Day 15.

Lesson V - more on chords . . .

This information is a _l_ i_ t_ t_l_ e_ more advanced. While you're learning this next lesson please continue practicing things like:

~~~~~~~~~~ Patterned positional fingering.

~~~~~~~~~~ Awareness of positions.

~~~~~~~~~~ Rhythms. Keep listening to the timings of bass notes in recorded music

~~~~~~~~~~ Rapid plucking and picking, called, definition: tremolo picking. Use at least the first two fingers if plucking. Try alternating your thumb with your plucking fingers. Build up some speed. Use down and up strokes if you're using a pick.

~~~~~~~~~~ Finger techniques like hammer-ons, bends, slides, pull-offs, muting, vibrato, staccato.

~~~~~~~~~~ In the Appendix in the back are definitions or descriptions of some guitar Fingering Techniques. They are the same for bass.

~~~~~~~~~~ Listening to drummers, especially their kick drums.

Definition: staccato: detached, distinct, the notes are separated from each other by rests.

Definition: rests: a space between notes in which no sound is made.

More on chords. Why ? ? Why do you need to learn more about chords when a bass player doesn't play chords? At least not in the sense that a guitar or organ or piano player plays chords, by striking three or more notes simultaneously or very close to simultaneously.

Well, what do you do when the organ player or guitar player says she's playing a minor 9th chord? Or a diminished chord? Or a major 7th? Or a 7th flat 5th? Or an 11th? Or (shock!) a 13th?

The answer is: so you'll be able to 1) know what she's talking about, 2) come up with some correct (and exciting!) bass notes and 3) enjoy yourself even more by creating, and hearing with your own ears, bass note sequences which blend best with the mid-range instruments' musical structures (chords) and which emphasize certain sounds (tones, harmonics) that you might want to bring out or heighten in the overall sound of the band. You can do that! With a bass! And by using one or another of the techniques in the Appendix and by choosing which bass notes to play to emphasize one feeling or another in the overall music structure you can create moods and emotion in the music ! You can be gross or be very subtle. Definition: nuance: a delicate degree or shade of difference (from French or Latin, meaning - a cloud). Bass has a lot more going for it than just thumping along with the drummer's kick drum (which is, of course, always a very good idea no matter how cool your playing gets. This is a very important Rock basic, this coordinating with the drummer's kick drum, one which you ought not ever forget).

Definition: nuance: a delicate degree or shade of difference (from French or Latin, meaning - a cloud).

Definition: tone: a musical sound of definite pitch. In the Rock musician's eternal 'Quest for Tone' it also means (loosely) the bass or treble sound, the texture or scratchiness or smoothness and roundness of the note, the 'punchy-ness' . . . (all of the aural/sonic characteristics which make up the 'sound' of a note).

Definition: harmonics: partial tones or overtones which accompany a simple tone. They're produced in conjunction with or at the same time as the simple or primary tone, the only one that you think you're picking or plucking. They're produced at lower volumes than the simple or primary tone. That's why you can't hear them at first, until your ears become more refined through experience.

So, if someone is playing, say, a C chord and changing to an F and a G, you have a pretty good idea what to do, right?

Let's say that the guitar player says, "Let's put an A minor 9th in here." What do you do?

As you read below, play these notes on your bass.

Well, you know, the A (tonic) note can never be wrong. So you start with that. Then you know the 5th (E) sounds good most of the time so you throw that in. So far so good. Sounds good! But a little simple.

So you question your knowledge base in your mind: let's see . . . it's a minor chord so I can use the minor 3rd, too. So you know where the minor 3rd is because you know that you just flat the major third. Now you've got three good notes!

But what else can you do? Well you now have the chance to learn from reading the info below that 1) any minor 9th chord has a minor 7th (a flatted major 7th) in it. So you think - the major 7th, a G# (still talking about the A min 9th here) and flat it to the G note, maybe higher than the tonic note or lower than the tonic (an inversion), a lower G note (two frets lower than the tonic).

But what's this 9th ??? Well, a 9th is the next whole-step beyond the octave, the 8th, in this case, the B note, one whole-step above the octave A note. An inversion of that is the B note just two notes (two half-steps) above the tonic.

Remember, in our major and minor scales? We had the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th or octave ? Well now, we extend beyond that to include the 9th, l0th, 11th, 12th and 13th.

The 9th, as we saw above, is two half-steps or a whole-step above the octave. Its inversion is the 2nd. Play the 9th and 2nd positions in each scale, the A natural minor and A major. I mean play the scales and add the 9th. When you play the 9th, immediately play the 2nd.

As for fingering, since you're using fingering patterns as you learned from previous pages to play the scales, just expand the use of the 'box', the grouping of frettings within four or five frets vertically, to include notes on the next highest string. If you're already using the highest string, then move your tonic note, the 1st position, to the next lower string but higher up on the neck. Or try using an inversion. Discover just where these new positions are relative to the pattern(s) you already know.

The l0th (which is not really used in chord nomenclature very often because of the powerful harmonics of the 3rd - the third overpowers the l0th so we don't usually add a l0th to a chord), the l0th is four half-steps or two whole-steps above the octave (8 th). Its inversion is, of course, the 3rd. You can see a pattern developing here.

The 11th is five half-steps above the octave and is the octave of the 4th. Play the scales and add the 9th and 11th. After playing the 9th play the 2nd and after playing the 11th play the 4th.

The 12th isn't used, again, as in the case of the 3rd and the l0th because of the power of and powerful harmonics of the 5th. The 12th and 5th are inversions of each other.

The 13th is equivalent to the unflatted 6th but an octave higher. If you've come this far, you probably have a firm grasp of where on the fret board, of what part of that 'box' pattern you learned earlier, the octave of any note is. Play both scales and add the 9th, 11th and 13th and each of their lower octaves, the 2nd, 4th and 6th. In the natural minor scale use a flatted 6th and a flatted 13th in keeping with the definition of natural minor scales. In the major scale, the melodic minor scale and our 'Rock minor' (back eighteen or twenty pages ago), use the unflatted 6th.

So, simplifying, here's a small chart:

