You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Comp for Bass Solos

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. On this episode, Peter and Adam discuss a tricky subject for many pianists: what do I play during a bass solo?Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Thursday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here we go. Ben Wise says, Peter, what is the time signature and count me out? I don't even remember. What is that? Count. Is that, um, I think he's, I think that's a Josh tune. Josh Redmond's song from like the 90. How am I going to remember that? It was 30 years ago. But if it's that tune, it's in four. Four, four, actually. It just doesn't seem like it. Boop-but-but-th-d-de-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-k-a-d-d-k-a-d-d-d-k-a-h-h-h-h-h-h. The whole thing's in four. If it's another tune, you've got to, I don't know, sing it for me or tell me what it is. Does that make sense, Adam? I'm not paying attention, buddy.

Say that again, no. No, no. So, David has a great question here. I've been jamming on jazz-a-casam lately, which has been fantastic. We jam-ca-sam. Sorry, we've got to check that out, Peter, by the way. I know. Side note.

The bass player I play with asks that I get out of the way when he solos And not outlining chords. What to play. Sounds like a typical bass player. For sure. Attitude adjustment needed. Just kidding. Big shout out to Christian McGrath.

Other bass players. No, I mean, this happens sometimes, but there might be some things you could do, David, to help the situation along a little bit. And we talk about comping for bass players quite a bit. Sort of the level 1A of comping for bass players is to take it up, right? This, though, comes with some. some challenges too, because this range could be harsh. Yeah.

So if you play too much or if your voicings are too thick up here, it's going to suck. Yeah. It's not going to be good for the bass player. I actually comp low for bass players all the time and they don't seem to mind. But did you notice what you just did. You kind of, you went in there. Oh, you got to be.

You didn't go in hot. You got to be sensitive. You can't do that. Hey, Ron Carter. I'm so glad to be on the gig. Yeah. No, Ron Carter doesn't like that at all. But you can do things.

I mean, honestly, I find that bass players really love, if I go especially, like, low as they're soloing, and outline, like, full chords on the changes. Yeah. They like it a lot because it gives them, they can hear everything, right? It's like they become soloists all of a sudden. So I like to do that sometimes. If I know the bass player's down. It's kind of the opposite of the Michelle Obama. When they go high, we go low.

When they go low, when they go low, we go high. They can't really go high. So it's more like when they go in the middle. Right. I think, too, you know, if you're playing, like, take some notes away. I think that that is, as far as get out of the way, not outlining chords, that might be an ineligent way of saying, like, E-flat major. Like, listen to what they're playing and, like, learn a little bit about the bass.

So maybe you can even kind of know what some of their notes and know that, like, the bass, the open strings which are G, D, A, and E from top to bottom, as well as several, like, fifths and especially octaves of those notes are going to be very resonant and places that bass players, depending on the key of the tune you're playing,

like to kind of sit in and play. So if the bass player's like, that's their open G, not here. So if they're like, and you've got a voicing that's like, you're playing, I mean, this is the world's sounded funny, but like you're playing that on the bottom and they're trying to solo there.

That's going to throw things. off. But if you just spread out around that, you can play. And you don't need a whole lot either. You know, and if they're like, and you know, a good bass player, normally is going to be soloing within a certain octave and then move around. They're not going to jump around as much as we do because the nature of the instrument. And you can physically see if you don't know their style when they're about to do that, like going cross string or going up or whatever. So I think learning, like, I would encourage everybody that wants to play with another instrument, learn how to just play like a C major scale on that instrument.

Like literally, pay them for a one-hour lesson to learn a C major skill. Because then you start to understand what it takes to move around the instrument. And it's so instructive for you how to play with them. And as pianists, we potentially could be playing with anybody. That's right. And maybe David just consider, you know, put yourself in their shoes. What would you want if you were, you know, if you were trying to solo down there, no bass player is doing that.

