Hector

Great ideas Paul. Especially the dynamics - lots of people overlook this, and end up being fixed playing certain things at a certain dynamic. Another thought I've been having about multiple ways to practice scales: I feel it's important to balance making practice efficient with absorbing a few concepts more completely. The point of having a specific exercise is to isolate and improve a specific aspect of your playing. I think therefore that trying to improve too many aspects of your playing at once can sometimes be counter productive in improving any one aspect. It's good to be working on at least one other thing past just where to put your fingers, as it taxes your scale knowledge skills more. You're very right that to make music you have to practice music. But I feel there's a continuum that runs all the way from genuine performance, right down to a highly artificial situation where a player is dealing with one thing in isolation, and there's typically a sweet spot that needs to be found somewhere on there. Possibly this is why you started this thread in the first place? For example, I've been shedding a particular polyrhythm (groups of 4 triplet quavers) over 4/4, and trying to use it in improvising over a blues. I found that I had to break this down to practising just the polyrhythm with a simple pattern before taking it over the form and improvising a line with it - I was having to think about too many things at once! So the question of "how to practice scales?" should really be formed as follows: 1. Why should I practice scales? What specific aspect of my playing am I looking to improve? 2. How can I practice scales in a manner that will improve this aspect? 3. Can I improve another specific aspect of my playing within the same exercise? 4. Am I already working this aspect with another exercise? 5. Which version works this aspect best? 6. Repeat 3-5 as often as you feel you can for one exercise. This is why structuring practice time with some thought is important - you've gotta be aware of what you're trying to get out of an exercise, and tailor your practicing to that. So scales can be practiced with all these ideas we've mentioned, and which ones are focused on depends on the needs of the player. It might be a technical thing (get my fingers to stop flying off the fretboard when I'm string crossing), or a harmonic thing (superimposing Coltrane changes over a ii V I) or whatever. The way I outlined sheds basic mechanical knowledge of the fingerboard within a single key, and rhythmic accuracy with various subdivisions. I should mention, that the basic exercise I presented can of course of be modified to make it cover more aspects - I often do it with changes of direction within a position, and changing position on the E A D and G strings. I would also say that it's a good idea to apply the same positions and rhythms to diatonic arpeggios, crossing between positions etc. However, it's usually a warm up for me to get the basic mechanics of the fingerboard refreshed before moving on to shed other aspects of my playing with different exercises (e.g. not starting from the root by playing over changes and avoiding the root, or focusing on simple harmonic material with lots of dynamic contrasts and phrasing).

You can extend Scott Devine's major scale fingerings into 5 positions on the bass (these positions repeat after 5). They're here: http://www.cyberfretbass.com/scales/major/page4.php (N.B. I don't like to cover a major 3rd in one hand position, so I don't use it that much, these 5 positions use only two of Scott's fingerings, but you would have some intermediate positions in addition to these 5 if you wanted to use his third fingering that covers a major third). Everything I do on the bass is based on these 5 positions, they're totally foundational. What I do is I set the metronome at 60bpm and choose my key of the day. I then play the major scale in that key both across and within positions, making sure to cover the neck entirely (for covering multiple positions: it's possible to slide on one finger to cross to the next adjacent position or jump positions by shifting the whole hand). You can play two octave (and more) scales by switching between positions on any of the strings, just explore them. Because I believe in maximising the effectiveness of my limited shedding time, I add a timing element to scales. You should do the following, doesn't matter which fingerings you want to use. Instead of playing them in one single subdivision (e.g. just quavers), I vary the speed every two bars (8 clicks - we're assuming 4/4 here). So I'll play 8 clicks on one note per click (crotchets) then 8 clicks of two notes (quavers) then three notes (quaver triplets) then four notes (semiquavers). I would then, at least to start with, go down a subdivision every 8 clicks until you're back at crotchets. You could subdivide even further, 5 notes per click, 6 notes per click etc, but I would start with going 1 to 4 to get those solid. It makes everything much harder, but therefore makes you improve faster! This really works your time and forces your technique and knowledge of the scale you're currently playing to be solid as well. You'll really suck at this to start with This covers majors (and by extensions all major modes). Minors are slightly different, and I have my own fingerings for melodic minor in particular. That's another discussion though!

On upright bass?!

Just curious, has anyone else dabbled in four finger LH technique? Would be nice to get a thread going

Bought a Focusrite 2i2 from Richard, which arrived today promptly and well packed. He was friendly throughout and it was a really simple transaction - deal with confidence!

Traded some pedals with Rory. Can't think of a nicer chap to do business with, and everything went super smoothly.

Bought a Mastotron from Rob. He was friendly, and made the deal easy. He's also being nice and putting up with lots of questions from me Edit - I forgot to add, it arrived very well packed - possibly the most securely packed basschat purchase I've seen! Could've survived just about anything.

Bought an Aguilar Filter Twin from Pete. Nice guy, and made sure everything went well (even when I mistakenly gave him the wrong postcode!). Cheers Pete.

