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What is your personal way of improvising on bass during a jam?
- Thread starter Shenron
- Start date
Personally, I don’t like jamming unless there is a predetermined structure. Key and chord progression should be set, other wise a bass is is just another random bunch of notes.I sometimes find myself in such situation where, due to someone* being late to rehearsals, another someone** starts jamming some random chords, and the other someone*** picks it up without problem, and then everyone looks at me and expects me to easily jump up and figure out how to fill in with the bass... on those occasions when I do succeed at figuring out the key before the second someone** randomly changes it (with the third someone*** having the easiest time of their life since chords are irrelevant to them), I pretty much try to just find a simple usable groove as quickly as possible and stick to it. In the event the second someone** decides to keep the key long enough, I may start venturing into small variations and embellishment, but I find it impossible to improvise freely or try a solo... such selfish act would surely unpolitely step on the spotlight of the second someone** and leave the poor third someone*** alone in keeping up a weakened groove.
*the singer, who else?
**the guitarist, who else??
***the drummer, who else???
How do you manage to make your jamming on bass more satisfying (when not jamming alone, that is)? Do you agree with your bandmates on a chord progression before starting the jam? Do you alternate on solos? Do you just enjoy chaos and mayhem and each one plays a different key/rhythm/genre/time signature?
I'd like to hear how you really manage to have fun jamming on bass (not just the theory of it, or how you think you should be jamming, but how you actually do) because maybe I'm just still too much a beginner on bass, but I find jamming a lot easier and more fun when I play in another role** or even another role***.
Basically...
Trust your intuition and that your ears, hands and brain knows what to do.
Stop thinking about what to do, and just do it.
At the point where you think of your next move is going to be, you are already behind, and lost the moment.
Thinking ahead is not the answer either, it prevents you from being and reacting to the moment.
Just stop thinking all together, and let your body, and ultimately your brain, react to the music.
The only way to learn how to be great at improvising is improvising (general experience and knowledge does help though).
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This could be where ear training could be beneficial. I learned to improvise bass parts by ear, mostly by playing along to the radio and recrods when I was a teenager.
Sometimes it's not fun. Sometimes I go for the social hang without expecting much to happen musically. If the jamming is incoherent, there's no reason to add a bass part, and I just wait.
At fiddle jams, if there's a break, or players are struggling to choose a tune, I'll just start a melody on bass, and others will come in, then I'll switch to a bass part.
My rule is that the bass has to be treated as "one among equals." Some players and genres lend themselves more to this than others.
The way you have fun jamming is playing with good musicians. The bass doesn’t really need to do a lot when jamming, just like in actual songs playing roots, fifths and pentatonic scale runs go a long, long way. You do not have to channel Phil Lesh or Ron Carter.
You don't even have to invent something totally new, feel free to reuse licks and cliches that you think will fit. If someone tells me we’ll jam over a funk groove, I immediately gravitate to playing the root, fifth and flat 7 in a syncopated manner. Plenty of funk songs use nothing but those three notes. Once that’s established, I'll start throwing in fills and runs.
Seen this?
Chick Corea's "Cheap but Good Advice"
Chick Corea's "Cheap but Good Advice"
- Play only what you hear.
- If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.
- Don’t let your fingers and limbs wander — place them intentionally.
- Don’t improvise on endlessly — play something with intention, develop it or not, but then end off, take a break.
- Leave space — create space — intentionally create places where you don’t play.
- Make your sound blend. Listen to your sound and adjust it to the rest of the band and the room.
- If you play more than one instrument at a time — like a drum kit or multiple keyboards — make sure that they are balanced with one another.
- Don’t make any of your music mechanically or just through patterns of habit. Create each sound, phrase, and piece with choice — deliberately.
- Guide your choice of what to play by what you like-not by what someone else will think.
- Use contrast and balance the elements: high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, tense/relaxed, dense/sparse.
- Play to make the other musicians sound good. Play things that will make the overall music sound good.
