Gareth Hughes

So - 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I tried applying some of the ideas covered so far to 'So What', and try as I might, I couldn't get my ear to bend to the C# over the D minor sound. But I had fun walking for a while and got away from a lot of old faithful patterns, so that's a plus.

So I'm on exercise 12 on P33 - 'breaking away from stationary positions'. I'm working on playing the four examples through the cycle, and focusing on understanding how each notes relates to each chord. But, I'm also trying not to focus on that and just play the first of each pattern and let my hand shape dictate/find the rest of the notes available. Sounds counter-intuitive but the thinking is that it's too overwhelming for my little brain to analyse everything all the time. Or at least that's the roadblock I've had before. As before - playing these examples a loop is greatly helping me to organise the sounds and shapes in my head.

Nice one! I saw this quintet on this tour, as a broke musician around 1999 I think. I'd already bought my ticket to Chick Corea with his acoustic band because I'd just heard of this new player, Avishai Cohen. By luck I bumped my old bass tutor, Phil Smyth, who was going to see Dave Holland and couldn't believe I wasn't going. I didn't know of Dave Holland then and could only afford the one ticket, but on Phil's advice I dug deep and got my ticket for Dave Holland. It was soooooooo good. To stand about five feet in front of Billy Kilson and hear his kit, without any PA help, was a beauty to behold. Dave wasn't too shabby either.

Yep, it’s the exercises on p30 I’m working on, playing them over a loop until my ear told me to try something else and find what worked.

Nice one Nekomatic. It’s slow and steady here for me, little bit often. I had an interesting breakthrough/revelation earlier. I was working on adding the b9 to a dominant 7. So, playing along with a looped chord on iReal, I’m playing all the variations of the arpeggio and then I wanted to try adding other notes from outside the arpeggio. My ear finally led me to playing a half step/whole step scale - so (over D7b9) it was D Eb F Gb Ab A B C. I’ve practiced this before but never ‘got’ it. My ear was doing the work and it began to make sense. I hope it still seems this way tomorrow!

Not too far from you, I’m just down the road in the wilds of Rathfriland.

Hey Rob - just thought you’d like to hear this. My 16 year old son has joined a jazz workshop group here for teenagers, a once a month rehearsal with a great jazz drummer/educator. As he’s wanting to improve his jazz knowledge and walking abilities I suggested that the two of us work through Danny’s Low Down Vol.1 book one evening a week, in the same manner of this study group here, so thanks again for getting the ball rolling all round.

Hello from a fellow Nordie. Whereabouts are ye?

Danny - you rock! (or ‘you jazz’ but that doesn’t have the same ring) Thank you for your time in posting here, it is very much appreciated. I especially appreciate your thoughts on the #7. For me, my (aural) stumbling blocks were firmly cemented in my early heavy metal beginnings - so a minor scale is Aeolian and there is nothing else! But I’m chipping away at that concrete and your explanation of, to paraphrase, a ‘constantly variable minor’ has just cleared away a huge block. Thanks again.

So….tried playing over some static minor backing tracks, and the 4th and 5th full bass lines examples and…. It still feels weird/wrong to hear a sharp 7 over a minor chord. But I’m getting there - it’s a flavour that needs digesting a bit more. One bonus of playing the exercises in 12 keys is that the notes seem to fall into place in my fretting hand with more ease than if I was reading these lines with no prep.

Fair play for diving in on a new instrument. I’ve played through two of the full charts, great to hear the exercises work in a real context. I think before I move on I’ll try to come up with my own lines to see if I’ve digested any of this. Time to scour iReal for tunes with static chords.

Yep, it’s those little things that make me throw my hands up in confusion because the only thing I’m sure of is ‘I don’t understand this!’.

One problem is I think that exercise 6 on p17 is incorrect, or else I’m really confused!! The key signatures is Bb major - so presumably a G minor exercise. That’s fine for bar 1, but in bar there’s a B natural with no explanation as to why. Same with the 2nd line - a bar with G minor, then a bar with G major. Maybe that’s the exercise - but I found it confusing without that being spelt out. Feels to me like a proof-reading oversight!

Thankfully memorised. Took a bit to comfortably change keys. Analysing each note in a bar really helped so that, in the new key, I wasn’t relying on the same shape to make it work. Different fingerings to a point - playing them in different octaves for now, but I still plan to go through them again starting on a different finger, two strings only, one string only. The different examples of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, etc are making much more sense now - I’m hearing the chord against the chord tones, and hearing how the exercise becomes a choice in what to play. So next up are the five sample bass lines starting on page 21. The plan is to play slowly and hear how the line and the examples work against the chord. My goal is to internalise this to the point of seeing/hearing a chord and not defaulting to R-3-5-7 in a panic! What are you working on Rob?

I’ve just finally gotten through patterns 1 and 2 in all keys, through to exercise 6. Now begins playing real changes with them.