It’s time for your solo on a B-flat blues, and you get confused, because the only way you know how to play over the form is to walk a bass line.
If you’re trying to figure out how to solo on upright bass, this is where I’d start. It’s not about bebop licks or two-fives yet. We’re going to start with a bass line, and we’re going to subtract from it.
The form is what trips bass players up
The main reason bass players have difficulty soloing is that they have trouble playing a form in a way that isn’t playing a bass line.
Think about what our job trains us to do. We’re required to play clear, consistent quarter notes. We’re required to play roots. We get used to never leaving any rests, and we’re not really allowed to stop until it’s our solo. Then the solo comes, and we’re so used to playing quarter notes over the form that we don’t know how to feel it any other way.
Here’s the thing about quarter notes. As hard as it is to play consistent quarter notes, they’re actually the easiest thing to do mentally. I can have a whole conversation and play a B-flat blues without really thinking about it. But if you asked me to solo and have a conversation, I couldn’t do it. Soloing requires another gear of focus, because you’re responsible for the rests and the notes.
I really believe this: 50% of our struggles with tunes like “All the Things You Are” are actually struggles with form. We know what an F minor 7 chord is. We know what to play over it. But are we prepared for that F minor 7 chord? Do we know exactly when it’s going to appear? Chances are the answer is no.
A two-feel is closer to soloing than walking
Believe it or not, it’s easier to walk a bass line than to play a two-feel. When you’re walking, you don’t have to be responsible for any rests. You keep track of the form with the notes you’re playing, and that’s easier. In a two-feel, you have to be completely responsible for the rests as well as the notes.
Soloing is a combination of the two. You’re keeping track of the notes and the rests. You’re keeping track of beat one and beat four. You kind of have to negotiate everything all at once, which is what makes soloing more difficult than playing a bass line.
A lot of bass players have a really good beat and a really good sound, and they can play really good quarter notes. Then you take away beat three, and they lose the beat and turn it around, because they’re not used to playing anything other than quarter notes or a very strict two-feel on one and three.
If you can’t do this, then the vocabulary you’re learning is totally meaningless, because how are you going to apply that vocabulary if the only way you can play over a form is to walk a bass line?
Cole Davis
How to play a subtracted bass line
So the way to start soloing is to subtract from your bass line before you add all the eighth notes. Play a very simple bass line on a B-flat blues. Then play it again with beats taken out, and keep the form going the whole time.
Maybe you play beats two and four. Maybe you play beats one and three. Then start mixing it up: start on beat four some of the time, and play some things over the bar line, where you’re not landing on beat one. That last part is essential to soloing.
If that’s too much at first, make it simpler. Play the root every single time and play beat one every single time, so it’s easier to follow along. Then take more rhythmic risk.
Once you start taking those risks, you’re close to what a lot of people call broken time. When you listen to certain recordings of, say, the Bill Evans Trio, it’s very hard to tell when they’re accompanying, when they’re soloing, or when they’re doing both. It sounds like everyone’s soloing at the same time, because that’s essentially what soloing is. You’re abandoning your role as the accompaniment and playing with the time.
A subtracted bass line already sounds less like a bass line. That could be the beginning of a solo, because you’re no longer providing the accompaniment. You also don’t have to copy my subtracted bass lines. They’re just there for reference. What matters is that you understand the concept and can come up with your own.
Try this today
- Walk a simple B-flat blues. Start with a very simple bass line in quarter notes.
- Subtract the easy way. Keep the root and beat one in every bar and leave other beats out. Don’t lose your place in the form.
- Move the notes around. Try playing beats two and four, then beats one and three.
- Take some rhythmic risk. Start some phrases on beat four and play across the bar line so you skip beat one now and then.
- Play the whole form. Don’t isolate two or four bars. Learning to solo is really about keeping the whole form in your head, so go all the way around the form every time.
Unaccompanied is fine. When you’re learning to solo, chances are you don’t have an on-demand rhythm section every time you practice, and learning to solo by yourself actually makes you a better soloist.
What comes after the subtracted bass line
Once you can feel the form without quarter notes, you start changing the notes. When you’re playing a bass line, your default is the root. When you’re playing a solo, you think first of thirds and sevenths, because those are the two most important notes that tell you what the chord is. You take those and play them with the same subtracted rhythms.
From there you get used to eighth notes, then you subtract from the eighth notes, then you swing them, and then you add the fifth and the ninth. The ninth isn’t a scary note. It’s the second note of the major scale you practice whenever you pick up your instrument. Vocabulary comes after all of that.
That’s the path in Jazz Soloing on Upright Bass: From the Beginning: you take a bass line, play it over the form, and chisel away at it until you get something that resembles a solo. When you’ve got that down, the next step is Intermediate Soloing and Improvisation Concepts for Upright Bass. And if you want to hear how busy a two-feel can get, check out what Paul Chambers plays on Freddie Freeloader.
Pick up the bass tonight, walk one chorus of a B-flat blues, and then take some notes away. That’s the beginning of a solo.
