One
of the first things I do with an incoming student at Belmont
University is to make sure they understand the diatonic
modes and chords, and can play them on their instrument.
Simply put, the modes are from Classical Music and were
used in Gregorian Chant (hence their other name: Church
Modes).
Jazz
Musicians, starting with Miles Davis and John Coltrane,
incorporated the modes into their compositions and soloing
and Rock icons, such as the Allman Brothers and the
Grateful Dead, have used modes as springboards for
their improvisations. While modes are not the be-all
and end-all of improvisation, they are very useful for
learning the bass neck and increasing technical facility.
We'll learn the modes in the key of C as well as the
diatonic chords they generate.
In
general, you can extract the chord arpeggio from any
scale by taking the first, third, fifth, and seventh
notes from the scale. This will give you the root-third-fifth-seventh
configuration of a seventh chord. I've done so in the
musical examples.
There
are many ways to play the scale shapes. A good way is
to start with all of the roots on the A string. You
can mark your starting points by playing a C major scale
up the A string (fingering is not important for this,
use your ears and the knowledge of a major scales construction:
whole steps between every note except 3 & 4 and
7 & 8, which are half steps). Remember, a whole
step is 2 frets on a bass guitar and a half step is
1.
When
you've found your starting points, you can plug in the
scales. Here are some suggested fingerings. All of the
scales are on these three strings: A/D/G.
C
Ionian: 2-4/1-2-4/1-3-4
D Dorian: 1-3-4/1-3/(back 1 fret)1-2-4
E Phrygian: 1-2-4/1-3-4/1-3
F Lydian: 2-4/1-3-4/1-3-4
G Mixolydian: 2-4/1-2-4/1-2-4
A Aeolian: 1-3-4/1-3-4/1-3
B Locrian: 1-2-4/1-2-4/1-3
Remember,
these 7 modes are all made up of the same 7 notes:
CDEFGABC
DEFGABCD
EFGABCDE
FGABCDEF
GABCDEFG
ABCDEFGA
BCDEFGAB
In
the following series of lessons, we'll look at how to
transpose this material and some exercises to build
speed, dexterity and musical awareness with them. For
right now, however, take the time to learn the raw material
I've presented here. For those interested, a great reference
for scales and modes is The Melodic Bass Library by
my good friend Jimmy Haslip (CPP/Belwin).
