I want to share some things with you that
have been incredibly useful in my development
as a bass player over the past 15
years. The title says it all: What are the five
technique-builders you can’t live without
as a bass player? Well, by no means am I
about to tell you these are the only things
you need to work on to become a great bass
player, but these simple ideas have helped
me improve consistency in my time, sound,
fluidity, and other fundamental aspects of
my musicianship. Essentially, this is a brief
look inside my general warm-up and practice
routine. I think it’s important—no matter
what style of music you play—to have
a solid control of the fundamentals of harmony,
rhythm, and melody. The examples
in this column not only focus on these three
aspects of music, but they can really enhance
your basic command of the instrument.
Let’s start at the beginning and take a
look at an exercise I’ve used for a decade
or so, and continue to use to warm up
whenever I pick up the bass. The major-
7th arpeggio (1–3–5–7) is the basis for
Fig. 1, which is in the key of C. As with
all of the practice ideas I’m laying out
here, I recommend you play this example
slowly at first, perhaps with a metronome
if you need some enforced discipline in
your routine.
or download example audio
The melodic and harmonic content in
Fig.
2 is similar to Fig. 1, but this time I’m doubling
up each note to really work the alternating
fingers on the right hand. I find that my
hands warm up at different rates when I first
pick up my instrument, and by doubling
up this exercise with the right hand, I give
my index and middle fingers a bit more of a
workout and warm them up a little quicker.
or download example audio
One of the biggest technical challenges
we face as bass players or guitarists is crossing
strings. It was certainly a challenge for
me to become more fluent at this, and I
developed a little idea you can see in
Fig. 3
to help strengthen all the fingers on my left
hand and make sure they all operate as well
as each other. In this exercise, there should
be no difference in ability from using your
first and second fingers or your third and
fourth fingers. Again, make sure you start
this one at a slow tempo and work your
way up to faster tempos. It’s a drag to dive
head first into something new that your
muscles aren’t used to and then get injured.
We don’t want that!
or download example audio
Now I know that playing scales can be a
drag, but in my experience there’s not really
a way around it. It’s something I’ve done a
lot and continue to do today. When I was
first starting out, I found an old piano book
that belonged to my father and I adapted a
couple of exercises from that book for bass.
In
Fig. 4 we want to make some music out
of these scales instead of mindlessly running
them up and down the instrument. The
idea is to make groupings of four-note cells
out of the major scale you’re playing and
really give both hands a workout. I suggest
you use this one idea as a starting point for
making up your own exercises out of major
or minor scales.
or download example audio
The last idea I want to put forward
to close out this column is a little more
advanced, but totally playable by anyone
out there if you spend just a little time getting
the basic idea under your fingers. It’s
not only a great technique builder, but it
also deals with resolving a diminished-7th
arpeggio (1–b3–b5–bb7) to a minor root.
You’ll notice that
Fig. 5 starts out with an
ascending C# diminished-7th arpeggio and
then descends with a D minor arpeggio.
or download example audio
In terms of harmony, I’m thinking
about the C#dim7 functioning as an
altered-dominant chord without the root
(in this case, you could think of it as
A7b9 and play all of those notes over an
A pedal) with the resolution establishing
the root tonality of D minor. This gives
me a way of resolving from the dominant
to the root with a movement of just a
half-step (C#–D) in the bass. It also gives
me a slightly different way to think about
a straightforward minor arpeggio, and
get my fingers on the left hand working
outside of their comfort zone with some
pretty similar harmonic material.
I hope you can find some ideas in here
that help your playing—they’ve certainly
helped me improve. And I hope these
examples can serve as a starting point for
you to create similar exercises that suit the
way you play.
Janek Gwizdala
Janek Gwizdala has been on the international
music scene for more than 15 years. His touring,
recording, and production credits range
from being musical director for V.V. Brown
and Delta Goodrem, to working with such jazz
legends as Mike Stern, Pat Metheny, Randy
Brecker, Hiram Bullock, and Wayne Krantz.
Janek has been a clinician the world over,
giving lectures at leading music schools and
conservatories. For more information, visit
janekgwizdala.com.