Lately in Wikiloops, I stumbled upon a song made by a guitar player, then someone played harp over it, and a guitar, this time soloing, again. And the musician who played the harp complimented the soloist on using the phrygian mode which got my head spinning a bit…
Well phrygian is simply said the 3rd if you start thinking from ionian – so if you take all the white keys on a keyboard, with C major being the ionian mode, you start the same keys (only those white ones, remember?) on the 3rd note which is e, and you’ll have phrygian. So C major played from e to e’ (the octave above) would be E phrygian. Easy, no?
Well yes and no – how to improvise over this? On a guitar, think minor pentatonic plus two notes, the minor second and the minor 6th, and you’re there. Here’s a nice tutorial about that from David Wallimann:
I like this example – he’s using G phrygian – because he also shows how this is simply G# lydian if you start playing that same scale from the second note which is G# or Ab. You could also think Eb ionian (or simply said, Eb major) if you’re more familiar with that. Ron Clemens commented: “I like the sound of that relative Lydian arpeggio (AbM7) in the (G) Phrygian context – sounds Zappa-ish.” – and I have to agree, that was a nice one 🙂
That’s a cool lesson I think, it opens up all the possibilities you’ll have when starting to think that way – and it sounds great, like all of these modes do.
So thanks to David for a nice and understandable and enjoyable tutorial, and thanks to you for reading and viewing, as always.
Paul Thompson meant a combined Fender Rhodes and real piano sound overlaid over each other, but here he’s talking about the five great bass players on one of my favourite albums, Donald Fagen’s “The Nightfly”:
And the next one should be interesting for singers as well, because she’s a legend herself:
Now if you’re a bass player, do yourself a favour and go and transcribe these bass lines yourself if possible. And in case you’re a singer/songwriter/poet, have a look and listen to Joni Mitchell’s iconic album. Love them both.
YouTuber pdbass reports about one of his favourite bass lines, and he said it had two notes only. Of course there were a few more, but basically he’s right, it’s a perfect example of restraint making a song great. Watch and learn:
And here’s the complete official video from 1985. I was 28, and oh my how we were all melting away when hearing this:
So yes, if you can play just two note on the bass – ok, four if you don’t count the slappy parts – you might sound great. And it’s surely a good lesson in becoming groovy…
Over at Scott’s Bass Lessons, Ian Martin Allison has a nice series of until now 4 episodes, transcribing the greatest bass lines ever. And two of these first four weren’t even played on basses, can you imagine? But that is no reason and no excuse to not learn them. Here they are in ascending order:
Ian shows how to count *while* you play (very important to get some of these 16th syncopated notes), how to get the sound (including some gear), and he’s obviously having a lot of fun doing this. I think you’d have the greatest benefit if you’d transcribe songs like these yourself instead of taking their free pdf sheets, but you can have these as well if you like. People asked for some Joe Darts lines for instance, but really, a DIY approach would be even better.
Anyway, it was fun watching these. Good times indeed 🙂