Scales are among the most important tools in the toolbox of any musician, especially if that musician plays jazz. On the first day I went to jazz band, I worried about how I would fare in the context of a large band like that. Jazz is a very active kind of music. Jazz isn’t like rock and roll or pop, although it did represent the popular music of its time. Jazz requires an immense understanding of music in general, whether that be by feeling or by textbook knowledge. One has to be able to play the wrong notes correctly while also playing the correct notes in the right context. One of the easiest ways to do this is through scales. If I know the scale that a jazz chart generally follows, I don’t necessarily need to know the notes and I can follow however I feel the music should go. In jazz band, I play the bass guitar, and I had never played jazz before or even read music with the bass. I had played both the electric guitar and the bass guitar in bands previously, but neither of those required that I actually knew notes or understood music theory. As such, I walked into our first jazz rehearsal completely clueless. Never had I been in a band that required that I know the arpeggios of different chords. It’s worth mentioning that the bass guitar is not an instrument that is prone to soloing in a jazz band because its role is primarily to keep the rhythm of the band along with the piano. The bass can’t solo because whoever is soloing needs the rhythm that the bass provides. Yet, there was one time, during a song called “Blue Monk” by Thelonious Monk, that I got to solo. Mr. Felver called out my name. “What do I play?” I asked. “B flat blues scale!” Mr. Felver called out. These were words I recognized. Scales were the most important tools that I knew for soloing on a guitar, and a bass is just a guitar with only four strings. So, using the same tuning as a guitar, I was able to play the blues scale and say that I successfully played a blues solo in key. Word Count: 375
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James WilkinsI enjoy writing creative stories, but I find it refreshing to express my thoughts through blogs or journals. Archives
April 2024
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