January 2020

Student Feature Jeremy: Beautiful Practice in A

One of the milestone exercises I assign to almost all of my students over the course of me working with them is our Beautiful Practice Routine.

Beautiful Practice is an exercise that I featured in a Talking Technique Video. Because it was so successful on that platform, I brought it back a while later in a minor version.

Some of the reasons I love this exercise so much is:

It sheds the diatonic cycle

I regard the knowledge, understanding and practice of the diatonic cycle in all keys as one of the most important practices one can do.

Why? Because it manifests understanding of all chords of a key. And most importantly, it achieves that in the order those chords most often show up in songs. Maybe not all songs feature the entire diatonic cycle (such as “Fly me to the Moon” or Santana’s “Europa” do for example).

But even if you just have a V – I, there is your snippet out of the diatonic cycle (that’d be the very end of it).

One before the end: II – V – I.

One more: VI -II – V – I.

Or how bout III – VI – II – V – I…. see the pattern?

You just have to add diatonic fifths in front of it and there you have it. It is literally everywhere in any type of music that features diatonic elements.

It features triad inversions

You have to think on your feet!

It incorporates open voicings

Now you really have to think on your feet!

Beautiful Practice is a heck of a technique workout

String crossing galore means you are shedding your left hand’s nimbleness and speed and your right hand’s aim (as in – hitting the intended string)!

And watch just how consistently Jeremy alternates with his right hand. He had to work at that and he succeeded!

Beautiful Practice fits right into my “Pattern System”

My new book will hook you up with that!

We cover all areas of the bass here. Pretty comprehensive!

Versatility – it never gets boring

You can practice it in all keys and of course, do the major and minor varieties.

Really fun to play

Whether you use the delay pedal with this or not, it sounds beautiful. And even though it is quite a bit of a challenge, all of my students love practicing it!

Enjoy! And leave some props for Jeremy in the comments.

here is the PDF – link https://www.notreble.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Diatonic-Triads-Open-Voicings.pdf

Watch my student Carmie play Beautiful Practice in Eb

More beautiful sounding shedding using the diatonic cycle

Please don’t call it the cycle of Fourths

1 – The Cycle of Fifths for the Bass Player (1 of 5)

2 – The Cycle for Fretboard Fitness (2 of 5)

3 – The Cycle in Tunes (3 of 5)

4 – Let’s go Jazzy with the Cycle (4 of 5)

5 – Know This Chord Progression? (5 of 5)

Talking Technique: 11 Strategies for Learning an Alien Scale

Okay, not that kind of alien… but rather a new or unfamiliar scale.

It’s important to be rock solid with your scales. In all areas of the instrument. In all keys. Whether it is the good old major scale or a more exotic fare, spending time on practicing scales serves a bassist well!

Just reiterating it up and down, however, is not the best strategy, however.

In this episode of Talking Technique, I give you 11 strategies you can employ to help you master any new scale quickly (and permanently). Use one, two or all 11 of them to learn the new scale — and to really step it up another peg, come up with your own variations of these exercises.

Here are 3 of the strategies (plus one that doesn’t belong for fun!). For the full list with complete explanations and demonstrations for each, click on the link below to the Talking Technique episode.

Interval Formula – Focusing on the intervals between the notes

Intervals with the Root – Focusing on the intervals in terms of the root

Three Note Groupings – Working in 3-note chunks all the way up the scale

Osmosis – Closing your eyes and whispering the name of the scale over and over

Be sure to download the PDF that goes along with this episode!

You may also be interested in these episodes from Ari:

Month: January 2020

Student Feature: Jeremy Sherman