Tag: bass

Tip #232 – Root-less Chords

By default, when you eliminate the root from being at the bottom of a chord, it becomes an inversion of itself.

This can become a useful tool when constructing a bass line by avoiding the root in order to give an unstable feeling or imply a different harmony.

So, now the question is, how does the bass move?

Before, we talked about the root of one chord harmony move to the root of the next. What does one do when it is either the third, sixth, or seventh in the bass.

Above anything else: experiment. However, it might be wise to connect similar notes or move stepwise. Meaning, if the third of one chord harmony is the same as the seventh of the next, keep on that note.

Play with these ideas and see how they can improve with building bass lines.

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Tip #105 – Weird Minor Chord Substitution

Here is another fun/interesting/odd/useful tip I learned from a professor:

Say you have these chord progressions below:

What you can do for minor chords acting as a ii, iii, or vi chord in the progression is replace them as a major chord one whole-step below while keeping the bass. So, the substitution would look like such:

Now, if we were to alter the progression from before – changing the minor chords functioning as a ii, iii, or vi – we would get these new progressions:

Some of them sound odd and funky. Personally, I preferably like the ii substitution better than iii and vi, but that is just my opinion. Feel free to try it yourself and see if it expands your harmonic pallet.

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Tip #36 – Two Different Kinds of Grounds

In music, a ground is a recurring motif found in the lowest voice possible. Here are two variations of grounds that you can use:

1- Ground motif, where the bass motif is repeated and varied with each reiteration to fit a harmonic or melodic structure.

2- Basso Ostinato, where the bass motif is repeated, but the voices above feature variation with each repeat.

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Tip #4 – Crafting Melody with Chord Inversions

In chord voice-leading, the bass note has the most flexibility on how/where to move. While there are some strong suggestions to keep bass motion at intervals small – like under a perfect-fourth – there is certainly more leeway for a bass not in a chord to make large intervallic leaps… as opposed to inner voices and melody, which should move stepwise.

Now, what if these roles were reversed? Given, jumpy upper voices in a chord can sound a bit out of place; however, having the bass line be crafted like a melody can yield cool results of a smooth transition from one chord to another.

Take a chord progression for example:

After deciding on a progression, my next piece of advice is to find common tones between the chords as well as adjected notes by at most a minor third (though M3 and P4 can work, too). Make a note of all the possibilities. From there, write a melody within the harmonic rhythm that is smooth and overall stepwise in motion. Then, let those be the root positions and/or inversions of the chords you previously chosen.

Rest is there for you from there on out on how to play around with the upper voices and melody, but now you have a melodic line in the bass that can be used as a motif a basis for variation.

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