The Major's Bass Boot Camp - Session 17

[Major-Minor]

The Major's Bass Boot Camp - Session 17

Substitutions and Stylistic Variation

All the examples in this session are variations on the old standard "Georgia On My Mind".

I suggest you listen to all the mp3s first to get an idea of what this session is all about.

This term - Substitution - is mostly to be found in the world of jazz and jazz oriented arranging. My first properly paid commission as a serious arranger was to arrange several "popular songs" for String Quartet (2 violins / viola / cello). I learnt a great deal about substitutions doing this. In order to make the arrangements interesting to play and listen to, I had to create harmonic movement by changing and adding to the original chords.
Jazzers use substitutions in their improvising, to create fresh ideas and excitement.


MBBC17a
[attachment=44614:MBBC17a.pdf]
[attachment=44620:MBBC17a.mp3]

This is the tune with it's original basic chords. Actually I've played this number so many times over the years and in so many different ways, that I'm no longer absolutely sure of the original song. So please bear with me if you know it better than me ! But the main point here is to show how we can take this piece and alter it to create new versions, to pump new life into an old workhorse, to take it places the composer never imagined !

Here I've kept the bass part very simple - just following the chords with a nice minim movement. It's all playable in the first position on BG (half position on DB).


MBBC17b
[attachment=44615:MBBC17b.pdf]
[attachment=44622:MBBC17b.mp3]

I've slowed the tempo a little and written "Slow with a lilt" at the top. Also notice the sign which shows 2 quavers = quaver triplets. This just means that the feel of the whole piece is slow swing - i.e. each beat is divisible by 3.


OK, this is where the fun starts !

So what is a "Substitution" ?

It should really be called a "chord substitution" and it's exactly as the term says - a new chord is used as a substitute for an existing chord.

Sometimes these substitute chords are well away from the original - like putting a B7 where previously there was an F7 - the root in this example is a tritone from it's original, just about as far away as you can get. However both these chords share 2 notes - A and Eb (D#).

But a substitute chord can also be created by simply adding one new note, or altering one existing note (usually the 5th or 9th).

In bar 1, the original chord was F - just a 3 note triad - FAC. The melody is A C.
In this version (MBBC17b) I have added one new note to the chord - D - making the chord into an F6. A simple addition - but one which makes a big difference to the nature of the chord. It becomes thicker in texture and more interesting while still retaining it's stability.

In bar 2 we get one of the most common forms of substitution in the jazz cannon -
" the Ⅱ - Ⅴ - Ⅰ ", in this case Em7b5 - A7b9 - Dm7.
To explain in more detail: Think of bar 3 as a new key centre - D minor. The second degree of D minor is E. If we build a 4 note chord on E using the notes from the D harmonic minor scale, we get EGBbD. This is Em7b5. If we build a 5 note chord on the fifth note of the D minor scale in the same way, we get AC#EGBb. This is A7b9.
(Are you still with me ?!)
So where we originally had just an A7 chord in bar 2, now we have 2 chords leading nicely into the Dm7. This creates a pleasing harmonic movement.

In bars 5, 6 and 7 you will see some extra chords with additional notes:
Bar 5 has E7augmented (E7aug) on beat 3. The augmented note (sharpened fifth)here is C natural which drops to B in the next chord (E7) creating a nice little inner movement, the tune and the bass line both being E.

Similarly in bar 6, I've added a chord on beat 2, Gm7b5. The flat 5 note in Gm7 is a Db so we get that nice inside line of D Db C through these 3 chords. The same routine happens in bar 7, again adding an Am7b5 to the second beat with the resultant E Eb D line.
Look at bar 9: Here I have made the F chord into a 6 / 9, thereby adding D and G to the FAC triad. On beat 3 of this bar, the chord is now Fmaj9 (FACEG) so the D note of the first 2 beats moves up to the E of the 2nd 2 beats - another lovely inner line.

Bar 10 is like bar 2 (Em7b5 A7b9) but now the chord change happens on beat 4 rather than beat 3.

Bar 11 - here I've been a bit more adventurous and added a new and rather fancy chord to the 4th beat - an F#7#9. The melody note (A natural) is the #9 in the chord, clashing with the A# of the basic F#7 (F#A#C#E). (If we were to be technically correct, the A natural would be written as a G double sharp, but that seems a step too far for most jazzers ! )
I hope you like this substitution. I was pleased with it myself !