But, you know, you might consider just starting off with just really outlining for them. you know? Yep. Very simply. Yeah, and rhythmically, like think about where you're playing rhythmically in terms of like, actually, why don't we do this a little bit? You want to comp to me, I'll be the baseball. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So step one here, and David, we've talked about this a little bit in the guide of practice session, too. Don't be reactive to the core changes because then you're kind of, you're too late. Right. So lay out late, you want to lay it out very clearly. So let's try, do you know? Yeah. E flat? Yeah, so which one am I doing?

You do the solo, I'll do the comp. One, two, one, two, three, and. So that's me staying above, right? But notice what I'm doing here. I was a busy little bass player, wasn't I? Yeah, so, but which is cool. And if you're going to do that, I'm just going to very gently. I'm going to give you a two feel, essentially, right?

But you still played quite a bit. Oh, yeah. Even while staying, I was trying to fill in a thing. It doesn't just have to be all or nothing. So check this out, David. Here's how you might consider, like, dropping down even. Try it again, Pete. One, two.

One, two, three, and... Nice. So you see the difference here? When I drop low here, my instinct is to not do this. Right. How much thicker that already sound. Right, but I can do this. Ah, yeah.

It makes me want a solo, you know? Exactly. So short, punchy things, and you can easily go low, and then you can do the same thing high, But again, when you go high especially, watch those dynamics. You don't want to do, here's what not to do. Ready.

One, two, three, and. Yeah, it's hard to get me to my way. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop the pain. Big, thick chords up high that are too loud and too punchy and almost too rhythmic. Like, you can be rhythmic even just filling it in. Yeah.

You know, you can do hip-shed. I'm going to give you a little surprise on this one. What will you solo some? I'm going to throw a little accompaniment behind you. All right, I'm going to go down. I'm going to go down low, okay? Well, you're a baseball. Yeah, one, two, three.

That was harder than I thought, but when I was trying to show you everybody was that you can play a bass line behind a bass solo. You can. You know who told me that was allowed? Who? Ray Brown. What does he know? Exactly.

He asked me to play a bass. He's like, walk a baseline. Walk. And I was like, what? All right, all right. Yeah. So, but you got to be careful about it. But it can really work because the texture of the instruments.

You can even be there. If you're listening and you're playing, just like you were doing with your comping, you know, some nice, like things, you know, just how you attack the instrument and stuff can either disqualify. Of course, you know,

taking a few notes away too, but listening as you go, I notice you were solo with your right hand, sir. Oh, shoot. Well, that's okay. I mean, you know, I mean... I just assume. I could have.

So on your win of the week, I mean, your practice challenge next week it's going to be... I practice too many bass solos. All of the... my left hand. We're about out of time. So we're, uh, let's go out here on a little, on a little bass solo. Come on, come on, come on. Give me another shot. Give me another shot. I got to prove myself here. Okay. One, two, three, four. Okay. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. I was going to do my stride.

I was going to practice my stride at the same time. Thanks everybody for tuning in today. We'll be back next Monday, same time, right? Four o'clock Eastern time. Yeah. Here on the Open Studio, YouTube channel. Hey, tomorrow night, our buddies, Romero, Lubbombo and Alves are doing a listening They're doing a takeover. Come on. They're taking over our sash. They're a regular takeover they've been doing lately. You know what?

We might video bomb them. We should video bomb them. I think I know how we can do that. Okay. But that's going to be fun. That's a great record. I don't know that record. I don't either.

Which makes it even better. This is supposed to be a time of discovery. Learn to make sourdough bread. Learn new Boston Over records. Dude, we already had the sourdough bread going on in my house. We were all good. Come on, also check out our pre-black Friday sale is already going on.

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The real question here, Peter, as I vamp is, how long is it going to take you this time? Oh, I'm ready. To get up the intro and for the sound to come on. I could do it now. I just didn't want to scare you. Should we turn off the Google again? That'll make it hard.

That will make it hard. You just let me know when you're ready. I never know when you're ready, see. Hey, get us a like if you're enjoying this. And if you're not subscribed, please subscribe because we go live. We will bust out a live like we're pulling out a over the credit line visa card. You'll do it. So just tell me when you're ready, my friend.

Let's do it. Okay. Well, hold on. I knew it. I knew it. You'll hear it. This is why I was trying to avoid, man.