Building jazz bass lines pdf

The symbol of the bass clef is derived from the old german way of writing f. To download the pdf including transcription, analysis and tabs click the. The language of jazz or the jazz idiom is in a constant state of flux. All lessons are offered in highdefinition quality and presented with 35 cameras depending on the material taught. Jan 30, 2019 jazz guitar licks are known by many names. The fundamentals of music are pitch and rhythm which are placed in a grid of five lines and four spaces called staff. Simple walking bass line for jazz beginners talkingbass. Use the top line of the score below to play the melody of summertime. By breaking down long lines into short, easy to play licks, you will not only add some great sounding bebop lines to your vocabulary, but you will give yourself the building blocks needed to create hipsounding lines on your own. Combine bass lines and chord voicings in the original etude blues in the kitchen. A compendium of techniques for great jazz bass lines including playalong cd featuring ron carter bass. A walking bass line is a more creative form of bass playing than the other swing styles because you choose new notes each time you play the same song. A compendium of techniques for great jazz bass lines including. Ron carter illustrates step by step the basic concepts of creating bass lines.

So much of the music is passed from musician to musician without it even being written down. This tutorial takes a look at five different approaches to playing walking basslines in a 12bar blues progression. Ron carter building jazz bass lines hal leonard 1998 isbn. The samples are in pdf format and require adobe acrobat reader to be installed. Building bass lines 5 it is common practice by jazz bassists to simplify a walking bass line by playing only on beats one and three, usually during the beginning of the tune when the melody is being played. If you know how to create a walking bass line, you can be more creative in your jazz playing. A requirement to building jazz lines or walking bass lines, as an. What people are saying about constructing walking jazz bass lines. Bass method ray brown the evolving bassist rufus reid evolving upward bass book 11 rufus reid comprehensive bass method ron carter building jazz bass lines ron carter modern walking bass technique mike richmond drums stick control. Since the 1970s, the real book has been the most popular book for gigging jazz. Jazz has changed greatly over the past 70 years and is presently in transition. Jul 04, 2015 title slide of building bass lines slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. Building jazz bass lines like ron carter joe hubbard bass. Well play through it so you can get it under your fingers and then well have a look at what is going on in there so you can integrate parts of it into your own vocabulary and develop your own walking style.

A compendium of techniques for great jazz bass lines including playalong cd featuring ron carter bass builders 0073999215519. Rufus reid bass lines pdf complete bass line transcription book from vol. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of. Use the bass line as written on the bottom when you play with the horns and as a reference when creating your own bass lines. After you listen to summertime played by the horns on the reference track, its time to play summertime. Target notes are notes that must be played at a specific place and time during a chord progression bass line. Sep 15, 2016 upright and electric bassist, jared plane presents his new ongoing series of video tutorials focusing on creating bossa nova, or latinstyle basslines over specific latin jazz standards. In this weeks lesson were looking at a very simple walking bass line through the. For ascending lines im using the scale degrees 1 2 3 5. Walking bass line theory basicspart 1by chris fitzgerald. For example, a short pattern that is played on two strings could be played on strings 12, 23, 34, 45. For example, when you do steps 1, 2, or 3 above, you are creating the most basic kinds of ostinato. They can be called riffs, licks, lines, phrases, motives, and motifs, just to name a few.

A compendium of techniques for great jazz bass lines. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of jazz online jazz handbook welcome to the bass chapter of the thelonious monk institute of jazz s online jazz handbook. Each lesson is professionally filmed in our studios located in greeley, colorado and kent, ohio. This guide was written especially for you and for those bass players who would like to learn this process, but dont know where to begin. This simplification is known as a twobeat bassline. The two dots on the right of the bass clef symbol surround the line on which f pitch is written.

How to create bass lines 5 ostinato or riff bass an ostinato is a repeated rhythmicmelodic. For this walking bass line im going to use only two scale patterns as the foundation for the whole thing. Try to play the phrase on as many sets of strings as possible. The most common target note in most jazz bass lines is the root of each chord as it occurs in the progression. Were going to use basic chord tones and repetitive lines that will act as a springboard in developing your own lines. In this lesson we will be creating a simple walking bass line over a basic jazz blues progression. The bass line construction method explored here uses chord tones, approach notes and basic reharmonization. Jazz bass books constructing walking jazz bass lines. This style heavily utilizes the roots and 5ths of chords. Take a one or two bar phrase and transpose it to all 12 keys. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of jazz online jazz handbook welcome to the bass chapter of the thelonious monk institute of jazzs online jazz handbook.

Written in the language of the working jazz musician, this book is easy to read and userfriendly. Building walking bass lines pdf free download epdf. Accompanying audio includes a jazz trio for practicing standard tunes. Building jazz bass lines like ron carter joe hubbard. A bassline also known as a bass line or bass part is the term used in many styles of music, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic, traditional music, or classical music for the lowpitched instrumental part or line played in jazz and some forms of popular music by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, cello, tuba or keyboard piano, hammond organ. In order to be a part of the jazz movement one must accept change. The function of a bass player in the jazz combo is to work with the piano player and drummer to provide both a harmonic and rhythmic stability for the tune. Jazz guitar licks are short musical phrases used to outline popular chord progressions. Walking bass line theory basics pdf file chris fitzgerald. These exercises become very involved and tricky, but are fantastic for becoming knowledgable about the proper way to create tension and expectation within the context of. Book iii covers 24 jazz standard chord progressions. It is found most commonly in blues and jazz, but as you learn bass guitar, you will hear its influence in almost any style of music. To begin, here is a master list of all of the minilicks used in the longer lines below. No matter what theyre called, their function remains the same.

Kill the bass discovering the path of the world class bassists. Bass lines incorporate many basic improvisational concepts and fundamental musical building blocks such as chord tone outlining with chromaticism, bop scales, and use of sequence that are essential tools for improvising in the jazz fusion idioms. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of jazz. There are a couple of exceptions as youll see but for the most part were looking at one line for ascending and one line for descending. This paper describes a contourbased algorithm for the realtime automatic generation of jazz walking bass lines, following a given harmonic progression. The term walking is used to describe the moving feeling that quarter notes create in the bass part. A requirement to building jazz lines or walking bass lines, as an electric bassist is highly dependent on what you listen to. Even though it has been written with the electric bass in mind, it can also be used for setting up electric guitars or other similar instruments. Many jazz bass lines are created by using two different categories of notes.

Open studio is committed to helping you shed while you are sheltering in place, with tons of free content and tools to get you playing better. Each generation of jazz musicians contribute their own unique ideas, feelings, and sound to the music and this is what. Bass tabs of songs by bass lessons 448 bass tabs including cool riffs for beginners, easy funk basslines and basic 12 bar blues in a the walking bass. Building jazz bass lines perfect material for learning the fundamentals of creating walking bass lines, and expanding the rhythmic embellishment of the music. Pdf a contourbased jazz walking bass generator researchgate. The essential guide to walking bass amazon web services. Good walking bass lines work to propel the forward motion that exists. Approach notes and jazzy articulations used by jazz bassists. Standard lines jazz and bebop standards book iii in the constructing walking jazz bass lines series for the jazz bassist is a comprehensive guide demonstrating the devices used to construct walking jazz bass lines in the jazz standard tradition. Ron carter building jazz bass lines free download pdf kupdf. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. A followup to building walking bass lines, this book approaches more advanced walking concepts, including modal mapping, the twofeel, several must know changes, and other important jazz bass lessons. Bass lines over the most common jazz structures and chord sequences. Jazz has a vast aural tradition associated with it.