Spike bought an ODB-3 and A Bass Synth Wah from me. Nice guy to deal with and everything was easy as easy can be.

Good advice all around! I would suggest learning your major scale inside out. There are traditionally 5 hand positions, which repeat after the octave. Do diatonic triads and arpeggios, and make up your own major scale melodies. Stay in a single position at first, then try to work on transferring between positions, and arpeggiating chords over multiple octaves by moving between positions. Chord tone soloing would be the next step - try to solo over chord progressions in a key, and stay in a given hand position for that key. If the tune changes key, try to move your hand as little as possible to get to the next key's position. If you're into jazz, I would recommend doing this over a jazz blues progression. You can then also start to mix in using major and minor blues pentatonic scales, again in the 5 hand positions. This is a good/fun book that gets you improvising fairly quickly: http://www.shermusic.com/new/1883217385.shtml Do every key.

Oh man that sounds great! Count me in, Will PM.

Yeah I love chatting theory! Nice to hear your take on it Btw if George isn't keeping you too busy, I thought this guy's PHD thesis was really interesting: http://www.scottcookmusic.com/theory/ (link on this page to download a pdf) He talks about a similar approach to the method of altering as few notes as possible to stay within a key when faced with non diatonic chords, but applied to more modern jazz progressions. Lots of Kenny Wheeler goodness within!

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1474959074' post='3141726'] Hope this clears things up a wee bit! [/quote] It's very kind of you to post all this, and I'm sure it's of help to other people reading this thread, but it's not new information to me. I already know and use this stuff, and conceive of it differently to you. I think of the non-diatonic notes of secondary dominants (chords which do indeed have diatonic functions), as these act as valuable signposts in a progression. In this manner I am able to remain ostensibly in a key whilst only thinking of what few notes I should change to capture the sound of the secondary dominant. I see secondary dominants as very temporarily acting to tonicise something other than the I chord, and if I'm thinking more modally than diatonically, will draw my scale choices accordingly (e.g. mode V of harmonic or melodic minors). I don't claim to have much formal schooling with theory - my thinking is developed for me and for maximum utility when I'm playing over changes. It's based on reducing the amount of stuff I need to think about while playing, which is the sounds themselves, so a shortcut to good sounds is helpful for me. I aim to keep it simple and useful, and happily share my take with other people. I'm very glad you're also contributing your take, which is presumably more formal. The notes matter most, rather than the theory of it, and we arrive at similar (if not the same choices). To contribute something other than debate, I found this resource quite useful: http://2014.chrisfitzgeraldmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/COHC-Jazz.pdf

Your way of looking at it doesn't personally work for me, I certainly wouldn't call E7 diatonic to C major but agree it has a function in a C major context. I find that distinction useful. Still, if your way doesn't work for me I assume my way doesn't work for others, so I'm glad there's multiple takes on it in this thread. There's room for different ways of thinking about music theory for sure!

You're welcome! In fact, Bowie uses IV major, to IV minor to I major as a progression in the chorus of Space Oddity, if you want to know what it sounds like. In the line "you've really made the grade, the papers want to know whose shirts you wear", "grade" is an F maj, and "papers" is an F min chord. Classic songwriting. Actually having listened to the song, the interlude bit about "sitting on a tin can" with a Bbmaj7 sounds a bit like he's transitioning to F major a bit more permanently than just a single chord in passing (but the actual chords are slightly ambiguous between the two keys), but the idea of borrowing a chord from a closely related key is still exactly the same! Two other instances of non-diatonic chords (i.e. not belonging to C major): He also borrows a chord from another closely related key G major - a D7 chord which you can hear on "put your helmet on". It's a nice technique that gives a bit of movement. He also nicks an E7 from the relative minor of C major, A minor. Also in the chorus at the line "this is ground control to major tom, you've really made the grade", the major tom bit is an E7 chord.

For improvising you can just play: C major pentatonic Bb lydian (i.e. with an E instead of an Eb), which is Fmajor from Bb to Bb. This is borrowing a chord from closely related key of F major. So it's sort of a IV-I in disguise! You could play F major pentatonic over it,or even C blues scale material. You see this a lot in jazz as Bb7 to C. In that case play Bb lydian dominant (i.e. mixolydian with an E instead of Eb). That scale is actually a mode of F melodic minor, so Bb7 to Cmajor is really Fminor is disguise! Fminor to Cmajor is IV minor to I major, used in lots of songs, including a ton of beatles tunes (e.g. in my life)

[quote name='henrywillard' timestamp='1474619614' post='3139222'] Well, I don't go into my drawer before every gig and purposely pick out & pack all that stuff. It all just stays in my gig bag. You never know when you might need it. If I get to a gig, set up and the neck is feeling a bit grubby with too much friction, or the strings could do with a clean, or if it's a bit of an upmarket gig and the body could do with a quick polish to get rid of fingerprint smudge marks, all that stuff comes in handy just having it in a little compartment in my gear bag. Prepared for virtually every circumstance! [/quote] It makes sense in a ray mears sort of way I'm quite lax in fingerboard cleaning, bit of baby oil every now and again.