The Proficient Soloist:

In my mind, there is no singular path towards being a great soloist. It requires that you have internalized information and built your vocabulary but what you actually have to say as a soloist is unique to you, what you listen to, whom you emulate, how you practice, etc… What I’ll try to do here is to give you the tools you need to remove common obstacles to speaking freely on the instrument.

One main thing to consider is that you shouldn’t necessarily treat ‘soloing’ as separate from your bass playing. How you approach one, is an extension of the other. It can be especially helpful early on in your development to really think of soloing as playing your bass lines ideas.. just more freely and with more range on the instrument.

By extension, when you start practicing more soloistic concepts and approaches, that will also evolve the way you approach your bass lines and licks. They are very much connected! I find that a lot of students initially freeze up when it comes to solos because it seems like an entirely new thing. I’ve heard some really fantastic bass players immediately sound stiff and uncomfortable as soon as they start taking a solo. You don’t even have to immediately jump to the upper register when you start a solo… In fact, it’s often better if you transition from your bass lines to the solo ideas simply by expanding and expounding upon those same ideas in the lower register…. leading them up into a more soloistic range organically.

A good bassist thinks compositionally and speaks in complete sentences. The same is true for a soloist, except you now have the complete freedom to play what you want!

The enemy of a good solo is fear and perceived expectations. Don’t feel like you need to instantly become super impressive and blazing fast because it’s a solo. Just breathe and… play!. Have fun with it. It takes time and practice before it may feel natural but much of that depends on your own psychology and how you think about it all.

Let’s kick it off with a few videos where I’m just talking about certain aspects that deserve much thought when it comes to obtaining a certain level of ability with your instrument.

Mindset | Fundamentals | Scales 1 | Arpeggios/Chord Construction 1 | Improvisation | Scales 2 | Arpeggios/Chord Construction 2 | Chords on the Bass | Ear Training | Transcription | Rhythm

Mindset

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Fundamentals Module

It’s of the utmost importance that we develop a solid foundation. When you couple good practice with a strong foundation, we have the most efficient path towards realizing real growth on our instrument.

Click the button in order to download some helpful shape diagrams for the pentatonic, major and minor scales referenced in a few of these lessons.

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Scales: The Basics

A good soloist needs to have a solid understanding of basic harmony and harmonic function. A great soloist never stops learning about the ways in which they can expand their harmonic vocabulary. We’ll dive a little bit deeper in the lessons to come but this is a good place to start.

The following videos are designed to help you with both your internalization of scales and how to use them but also your mindset with regard to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of it all.

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Arpeggios and Chord Construction: The Basics

And here, we begin to explore arpeggios and, by extension, chord construction. Chords are really just scales played in 3rds (instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, we will be stacking them in 3rds. 1, 3, 5, 7, 2, 4, 6 or 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, as you will come to think of them)

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 Improvisation:

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Scales: Going Further

Let’s go a bit further in our exploration of scales, chord scales & modes.

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Arpeggios and Chord Construction: Going Further

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Chords on the Bass

Make sure to download the worksheets at the bottom of the page!

Chords are a phenomenal way to map out harmonic shapes on your fretboard (and they sound cool, too). Internalizing chord shapes and relationships not only gives you an interesting sonic palette from which to draw from, but it also gives you a quick skeletal structure of harmony which you can make use of in your bass lines, solos, licks…. Studying chords on your instrument helps with everything, whether or not you ever intend to actually play them on the gig.

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Ear Training

While trancsription is a fantastic way to develop your ‘ears’ (as well as being more fun and satisfying in some ways), there are other ways to really take your development to the next level. Specifically training yourself to improve upon your relative pitch, or even develop perfect pitch (yes… you can train yourself to have perfect pitch or, at the very least, much improves relative pitch).

• Singing along with your practice. Learn to really pay attention to the sounds of the intervals. Can you play a major 3rd and then sing it back? Can you do it enough to play a note and automatically hear and sing a major 3rd above that note?

• Even just hearing a melody or bas line and singing it back is a good way to start developing your pitch recognition. Take it further by playing various intervals and singing them back to yourself.

