How would you like Google Maps for your bass
solos - something that just gives you a path
to follow that you know is going to work (at
least most of the time). Hi I’m Luke from
Become A Bassist and in this bass lesson,
you’re going to learn all about guide tones
and how they give you a roadmap for improvising
on bass and when you know how they work, and
how to use them, you can feel free to improvise
with near-bulletproof confidence.
[Video Intro]
Welcome to Become A Bassist where it’s all
about insanely practical No-B.S. bass lessons
designed to get you playing better bass, having
more fun and becoming the best bassist you
can be and today we’re talking about one
of my absolute favorite subjects - improvising
through chord changes and nailing those chord
changes. This is where instead of just taking
the key of a song and playing around with
that - or a pentatonic or something - what
you play actually outlines the chords. If
you do this right, you’ll be able to hear
the chord changes pop out in your solo even
if you’re just playing single note lines
and even if you’re playing completely by
yourself. And to do that, we’re going to
use something called guide tones. Get good
at using guide tones and guide tone lines
and you can solo over just about any chord
progression you like with bulletproof confidence.
Let’s go.
What are guide tones? They’re the notes
that will give us the roadmap for playing
over chord changes - this is our Google Maps
for your bass solos. Now when you really get
into it, any note can serve as a guide tone,
but for us today, the guide tones we’re
going to use are always going to be the 3rd
and the 7th of every single chord. Why the
3rd and 7th? Because they give nearly every
chord it’s quality which makes them the
most useful for us if we’re trying to play
through chord changes and outline them.
Let’s pull up a chord progression here.
This is the first 4 bars of the jazz standard
Autumn Leaves - we’ve got a nice mixture
of chord types and everything like that and
this is a perfect progression to get started
with.
By the way, you can’t do the fancy guide
tone stuff if you can’t do the simple stuff
yet. It’d be like trying to do the pole
vault before learning to crawl, so if you
need to, practice just playing the roots of
the chords first. Like this. [plays] That’s
the bare minimum before diving into these
guide tone lines. The next step though is
to go through the entire chord progression
and play all the 3rds - just the 3rds in nice
big whole notes and if you did that, you’d
end up with something like this [plays] Eb
for the C minor etc.
By the way, if you want the tabs, notation
and backing track for all the different exercises
and stuff from this lesson, just hit the first
link in the description, fill out the form
on that page and I’ll send it all to you
absolutely free, so if I am blazing through
this a little bit fast, you can use the tabs,
notation and backing track to take all this
at your own speed.
If you’re an overachiever going for the
extra credit, you’d find all the 3rds in
all registers of your bass as well. Start
on the Eb up here [plays] down here [plays]
all over your bass. Now the 3rd is really
useful because it’s an incredibly melodic
kind of sound. So many melodies start on the
3rd or end on the 3rd - it’s just about
everywhere. Actually - it’s in THIS melody,
in Autumn Leaves. Check it out. [plays] So
just through doing this - really nailing the
3rds of every chord, you’re already on the
way to making some great-sounding solos, but
there’s more you can do.
Next, find, play, and really get to know all
the 7ths of all the chords. These ones may
not sound quite as melodic to you. They’re
not, but they’re super important harmonic
notes and they’ll help us create some immeasurably
useful guide tone lines in a second. So if
we go through and find all the 7ths of the
chords, we’ll get this. Over a Cm7 chord,
the 7th is a Bb. Over an F7, our 7th is an
Eb. Over the Bbmaj7 our major 7 is an A, then
over the Ebmaj7, the 7th a D. Over the Am7b5,
the 7 is a G. Over the D7, our 7th is a C
and finally over both the Gm7 AND the G7,
the 7th is an F. So with the track, it’ll
sound like this. [plays] Again, if this is
going a bit fast, be sure to download the
PDF with all these exercises written out in
tab and notation, plus the backing track at
different speeds as well.
When you get to this stage though, that’s
where the magic happens. By themselves, those
3rds and the 7ths, they’re not the most
inspiring thing you’ve ever heard, but when
you put them together? Oooh - that’s when
it gets good. Check this out. If we go back
and start on the Cm7 chord on the 3rd - we
get an Eb. Now if we were to keep playing
3rds, we’d just play that line from before,
right? But what if, on the next chord, we
swapped from the 3rd to the 7th. What would
happen? The next chord, we’d encounter would
be this F7, and if we played the 7th, we’d
get an Eb! The exact same note we’re already
on. OK - that’s cool. We can use that.
What about the next chord. Is the 3rd or 7th
of Bbmaj7 super close to this Eb? Absolutely.
