I’ve always been a big fan of melodies. From sung lyrics to saxophone lines and everything in between, melodies always capture my ears. Once I’ve got a melody in my ears, the next natural step is to play it on my bass. As I’ve done that, I’ve realized that I need to make my bass playing more melodic. Whether I’m laying into a groove or improvising a solo, melodies have become a big part of my bass work.
It’s been an uphill battle though – melodies are not the musical pieces that are prioritized in the bass world. We’re all about rhythm and groove. Of course, we need to understand pitches and harmony; we outline the chordal movement of the song. That different than playing a beautiful melody though. Our opportunities to play melodies are often rare; we’ve got to look for them. I’ve had to put quite a bit of extra effort into becoming a melodic player, but I think that it’s been worth the effort.
I’ve learned that a melodic mind set will definitely help your bass playing though. Thinking melodically will help guide your note choice and push that towards a logical shape. When you want to adds fills and embellishments into your bass line, there’s a little more than rhythm in your tool box. Of course, melodies are a key part of soloing, and if you want to be a soloist, you’ve got to have some melodic language. Bass playing involves melodies during number of situations, so it’s important to have some connection.
So how do we develop a melodic approach to our bass work when we spend so much time focusing on the groove? We should always learn melodies to the songs we groove behind. Whether we’re reading a lead sheet of a jazz standard or transcribing the vocals on a pop tune, knowing the melody is an important part of understanding the larger structure of a song. Transcribing solos – or learning from transcriptions – are an important part mastering melodies as well, especially if we work from recordings of melodic instruments. These are important starting points for learning to play melodically.
Recently, I’ve also found etudes to be a powerful tool in building melodic vocabulary. An etude is defined as “a short musical composition, typically for one instrument, designed as an exercise to improve the technique or demonstrate the skill of the player.” In addition, an etude is generally played unaccompanied and it is all about melody, providing a nice focus. When we put an etude on the bass, we’re getting out of our groove role and really thinking about melody.
I’ve been working through a fantastic book of etudes for quite a while now – John Patitucci’s 60 Melodic Etudes for Acoustic and Electric Bass. I initially read through all 60 of these etudes on electric bass, which presented quite a challenge, both technically and musically. As my technique on acoustic bass advanced, I started tackling these etudes on that instrument. With this second study of the material, I started to notice commonalities in the way that they were instructed. Soon, I found myself taking ideas from these etudes and inserting them into improvisations. It struck me that these etudes were written by Mr. Patitucci – my favorite bass player – and I was integrating the language of his musical approach into my own playing. That was pretty rewarding.
With this realization, I started writing my own etudes discover new sides of my musicality. I’ve found that there are parts of my musical concept that exist in my head but I’ve never brought those into my playing. Slowing down the musical process through composition gives me the time to make those idea a reality. There are plenty of technical challenges that I still encounter on my instruments and etudes are a way of addressing those directly. Writing a short melody that focuses solely on that technical challenge forces me to spend time with it and hopefully overcome the challenge.
I’ve been working on pushing my soloing up the neck of my upright bass into thumb position; it’s a tough technical challenge, so I wrote an etude for the jazz standard Solar. I knew that I was going to be recording this tune as a duet with myself on electric, so I saw the perfect opportunity to not only write something, but try it in a practical setting. I wrote the etude on the chord changes to Solar, and then I played it note for note on this week’s video. It was a good challenge that made me think about thumb position in a completely new way. After working on the etude and performing it in the video, I made the largest leap in my use of thumb position EVER.
This advance was huge for me; you can bet that I’ll be writing many more etudes in the future. I’m going to apply etudes to melodic language, technical challenges, and maybe even rhythmic ideas. I’m excited by the possibilities of this approach, so I’ll see where it goes.
I’m excited, so I thought that I’d share my etude with you. You can download a PDF files of my Solar etude in either standard notation or TAB below.
Solar Etude (Standard Notation)
Check out the video and then read through the etude – it’s an interesting challenge.
What are your thoughts on etudes? Leave a comment below or send me a message – I’d love to know what you think!