- Play with a relaxed body. Always release whatever tension you create.
- Create space — begin, develop, and end phrases with intention.
- Never beat or pound your instrument — play it easily and gracefully.
- Create space — then place something in it.
- Use mimicry sparsely — mostly create phrases that contrast with and develop the phrases of the other players.
I would add: Never slap your instrument, it's a horrible sounding abomination of a technique!
In all seriousness though I would say don't be afraid to beat the crap out of your instrument if called for, say an ambient noise section.
It doesn't have to be pretty to be great music.
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Personally I hate jamming for jammings sake because often its just an excuse for musical wanking by solo instruments at everyone elses expense.
But you can cheat by playing a song you know underneath it..if only along the lines of a chord progression.
Then the instigator will either have to follow ..or.. they'll stop the jam and issue instructions of what they want you to do.
Of course, they could have just asked that in the first place but its their indulgence so train them to be conscious that its a band and not their backing vehicle.
Many many jams can be pretty boring so as soon as it hits that mark, stop playing.
If it doesn't compel to play anything..don't.
But you can cheat by playing a song you know underneath it..if only along the lines of a chord progression.
Then the instigator will either have to follow ..or.. they'll stop the jam and issue instructions of what they want you to do.
Of course, they could have just asked that in the first place but its their indulgence so train them to be conscious that its a band and not their backing vehicle.
Many many jams can be pretty boring so as soon as it hits that mark, stop playing.
If it doesn't compel to play anything..don't.
Sounds like you confuse jamming for jamming's sake and wanking for wanking's sake.
If the musician's truly are jamming for the sake of jamming, and not to have their egos boosted, then it can be an absolutely beautiful thing.
Nope, not confusing anything.
If someone has a great little groove going..you capture it and work it up....with structure, purpose and focus.
Going round in endless loops and getting nowhere is the waste of time.
You don't need 15mins to work out if an idea has mileage or not.
If someone has a great little groove going..you capture it and work it up....with structure, purpose and focus.
Going round in endless loops and getting nowhere is the waste of time.
You don't need 15mins to work out if an idea has mileage or not.
There are so many different kinds of jam situations, with unique goals, expectations, and context, there's no one approach that will apply to every setting.
If you are playing with people you know well then it's a great opportunity to experiment, and you should feel comfortable asking questions, even if it means pausing the jam or dropping out for a section. It sounds like you're describing a band who are just playing for the sake of killing time before the real music starts, which should be the most low-stakes environment.
If someone wants to change the form, chords, or key, remind them to call it out. Don't be afraid to drop out and listen to find your place before joining back in.
In a jam setting where everyone is sitting on a single chord or very basic progression you can feel trapped in the same set of notes. To break out of this thinking, you can use the tools Victor Wooten teaches in his "2 through 10" lessons. Rather than thinking of notes, think of all the other elements you have to play with. Time, space, silence, duration, technique, volume, attack, tone, etc. You can play the same one chord for 5 minutes and still make the song feel as if it has changes by using dynamics, space, and even laying out entirely to give others the room to shift or stretch into different spaces beyond the ones everyone has been playing together.
If you are playing with people you know well then it's a great opportunity to experiment, and you should feel comfortable asking questions, even if it means pausing the jam or dropping out for a section. It sounds like you're describing a band who are just playing for the sake of killing time before the real music starts, which should be the most low-stakes environment.
If someone wants to change the form, chords, or key, remind them to call it out. Don't be afraid to drop out and listen to find your place before joining back in.
In a jam setting where everyone is sitting on a single chord or very basic progression you can feel trapped in the same set of notes. To break out of this thinking, you can use the tools Victor Wooten teaches in his "2 through 10" lessons. Rather than thinking of notes, think of all the other elements you have to play with. Time, space, silence, duration, technique, volume, attack, tone, etc. You can play the same one chord for 5 minutes and still make the song feel as if it has changes by using dynamics, space, and even laying out entirely to give others the room to shift or stretch into different spaces beyond the ones everyone has been playing together.