Check this out. From this Eb, we can just
go down a half-step - one fret - to the 3rd
of the next chord, the Bbmaj7 - the D. So
now we’ve had this chord progression - this
2-5-1 progression - and we’ve outlined 3rds
and 7ths the whole way, but with minimal movement
and maximum usage of the most important melodic
and harmonic notes in the chords. [plays and
sings] And in fact, if you just alternate
playing the 3rds and 7ths of each consecutive
chord, you get this beautiful line right here.
[plays] 3rd, 7th, 3rd, 7th, 3rd, 7th, 3rd.
Never moving more than 2 frets, but always
outlining the crucial and super melodic notes
in
every chord.
The same exact thing happens when you start
on the 7th of the first chord then alternate
7th/3rd/7th/3rd. [plays with track] Sounds
different because we were at a different starting
point, but still a super simple line that
outlines the skeleton of the changes in a
really melodic way. These guide tone lines
that we’ve just made - they’re your roadmap.
These are what you can use to create solos
that outline changes.
How? Well the next step is to play around
with these guide tone lines and fill in the
spaces in between and around them - and you
can do that with just the notes of the key,
and in this case, it’s all basically the
same key center - you can think of it as being
Bb major or G minor, the relative minor. You
can think in either of those terms and just
use notes from the key. Just make sure to
play the guide tone line on beat 1 of the
chord change, and you’ll be golden. That
chord will pop right out of your solo.
For example, if you started your solo on the
3rd of the Cm7 chord, you might do something
like this [plays] All I’m doing is aiming
to play the notes of the guide tone line on
the downbeats and I’m just filling in the
gaps as musically as I can with notes from
Bb major/G minor. But can you hear how the
chord changes pop out of the line? If I did
this without the play along, you should still
be able to hear the chord changes as they
go past. Check it out [plays unaccompanied]
Hopefully, the chords are still coming through
even though we haven’t got that track.
What if we start on the other guide tone - the
7th - this Bb right here and did the exact
same thing. [plays] Again, you
should be able to hear the chord changes THROUGH
that guide tone line. Also, I’m not sure
if you noticed, but the guide tone line that
starts on the 7th ends up being very close
to the 3rd at the end and vice versa. That
means you can string a bunch of these guide
tone lines together in a really organic way
like this. [plays] 7th, 3rd etc. See how this
works? We’re just joining up these guide
tone lines.
You can also mix and match which guide tones
you want to target at any given time. You
might favor 3rds for a while, then switch
to 7ths if you want to get
more adventurous.
Now do you HAVE to play every phrase of every
solo based on a guide tone line every single
time? No - in fact, don’t do that! If you
always did that, you could end up sounding
pretty predictable. You’ll get boring to
listen to! And remember, guide tones are like
Google Maps for your bass solos, but you don’t
always have to follow the Google Maps directions.
You can take a detour, go along a different,
prettier road, or one that you know is going
to be faster. The map is just a map - you
can still make your own decisions.
So you can mix it up - play a guide tone-based
line, then throw in some blues/play outside
etc. Let’s try. [plays guide tone line,
then blues stuff, then outside-ish stuff]
See what I’m doing there? Variety is the
spice of life! It’s not like I’m not married
to the guide tones - it’s more like an open
relationship. The guide tones lines are just
that - a guide - they’re not some gold-encrusted
gospel of bass playing. Guide tone lines also
aren’t supposed to REPLACE what you already
know how to do and play - the guide tone lines
just add to it and give you more options.
Now by the way, this chord progression works
fantastic for guide tones where we only use
the 3rds and 7ths, but not every chord progression
will be exactly like this. It won’t always
be a smooth transition from 3rd to 7th and
back. If you’re playing a song that just
uses 3-note-chords instead of 7th chords,
that’s fine too - you can use the notes
of the triads as your guide tones. Check out
David Gilmour playing the first solo of Pink
Floyd’s song Comfortably Numb - he uses
3rds and 5ths on the down beat of every single
chord change of his solo and it’s freakin’
amazing. If you’re finding your guide tone
lines with any other chord progression, feel
free to use other notes of the chords as guide
tones - roots, 5ths, maybe even more colorful
sounds like 9ths and things like that. Like
I said, these are guide tones, so use them
to build your roadmap.
If this is your first time doing this though,
I’d definitely recommend an easy-ish progression
like this one and if you want the backing
track I’m using, plus the tabs and notation
for the guide tone lines and everything like
that, I’ve got it all available as a free
download on becomeabassist.com. Just click
right here or in the description, fill out
the form on that page and I’ll send everything
from this lesson to you absolutely free so
you can start using your Google Maps guide
tones and nailing chord changes in your bass
solos today. I’ll see you on the site!
