Why Chord-Tone Exercises Aren’t Enough | Soloing & Walking Bass

[00:00:00]One of the things I struggle with is keeping up with fast moving chord changes.

[00:00:04]Uh I know my harmonic tempo with slow slower tempos, but I struggle to juggle a harmony at faster tempos. I Yeah, it's super tough.

[00:00:13]Um I mean what I would say is are you talking about like when you're playing a solo? I'm talking to Aaron Mets. Are you saying that you struggle to keep up with fast tempos if you're playing a solo? Is that what you're saying?

[00:00:30]>> [music] >> cuz yeah I have I think I can give you some good advice for that. Yeah, walking alo. Okay. Well, let's just say for soloing soloing is much easier than walking bass. People are going to be like what?

[00:00:47]Soloing to me is a lot easier than walking because walking you have to play all the time quarter notes. You cannot stop. You've just got to play. And people wanted to feel good and creative, you know, soloing at least like look if let's say we have G major 7 to G minor 7 to C7. If I wanted to take a solo, I could go 1 2 3 4.

[00:01:14][music] I can take my time with soloing and and the more space I leave sometimes the cooler it can be. So it kind of when a song is moving at a really fast tempo, you can just voice lead and leave loads of space and it's going to sound good.

[00:01:32]If the song is cool, the harmony is going to do all the work for you. So I think I hope that helps. You don't have to fill up every single eighth note. You don't need to sound like a Bbop monster on the bass tomorrow. So just make sure you hit the chord tones and you know say something beautiful, leave space. That's how I would come at the soloing thing.

[00:01:56]Don't think you have to like the whole time because it's just bass players. We don't spend enough time doing that with the walking stuff.

[00:02:09]It's really tough. I I think like learning uh like transcribing a whole blues of someone like Ray Brown, learning it as a etude and then focusing on cells, you know, and moving the cells around the whole chord progression and then ingraining them so deep that it doesn't matter how fast the song is going. They're just going to, you know, you you just have enough vocabulary that's so ingrained in your playing that you don't even have to think anymore.

[00:02:46]But that takes years, you know, no one plays jazz well after 6 months.

[00:02:52]Uh, yeah. So, you just have to understand it's like a lifelong pursuit sometimes.

[00:02:59]Said block. Been trying to work on the tri pairs. We can't make it sound good.

[00:03:02]Sounds like an exercise.

[00:03:05]Uh, it's a good question. Yeah, I know what you mean. Let's say you have a minor 7 and you can play C major [music and singing] and D major.

[00:03:17]I think just adding in some kind of uh rhythm and space. So, instead of always going like this [music] or whatever, play [music] You know, you know what I'm saying? I'm not doing this.

[00:03:36][singing] [music] [music] D, [singing] you see that's like a nice uh solo. You've got to just add in your musicality, rhythm, time, space, dynamics, everything, you know. So, yeah, spend more time just improvising with the trips under your fingers, in the back of your mind, but in the front of your mind, dynamics, rhythm, etc., and space. And I think that works for everything. basic flat 9. How to practice fourths and incorporate them into a solo. First, you should know all your fourths. Like if you're talking about C Lydian, yeah, you need to know [music] where they all are. [music] [music] And then kind of like I was just saying with the question before, then once they're kind of under your fingers, [music] you should just take it slow and um try add in the musical aspects. And even if it's out of time like so, so stop just doing this. [music] play.

[00:05:21][music] So, I'm I'm trying to kind of sing my own melodic and rhythmic ideas, but I'm like playing within the world of fourths. I'm not [snorts] um I'm kind of in between practicing concept and making music. And in terms of that becoming fills, anything I practice [music] melodically and up here, it's very easy to [music] to switch into fills because it doesn't matter if you're thinking about soloing or what. These are all just melodic and rhythmic concepts. So once you spend a lot of time making melodies with stuff, nothing will stop you from just playing those as fills. It'll become part of your vocabulary.

[00:06:18]Maybe the issues uh with vocabulary, it's less of an issue of keeping up with harmony, more of an issue of having things to use of harmony. Well, yeah, Erin, the thing is like how much are you transcribing real vocabulary and not just playing exercises and playing chord tones? Cuz so many people when they like learn to play over chord changes, they'll get told, "Okay, so to play on a 251, you need to know your arpeggios and your modes."

[00:06:49]And then they spend all of their time with arpeggios and modes, but This is vocabulary. It's not arpeggios and modes. It's like how do the people who speak that music actually say anything? They don't just run arpeggios, triads, and modes up and down. That's not what's happening.

[00:07:14]It's like a real vocabulary and often times based around ornaments of triads and arpeggios, but it's not just running these things up and down like playing arpeggios up and down on a 251 like going [music] that sounds really bad and then playing your modes up and down. [music] None of these sound like that good.

[00:07:45]Whereas if you say to yourself, [music] [singing] you see that's a real kind of melodic idea. And that's just ornamenting seventh chords. That's I'm not thinking about running up and down a mode. I'm not thinking about modes at all. I'm not thinking about triads and arpeggiating a seventh chord. Yeah.

[00:08:16]Nice. That's awesome. Eron, you got to spend your time uh making music with everything and and trying to figure out how our heroes made music with this stuff. What are they doing that you're not doing when you're like in study mode? not like listening to music as a fan mode. When you're in study mode, those are the questions you should ask yourself. So, you're like, "Oh, everyone told me I need to learn my arpeggios, modes, and triads."

[00:08:50]Uh, yes, you got to know that, but that's like the alphabet.

[00:08:54]That's not vocabulary at all. So, music is sound and vocabulary.

[00:09:00]It's not arpeggios and triads. That stuff won't make you sound good when you're improvising. It's just expected that you know that. But you got to learn the real language of the musicians who play the styles of music you love.

[00:09:16]And when you ask yourself the the questions like what are they doing? You should realize, oh, they aren't playing modes and triads. I'm talking about kind of jazz from the 40s to the 60s. I'm talking about Bbop and that kind of sound. I'm not talking about like modal stuff right now, you know. Yeah, you'll get a lot more out of.

[00:09:42][music] [music] [music] You see, that's all more vocabulary and ornamenting than it is just playing arpeggios and stuff.

[00:10:09]I hope that makes sense.