Day 9.

Connecting Notes

You'll sometimes use 'connecting notes' to get from one chord-based bass note sequence to another. 'Connecting notes' are just notes which lead to the next bass note sequence or chord structure and may (or may not) be in the scale. Much of the time the notes that are in the scale that you're using are the easiest to use as connecting notes. You'll pick connecting notes up as you go along and learn to feel where they might be inserted in the sequences of notes you end up playing. They add flair and style to your playing and take you a little beyond the basics.

Connecting notes are:

(A) notes which may be in the scale being used but do not appear in the particular chord structures or chords being played or

(B) notes which are not in the scale being used and, as such, do not appear to have any relation to the music structure.

However, in the sense that connecting notes are useful for bridging different chord-based bass note sequences or even keys, they always serve a relational function.

Reread (A) and (B) and the last sentence until you really understand them.

Another term that you may hear which has the same meaning as 'connecting notes' is 'passing tones.'

Some people can even play a (seemingly) haphazard mixture of notes in the scale and notes out of the scale, only resolving (see the next definition) the overall sound or feeling of the notes with the chords being played (the music structure) at the last second or the last couple of notes in the melodic passage (or the melodic-rhythmic passage in the case of most bass playing). This is not explicitly related to the topic of connecting notes. Theoretically it is more advanced and complicated and is for your consideration a year from now.

Definition: resolving: bringing the note(s) back into the sound/feel, the harmony, that you want at the end of the expression of a chord or a series of chords. Usually, 'concord' as contrasted with 'discord.' It's defined as the concord which follows a discord.

Definition: concord: consonance - those parts which harmonize well with each other.

Definition: discord: dissonance - inharmonious, discordant.

Definition: harmony: the doctrine (theory) of chords and their progression.

Definition: harmonize: to make concordant, to sound well together as defined by our ears and in the thousand year old tradition of western music (which our ears have become through a lifetime of exposure).

These are a good examples of how you can further and sometimes more deeply understand musical ideas with the aid of a dictionary of musical terms (see the Appendix - Carl Fischer publications).

How do you use connecting notes? Just about any way that sounds okay and not dissonant, unless dissonance is what you want at that moment. Just use them to make the bass line(s) flow smoothly (and of course in the rhythm) from one place to another (unless smoothness is not desired - then make the lack of smoothness repetitive over more or less equal numbers of measures).

Definition: rhythm: musical cadence.

Definition: cadence: the repetitious rise and fall of sound. The repetitious emphasis of one sound among several.

Definition: measure: one of the groups of tones (notes) or accents included between any two primary accents or beats. Between two sequential short vertical lines crossing the five parallel lines (the staff) on which notes are written.

Definition: staff: the five lines, with the spaces between them, upon which the notes are written.

End of day 9.