Well, I agree that what OP describes does kind of sound like pointless wanking, rather than jamming, but playing a known tune as it is "supposed to" wouldn't really exactly be jamming either, would it?
Also jamming freely is absolutely a thing, and can be beautiful, if people do actually really commit to it, and does not just just float off on a mindless ego wanking trip.
I suppose there is an aspect here also of expectations, experience, and not least broadness of the participants musical horizon.
What one can get to work musically definitely expands proportionally with the broadness of the participants musical horizon, same goes for selfless commitment.
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Well, "supposed to" can be a pretty wide range. For example, if I call out "Impressions in Db!" it implies a somewhat different level of freedom than if I call out "Nobody's Sweetheart in F: I'll sing the verse and one chorus, then everyone take two choruses each, then we'll triple tag it and out."
But with no framework at all, it's just going to be a bunch of boring noise, or fifty million choruses of guitar solo on 12 bar blues in E, or various people making boring noise over a one chord vamp. This kind of thing was a lot more interesting to me when I was a stoned 20 year old college student, but not so much now.
Last time I went to a jazz jam session - and there's a lot more structure there than what I'm getting from these descriptions of "jamming" - all the horn players were playing chorus after chorus after chorus as fast and loud as they could (basically same thing as the endless guitar solos on 12 bar blues in E), and when my turn came around, I stood up, played ONE chorus, mezzo-forte, and turned to the next guy with the "OK, you got it!" gesture. Their heads exploded! (And the audience gave me the most applause anyone got that night.)
I didn't say it was easy to make it work.
But I do think it is more of a mindset issue, and that what makes it hard is staying in that mindset of opening and devoting yourself to the moment and the music, and giving up your preconceived notions and ego, while staying focused and paying attention to the most delicate details, rather than a technical skill issue.
Whether then you might still think drone and ambient, and possibly any form of repetitive lingering minimal music, is boring, and that free jazz and the like is noise, and that noise can't also be music, is entirely a matter of personal opinion and taste, rather than an actual fact.
However I do think you are right that in OP's case it would probably be beneficial to start out learning how to jam with some kind of predetermined frame work, be it an agreed on chord structure, key or form, or similar, to ensure having some sort of anchor point to return to if feeling lost, and for the participants and the jam overall to stay focused.
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edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
- May 13, 2003
- 3,342
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- Endorsing Artist: DR Strings, SMS
As a bassist, you have a lot of power in this setting. I generally introduce different root notes to imply different tonal centers. If people are listening, they will go with you.
Jamming is not something that you can just do. Like everything else, you have to practice it, preferably with the same people over a period of time. I have played in many bands that have practiced jamming with varying amount of structure. Also, practiced listening while jamming. Like anything else, it's a skill that can be developed.
Open your ears wide and start scrambling.
Listen for roots and pay attention to drummer.
Don't be hesitant to change things up yourself.
Make something substanitive and grooving out of the noodlings - bass holds a lot of power.
Personally I like things that start off spontaneously as much as I like things tighter than a gnats bottom.
It's all fun!
Listen for roots and pay attention to drummer.
Don't be hesitant to change things up yourself.
Make something substanitive and grooving out of the noodlings - bass holds a lot of power.
Personally I like things that start off spontaneously as much as I like things tighter than a gnats bottom.
It's all fun!
edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
- May 13, 2003
- 3,342
- 3,396
- 5,253
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: DR Strings, SMS
Open your ears wide and start scrambling.
Listen for roots and pay attention to drummer.
Don't be hesitant to change things up yourself.
Make something substanitive and grooving out of the noodlings - bass holds a lot of power.
Personally I like things that start off spontaneously as much as I like things tighter than a gnats bottom.
It's all fun!
I like spontaneous things that are tighter than a gnat's bottom. It happens.
"It's all fun!
"This. So much this!