Beginning Bass 17: Autumn Leaves, Part 3
Adding Scale Tones to the Chord Tones
By Roy Vogt
Bass Instructor, Belmont University 		Print This Lesson
Roy Even with clever rearrangement of the Chord Tones, just playing R-3-5-7 alone can become a little "vanilla" at times. In this study, I've added passing tones out of the scales.

Take a look at the notes below each measure and see what I've done. Each note will be notated as R-3-5-7 or S for scale tone. Notice how much smoother the line becomes by adding the scale tones. The amount of chord tones per bar drops, of course, but only a couple will do a good job of implying the chord tone.

Try adding this to the approach from the last lesson and you'll see how this changes the character of the walking line. In the next lesson, we'll complete our Autumn Leaves study by adding Chromatic Passing Tones to the bass line. Stay tuned!

Peace and Low Notes,
Roy C. Vogt
Nashville Bassist
Bass Instructor, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

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