Music lesson w Nathen - 2025 01 14

 

I want to increase my vocabulary for when I am playing my bass. I want to understand when and why I might select a certain pattern or feel. I want to increase the range of notes I might select at any given moment in a song.

Nathen Aswell is a well-known and respected musician I have known for many years. For this lesson, he played my ubass for the first time. 

This is my first lesson with Nathen. This is what I learned.

Pick a song that has a combination of instruments, including the bass. For example, a Cat Stevens song. Listen to the song for each instrument - if there are five instruments, listen to it five times. 

1. Voice
2. Guitar
3. Bass
4. Piano
5. Drums

Notice what each instrument is doing in relation to the other instruments. How they are listening to each other to create a whole sound out of their individual instruments.

As rule, the bass player is going to stay out of the way of the melody. 

The palette of notes and patterns to choose from breaks down into three groups:

1. Scale
2. Arpeggio
3. Chromatic

The most basic notes to select, in any given key and any given chord:

1. 1 - 3 - 5
2. 1 - 3 - 5 - 8
3. 1 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 7

Think in terms of melody (voicing), harmony, and rhythm.

Think of note and pattern selection as enhancing the lyric and the melody, to provide rhythmic orientation (depending on if there is a drummer and what the drummer is doing), and to provide root touchstone (so everyone knows where we are in the song).

Octave decisions are related to the feeling in the song (ie. a leap of faith and a leap of octave note) and also the range of the singing voice, or who is playing melody (deciding to play above or below the melody, staying in range, but not treading on the melody notes.

Rhythm patterns reflect the feel of a phrase or verse, or an entire song. A whole, open note leaves room for feeling, for other instruments to play frills or embellish, to de-clutter a lyric with a lot of words or to add seriousness to a simple lyric. 

Melody holes - that is where a space opens up between lyrics and phrases for frills and embellishment. Listen to hear what others are doing and choose what to put in the melody hole that supports the sound.

Chords are based on thirds, major and minor thirds. The most common keys that I am playing in are C, G, D and A, sometimes E, sometimes F. Folk music tends to be pitched in keys that are accessible, not too difficult to play.

My challenge for my next lesson is to write out the diatonic chords for the keys C, G, D and A. The chords are going to major and minor chords for each note in the scale.

The song I am working on is "Adele - Christmas Rescue" in the key of C.

My challenge to prepare for this lesson was to make a recording of this song so that I could play along with it. 

I'm excited by the potential of combining music, storytelling, blogging and video. 

These works in progress are my 'evidence of activity' for learning and developing my skills to share stories using multi-media modalities and multi-platform connectivity.

My hope is that my experience, strength and hope can inspire others to share their creative works to build strength in our families, neighbourhoods and communities.