~~~~~~~~~~ 9th - octave of the 2nd ~~~~~ These are also inversions of each other.

~~~~~~~~~~ 11th - octave of the 4th

~~~~~~~~~~ 13th - octave of the 6th

The above info is useful of course. It's also an example of how to play notes which go with the extended chord structure(s) that the other musicians are using.

Here are some tab diagrams or charts for the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th positions. I charted them in a fingering pattern which is of a ‘box' type. The fretting fingers horizontally (across the fingerboard) stay within 4 frets vertically except for the two highest positions, the 12th and 13th. Since the 10th and 12th are rarely used except as connecting notes you only have to go out of the box for one note, the 13th.

Tab specification

Key of G major
G major scale

fretting fingers
___2__4__1__2__4__1__3__4__1__3__4__4__4
positions
___1__2__3__4__5__6__7__8__9_10_11_12_13

G__________________________2__4__5__7__9________________

D_________________2__4__5_______________________________

A________2__3__5________________________________________

E__3__5_________________________________________________

What are the names of each of these notes?

( O R )

fretting fingers
___2__4__1__2__4__1__3__4__4___1__2__4__4
positions
___1__2__3__4__5__6__7__8__9__10_11_12_13

G______________________________4__5__7__9______________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7 to 9 - slide up with pinky
D_________________2__4__5__7___________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~5 to 7 - slide up with pinky
A________2__3__5________________________________________

E__3__5_________________________________________________

Please say the names of each of these notes as you play them. You could sing them, too, as you play, an octave or two higher.

Tab specification

Key of A minor
A minor scale

fretting fingers
___1__3__4__1__3___4___1__3__3__4___1__3___4
positions
___1__2_m3__4__5__m6_m7__8__9_m10_11_12_m13

G____________________________________7__9__10___________

D______________________5__7__9__10______________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7 to 9 - slide up 3rd finger
A____________5__7__8____________________________________

E__5__7__8______________________________________________

What are the names of all of these notes?

Going downwards . . .

G__10__9__7_____________________________________________

D____________10__9__7__5________________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~7 to 5 slide down 1st finger
A_________________________8__7__5_______________________

E__________________________________8__7__5______________

Of course you could use lower notes (between the E note, open E string and the A note, 5th fret on the E string for notes in A minor, E to G notes for G major) but, theoretically speaking, these are ‘inversions' which you'll learn about in a few more lessons beyond ‘Day 15'. Don't worry about the lower notes for now. Right now, this is about the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th positions which are higher than the notes in the scale in the first octave.

If you haven't been learning the techniques in the ‘Techniques' section, it would be good to start now because it's those techniques that can make you more expressive on the bass and help you to project emotions. They're probably more than 50 % responsible for a player's ability to express emotionally and individualistically. Maybe even more important than the fixed notes. Sounds silly? You could play all wrong notes and by using various techniques make them the right notes and the best sounds for the song! Of all the things that could be practiced every day, working a technique or two into your everyday playing is the most important single thing that you can do.

End of day 15.