Blog

Timing Exercise #1 – Sixteenth Notes in Groups of Three – Bass Practice Diary 120

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Timing Exercise on Bass Guitar – 16th Notes in Groups of 3 – Bass Practice Diary – 11th August 2020

The concept of this timing exercise is very simple. You take any sequence of three notes, and play the sequence as continuous 16th notes in 4/4. So, you subdivide the beats into four, but you play a pattern of three, which creates a simple polyrhythm. Each time you play the sequence, it will start on a different 16th note. After three bars, you will have played all of the different permutations of where that sequence can start in a bar of 4/4. So, if you play the sequence correctly for three bars, the sequence should begin again on beat one of bar 4.

The Exercise and Variations

This would be a simple version of the exercise. It’s a “one finger per fret” exercise, but each note is played three times.

Timing Exercise - 16ths in three note groupings - One finger per fret
Timing Exercise – 16ths in three note groupings – One finger per fret

I would more commonly play the exercise using triads, as I have here.

Timing Exercise - 16ths in three note groupings - Fmaj and Em triads
Timing Exercise – 16ths in three note groupings – Fmaj and Em triads

You could also apply the same idea to practicing scales. Here is a C major scale played in three note groupings. First ascending and then descending.

Timing Exercise - 16ths in three note groupings - C major scale ascending
Timing Exercise – 16ths in three note groupings – C major/A natural minor scale ascending
Timing Exercise - 16ths in three note groupings - C major/A natural minor scale descending
C major/A natural minor scale descending
Bass Blog

Pentatonic Jazz Exercise – Bass Practice Diary 106

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Inside/Outside Pentatonic Jazz Exercise for Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary – 5th May 2020

This week I’m featuring a pentatonic jazz exercise that I came up with. Since I released my pentatonic jazz lick video a few weeks ago, I’ve been coming up with exercises to help me play these inside/outside pentatonic ideas all over my bass and in different keys. I’m featuring the exercise for two reasons. One is because it’s a useful exercise to practice, but the other, more important reason, is to help you come up with exercises of your own by sharing my process with you. This is how I came up with the exercise.

A minor pentatonic exercise

An idea for an exercise usually starts with something very simple, and then I find ways to make it progressively more challenging. In this case, I started with the notes of an A minor triad. Then I took those three notes through the notes of an A minor pentatonic scale by moving each note one scale step downwards on each repetition. Like this.

A minor pentatonic triad exercise
A minor pentatonic triad exercise

Then I changed the feel from triplets to 16th notes. That created a three against four polyrhythmic feel. The pattern is three notes but each beat had four subdivisions.

Then I added the II-V-I inside/outside idea from my last pentatonic video. If you think of the Am triad as being chord II in a II-V-I in G major, then you would play two beats on A minor. Then two beats on D7 before resolving onto the one chord, G major, in the second bar.

Inside/Outside Pentatonic Jazz Exercise
Inside/Outside Pentatonic Jazz Exercise

The three scales used are A minor pentatonic on the A minor chord. The outside scale is Bb minor pentatonic on the D7 chord. And the exercise resolves onto B minor pentatonic on the G major chord. Three pentatonic scales separated by a semi-tone. Two of the scales contain entirely inside notes in the key of G and the other contains entirely outside notes.