Saturday 22 August 2009

Neck Spanning Arpegg-a-thon...or something

Hi all. Apologies for the lack pf post recently, thing save been a bit crazy but I'm back!

Today I though I'd post a run I've been using to warm up and work on cleanly shifting positions up and down the bass neck. It utilises three major chords:

C major 7 - CEGB - Root, 3rd, 5th, major 7th
Ab major - Ab C Eb - Root, 3rd, 5th
E major - E G# B - Root, 3rd, 5th

which also make up the wonderfully wacky sounding C augmented scale - C D# E G G# B

I've always liked the sound of this scale and this run came about while trying to come up with different patterns based on it.

Here's the run for 4 string bass:


Click here

(Blogspot's layout makes the graphics unreadable so apologies for not embedding the notation)

The basic analysis is 7 notes of C major 7, then 3 of Ab major and 6 notes of E major, and then repeat up an octave.

The important thing is to sound every note cleanly and not to slur anything, especially where two consecutive notes are fretted with the same finger.

And here's the six string version which drops the first note by an octave and adds an extra octave at the end:

Click here

I love the sound of this pattern ( always makes me think of Steven Spielberg/George Lucas film soundtracks - it has that geat open mysterious sound) and it's really good for getting your hands used to cleanly shifting along the whole fretboard.

Until next time, have fun with this exercise and as always comments and questions are welcome!

Cheers
Alun