W ors s well as the upright. In addition to his teaching duties for over 20 years at Berklee College of Mus ic in Boston (where he is a full Professor), Jim’ s expertise in great playing and great pedagogy draw large numbers of students from all over the world to the Sti c programs.
The bossa nova is a Latin style bass line. It’s really, really popular in jazz and that kind of field. What you’ll tend to do is people either play like a walking bass line type of thing. Which could be that kind of thing. Or they’ll be playing a straight rhythm and a lot of the time this is a bossa. Dec 24, 2017 - Bossa Nova Bass Lines Pdf Files. Pages: 377 Pages Edition: 2007 Size: 4.81 Mb Downloads: 47132 Price: Free* [ *Free Regsitration Required].
In New Hampshire, Jim runs multiple sessions of Bass W orkouts, as well as the all-out Hampshire Bass Fest, annually. What truly makes Jim’s teaching leaps and bounds better than any other on program is his ability to make an idea like this so complete in one stream of thought, yet keep i x enough for the average player to lose interest in the topic. As you will see in this lesson t of the Bossa Nova bassline is broken down and explained bit by bit to build a firm, well- inform most importantly.
1 TUTION TIP: ANALYSING A BOSSA NOVA BASS LINE Andrew McKinney Head of Bass at Guitar-X, part of Tech Music Schools in London. Andrew is currently touring with the James Taylor Quartet. For the full Tuition Tip archive including sound files and videos, visit the website: - Interact Tuition Tips. Each issue Andrew will be featuring a specific class taught at the school, giving you a bite-size chunk of the lesson, and an insight into what itʼs like to be on a course. Andrewʼs column is brought to you in association with Guitar-X Skill Level: Analysing a bass line is all about trying to understand why a person played what they did at that time.
This is a very valuable skill as anything you discover can be applied to your own playing. This process is how most musicians involved in popular music have gained their skills and refined their sound, learning from past masters, blending and adapting ideas into something new. Our One-Year Diploma course at Guitar-X has two lessons that deal with analysis: Bass Stylistics and Vocabulary & Improvisation. In Bass Stylistics we look at the essential elements of each style and learn some classic riffs and bass lines, concentrating on sound, feel and also analysing the harmonic and rhythmic information in each example. You then apply this information in Vocabulary & Improvisation in creating your own bass lines or improvising in those styles. As an example, Iʼm going to look today at a bass line in the bossa nova style, as it lends itself well to a rhythmic and harmonic breakdown.
The process we use here could be adapted and applied to any other styles of music. For more info on bossa nova and other latin bass styles, check out Dave Marksʼ Style File column from BGM Issue 30. BOSSA NOVA BLUEPRINT Bossa nova is a style that evolved in Brazil in the late 50s, and is essentially a slowed down, simplified version of another Brazilian style of music called samba.
The basic bass line for bossa nova and samba is the same and is shown in example 1 we can call this our ʻblueprintʼ for bossa nova. This can be broken down and analysed from two angles: rhythmic and harmonic.
The rhythmic part is just considering the rhythm separately to the notes, and the harmonic component is describing how the notes used relate to the chord at that time. The chord for this example is D major, and the notes in the bass line are D and A, so this would be described as the root note of the chord, and the 5 th of the chord. Using that rhythm and the root and 5 th of each chord would be the standard approach for playing any song in a bossa nova style. 2 Example 1: BOSSA NOVA BLUEPRINT RHYTHMIC INFORMATION HARMONIC INFORMATION Root 5th THE NEXT STEP Once youʼve mastered this basic approach you may wonder what to do next. Sticking to just that rhythm and just the root and 5 th may get a bit boring, and there might be times when you want to add more interest to the bass line.
Thereʼs nothing wrong with experimenting and coming up with your own variations. Another good approach is to analyse someone elseʼs bossa nova bass line to see what they do and get some ideas. One of the most well known Brazilian musicians associated with bossa nova is Antonio Carlos Jobim, and for his 1967 album Wave, he used jazz legend Ron Carter on double bass. By transcribing and analysing one of his bass lines, we can get some ideas for how to play in the bossa nova style.
Iʼve chosen the first track from the album, also called Wave. ANALYSIS As there is a very specific blueprint for a bossa nova bass line that Ron Carter would also have been aware of, it is very interesting to see how and when he deviates from this. Kind of like, we know what he ʻshouldʼ be playing so when isnʼt he?!
We can compare each bar he plays to the bossa nova blueprint and see how it differs rhythmically and/or harmonically. BAR 1 RHYTHM This is the same as the blueprint, apart from he misses out the last quaver (8 th note) in the bar and plays a minim (half note) instead. HARMONY For the first half of the bar the chord is D minor 7, for which he plays D and another D an octave higher. Both would be considered as a root note. The second half of the bar the chord changes to G dominant 7. He continues to play a D, which in relation to the chord of G7, is the fifth.
BAR 2 RHYTHM Another variation, this time adding two quavers (8 th notes) at the end of the bar. The HARMONIC information is the same as bar 1. 3 Bar 3 is the same as bar 1, and bar 4 is the same as bar 2. To summarise the intro, Ron sticks to the root and 5 th, and modifies the bossa nova rhythm, but only in the second half of each bar. BAR 5 RHYTHM Same as the variation in bar 1. HARMONY The chord is now D major 7 for the whole bar.
Ron plays D, the root, and A which is the fifth, the same approach as the blueprint. BAR 6 RHYTHM A new variation, but again the first half of the bar is as per the blueprint. HARMONY The chord is B flat diminished 7, and Ron plays a B flat to start with, which is the root. He then plays an E, which at first might seem a strange note to play as it is a flat 5 away from B flat, but a diminished 7 chord already contains a flattened 5 th, so effectively he is still just playing root and 5 th of the chord. BAR 7 RHYTHM Finally he has played the rhythm the same as the blueprint!
HARMONY Ron starts with the root of the A minor 7 chord, but then plays a G sharp which isnʼt part of the chord. Now we have to try and justify why he played this note or did he go wrong?! Donʼt forget about the rhythmic element, as this note is only played for an 8 th note worth half a beat, and directly afterwards he plays another root (A). This could be described as a ʻchromatic approach noteʼ meaning he is just approaching the root from a semitone away, a very common device used in lots of bass lines. Ron continues in much the same vein, but lets have a look at bar 11. There are two chords in this bar, both are harmonically quite complex. Essentially they are extended and altered versions of a standard dominant 7 chord.
What Ron plays is just the root and flat 7 th of each chord which really fits in with our role as a bass player to outline the basic harmony of the piece - let the other instruments worry about the 13s and sharp 5s! Throughout this analysis Iʼve had to use quite a lot of music theory terminology. This is because theory gives us a way of accurately describing music and therefore communicating those ideas to other people. If your music theory isnʼt your strong point, this can be a great way to learn, and you can still benefit from analysing bass lines you might just find them harder to describe in words. By analysing a bass line, weʼre getting into the mind of the musician who played it almost like having our own private lesson or masterclass.
So next time you bump into Ron Carter, you could ask him about his approach to playing bossa novas, but youʼll probably know a lot of the answers already! Any questions or thoughts about this article, or anything youʼd like me to cover, me on - see you next time. 4 ANALYSIS TABLE Bossa Blueprint RHYTHM HARMONY Bars 1, 3, 5 Bars 2, 4 Bar 6 Bar 11 Root flat 7 th 5.