Bar 12 - I've substituted a Bb13 for the original Bbm6. Again, this brings a new flavour to this moment.

See if you can spot all the other substitutions from here to the end of the piece - there are several. Try to work out which notes create the important inner lines. Have fun !

MBBC17c
[attachment=44616:MBBC17c.pdf]
[attachment=44623:MBBC17c.mp3]

For this, I've reverted to the original chords, but now I've changed the feel, the groove, the style. Whereas before we had a lilting swingy feel, now we have straight 8's in a mildly latin groove with a hint of funk 16's towards the end.

MBBC17d
[attachment=44617:MBBC17d.pdf]
[attachment=44624:MBBC17d.mp3]

This uses pretty much the same substitutions as MBBC17b but now I've taken the tempo up and gone back to the swing feel. You will see that I've used the method of writing swing quavers by indicating "swing" at the start and putting a line and a dot on the first 2 and last 2 quaver notes of bar 1. Then I've put "sim." in bar 2 meaning that from now on you play in a "similar" fashion when you see quavers i.e. swingy.

In bars 9 and 10, and later in bars 17 to 24, I've written a "block" style, i.e. the whole rhythm section plays the same figures but sticking to their normal harmonic function i.e. the bass plays mainly root notes, the piano plays chords and the guitar sticks to melody notes.

The last 4 bars demonstrate a common ending style in jazzy mode. This descending bass line is complemented by suitable notes above, usually keeping the melody on the tonic note. Have a close look at the chord symbols and work out what notes I have used here.


MBBC17e
[attachment=44633:MBBC17e.pdf]
[attachment=44627:MBBC17e.mp3]

One great arranging trick is to change the time signature. So this time I've put the tune into 3/4 in what we call a "jazz waltz" feel. Sometimes the "3 in a bar" slips into a "2 in a bar" feel, directly against the 3 feel going on elsewhere in the rhythm section.
But also note, the overall feel is still swingy, so effectively the time sig should be 9/8 or 3 sets of triplet quavers. Nobody ever writes this style in 9/8 though, as it would look more complicated than it needs to be. Just writing "jazz waltz" at the start tells the players how to interpret the notes.

Note the radical use of substitutions at bars 26 to 32. I love this type of harmony !

More block writing at bar 33 with changed chords.

More "out" subs in bars 43 and 45, then a descending bass line down to bar 49 where I use one my favourite tricks - taking the dotted crotchet of the 3/4 as the new crotchet metre in 4/4. So to clarify this last point: Look at the bars 45 to 48. The dotted crotchets (2 in a bar feel) then become the pulse in the new 4/4 (crotchet) tempo.


There is a great deal more to learn about Substitutions. We have only just scratched the surface in this session. In the next session we will look at the 12 bar blues and some of the commonly used substitutions and stylistic variations in this ubiquitous musical template.


The Major

Edited March 11, 2010 by Major-Minor

[51m0n]

Hey thanks so much for this!

Hoping it will really help me start to get my head into this whole area, which I pretty much faked my way through up until now.

You are a gentleman and a scholar

[billphreets]

invaluable AS always major.. once again a big big thankyou..

however , slight problem.. i cant seem to download 17e.pdf....... all i got was a board message stating:
Sorry, some required files are missing, if you intended to view a topic, it's possible that it's been moved or deleted. Please go back and try again.

??

[velvetkevorkian]

Likewise.

[Major-Minor]

[quote name='billphreets' post='771357' date='Mar 11 2010, 10:32 AM']invaluable AS always major.. once again a big big thankyou..

however , slight problem.. i cant seem to download 17e.pdf....... all i got was a board message stating:
Sorry, some required files are missing, if you intended to view a topic, it's possible that it's been moved or deleted. Please go back and try again.

??[/quote]
No idea how that happened ! Anyway it seems to be fixed now.

The Major

[billphreets]

[quote name='Major-Minor' post='771941' date='Mar 11 2010, 06:22 PM']No idea how that happened ! Anyway it seems to be fixed now.

The Major[/quote]

excellent , thanks major..

[thumperbob 2002]

Thanks Major- I have been looking forward to this one

Bob