Do Your Melodies Have A Dynamic Direction?
So far, your gig is really happening! You and the rhythm section are sounding tight and your groove is unshakable. The soloists have blazing chops and their melodies take you for a ride. People are moving to your music.
Now, it’s your turn to take a bass solo! You step forward and… what happened? All of the musical intensity just went away. No one knows where you are going with your bass solo… not even yourself. When you’re done, people clap out of pity, and the band now has to work extra hard to regain the intensity in the music.
This bass lesson creates a simple concept from a portion of a Jimmy Herring guitar solo transcription, and shows you how to instantly add dynamic direction to your melodies and erase the unforgivable mark that many bass players share—the inability to play a bass solo that has melodic direction.
Analysis and Application of a Jimmy Herring Guitar Solo
The concepts described in this bass lesson are extracted from a Jimmy Herring guitar solo. This bass lesson is designed to develop your sense of melodic direction when taking a bass solo. When beginning to learn the tools that are necessary to create a powerful melodic direction, it helps to study those that are already succeeding in that.
Jimmy Herring is a rock guitarist that has played with the Allman Brothers Band, The Aquarium Rescue Unit, Day By The River, Jazz Is Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, The Dead, Justice League, Project Z, and Widespread Panic, among others.
His solos have a powerful sense of melodic and rhythmic direction that can provide a valuable study for all types of musicians!
To hear Jimmy Herring in action, catch his videos on YouTube, especially the videos with The Aquarium Rescue Unit!
Overview
- Listen to the transcribed portion of a Jimmy Herring guitar solo
- Establish a focus
- Look at transcription
- Analyze the transcription based on focus
- Create a Potent Mutant Bass Concept to apply to your arsenal of bass solos
*This eight bar transcription is taken from The Aquarium Rescue Unit album, The Calling. The song is called “Hurt No More”. This transcription of a Jimmy Herring guitar solo is from 1min 33sec – 1min 51 sec. Obviously, the transcription is in the same key, but the octave is lower for you to explore on the bass.
Listen
The Aquarium Rescue Unit: The Calling, “Hurt No More”
Jimmy Herring – Guitar solo transcribed for bass
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Establish a Focus
Before we take a look at the transcription, ask yourself a couple questions:
- What type of overall melodic direction am your feeling (going up, going down, static, etc…)?
- How is this melodic direction achieved?
The reason we are ask ourselves these questions, is that we want to establish a FOCUS, then create a basic CONCEPT, and then APPLY IT to our own playing!
Look at Transcription
Here is the transcription of the Jimmy Herring guitar solo you just heard in a lower octave for bass.
To download this transcription at FULL SIZE click on the link: http://www.mutantbass.com/images/transcriptions/ARU_hurt_no_more.pdf
Jimmy Herring Transcription for Bass
Analyze
When analyzing music, start out with the raw facts…the obvious facts! Become a child again and just observe.
Here are some raw observations:
- Noticeable changes occur on beat 4.
- These changes can be a wide interval (measure 1).
- Rhythmic variety (measure 2, measure 4, measure 6)
- The phrases start with a long note and lead to a resolution on a long note.
- Measure 1 starts with a dotted half note (“A” is the 5th of the solo’s key, D minor).
- Measure 4 ends the phrase on the tonic (“D” is the root of the solo’s key, D minor).
- Measure 5 repeats a sustained note (“E” is the 9th of the solo’s key, D minor).
- The solo continues to lead to measure 9 which sustains another “A” note, but an octave higher.
Now, if we FOCUS on just the sustained resolution notes, the melodic direction becomes clear:
- Point 1
The solo begins on the note “A” - Point 2
The direction then leads downward, then upward to a higher point than Point 1. - Point 3
The melodic line then goes downward again, then upward to a higher than Point 2. - Each Point is increasingly higher than the last.
Create a Potent Mutant Bass Concept
Make a shift from transcribing music to learn licks, to transcribing music to create concepts!
Simple observations can become concepts that you can add to your arsenal of approaching melody!
Here a a few Potent Mutant Bass concepts to apply to your practice:
- When the overall resolution points of the large picture are felt, melodic direction is easier for the ear to grasp.
- From this transcription, this portion of Jimmy Herring’s guitar solo has a common resolution on beat 1 and a common lead to the resolution in the measure before. Each resolution becomes increasingly higher in range. This gives the feeling of excitement, of building upwards, of creating tension!
- Most of the resolution points do not satisfy the root of the chord, instead resolving on the 5th, etc… This gives a sense of resolution, but not a final resolution.
There’s more that can be extracted from this short transcription. For now, try these concepts with your solos and feel the dynamic direction!
Further Comments
Never lose sight of the larger picture (as far as resolution points are concerned). No matter how complicated a melodic line or rhythm may be, there is always an overall larger pulse and larger melody.
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