• If you have a piano, play chords and try to identify each note of the chord with your voice.

• Play a basic triad and try to sing the available tensions of the chord (advanced mode!)

These are some examples of how you start to work on this at home.

Harmonomics • A buddy of mine (and phenomenal and versatile musician) developed an ear-training app that is a deep dive right into the serious kind of ear-training one would do at a conservatory. He uses it regularly and it shows.

This is exactly how he practices ear training (and he’s WAY better at it than I am, to be honest).

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 Transcription:

Transcription is at the heart of the fluent soloist. Not only do you need to explore the vocabulary of music in a broad way but you need to have a deep understanding of different styles and approaches as to how one can navigate chord changes, vamps, solo intros, etc….

There are MANY ways to approach a solo. It’s important to have a sense of what it is you’re trying to accomplish (or even who you are trying to ‘channel’ in the moment).

Groove solos, melodic solos, chops, rhythmic solos, advanced reharmonizations…. there are a million ways to approach a musical statement. There more you can 'hear’ and the more approaches and players you’ve explored, the better!

Harmonic awareness and rhythm, married with an explorative approach. As I said in ‘The Improvisor’s Path”…. Rhythm + Harmony = Melody

The most important part of your transcription process:

…is not necessarily the part where you’re finding the notes and putting them in the right order. The important part comes afterwards, when you play it over and over again, internalizing the lines, shapes and sounds. ALWAYS look at how the lines relate to the harmony.

• What chord is that line over?

• What chord tones or scale tones does it target?

• What sound like the target notes in the line? Which notes are having the most impact for you in the line? How do those notes relate to the chord/scale?

THIS is how we turn transcription into vocabulary!

A good solo often has more to do with great phrases and a connection of ideas. I find it useful to try and begin every solo with a melodic statement. This gives you something to build upon. Make a statement, leave a space… make another related statement. Keep building… use the register of your instrument, rhythmic motifs, leave room in the beginning…

Leave them waiting for you to do something… then, when you do, it’ll have THAT much more impact (don’t just come out swinging with everything you’ve got because then you’ve got nowhere to go).

Due to copyright laws, I can’t just add my favorite tunes and streaming audio of their music but I can give you a list as a launching point and provide some public YouTube videos as a launching point.

The following videos are just a launching point. Tailor your transcriptions to your own aesthetics and genre preferences. Bottom line, find the music you love and the players you’d like to emulate and start learning their bass lines, one note at a time.

Internalizing transcriptions to the point that they become vocabulary means that you embrace repetition. You don’t have to transcribe an entire 6 minute song! Grab licks… grab melodic phrases that you find striking… grab melodies that you like… Additionally, don’t just transcribe bassists! Especially when transcribing soloists, there’s no need to limit your exploration to bassists. In fact, I prefer to transcribe horn players, pianists and guitarists. I' want to go the source! They play melodies as a part of their job description. I want to ‘see’ how they perceive their harmonic lines and licks’. For example, Chet Baker’s vocal solos are some of my greatest founts of melodic approach and sensibility.

I could post a hundred videos from each of these players… If one resonates with you, do some digging and find more. I’ll just post one video from each of these world class players.

First, here are a few thoughts about how to go about transcribing tunes as well as a ‘process’ video of me transcribing Erick Coomes on “166th St.”, by the band ‘Lettuce’.

Some Players I find inspiring and motivational:

There are too many great soloists to list here. Again, this is a launch pad. Do your own research and transcribe those players that really speak to YOU.

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Rhythm

You simply can’t have good phrases without good rhythm! Develop your rhythmic vocabulary as much as your harmonic vocabluary!

downloads:

TIP: Take your time with each of these lessons (especially when things get a little more open to interpretation). As they say, “It’s not a sprint… it’s a marathon”. Slow & steady….. You’ve got all the time in the world. Just focus, listen and let your ears guide you when your brain isn’t sure what’s “right”.

Check out the apps that I used in these lessons for some great tools (bottom of the page)

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