![]() When both of these ways of playing are combined it sounds really cool. I think you’ll find this solo technically challenging while at the same time it will begin to open up your ears to the sound of mixing straight modal playing with highly chromatic passages. This is especially true if you play a 5 or 6 string bass with a high C string. Many of McLaughlin’s lines lay very comfortably on the bass fingerboard because of the similarity between the guitar and the bass guitar. Pick out the lines you really like and hear, and then begin to add them to your own melodic vocabulary. It’s not so important that you play this solo rhythmically perfect but rather that you discover the different melodic shapes and note patterns that are in this solo. Suffice to say that the master improviser (in this case guitarist John McLaughlin) incorporates several different melodic devices, scales, intervals, modes, and chromatic passing notes to get the widest array of colors available to him or her. I will cover the Melodic Minor Scale in more detail in future columns. This adds a different color so to speak to both minor chords. McLaughlin makes liberal use of both chromaticism and also of the Melodic Minor Scale in which the 7th degree of the scale is major. *For the Eb-7 the Dorian Scale looks like this:Īlthough the default scale for the chords in this tune is the Dorian Scale, John McLaughlin’s solo is by no means completely relegated to using just the Dorian Scale. *So for the D-7 the Dorian Scale looks like this: The default scale/mode used to improvise over both these minor chords, is the Dorian Mode. The form is 16 bars of D-7 followed by a bridge section of Ebmin7 for 8 bars, and finally 8 more bars of D-7 again at which point the form repeats. I think you’ll like what you hear.John Coltrane’s seminal modal jazz composition ‘Impressions’ is as challenging as anything he composed even though it only has two chords in it. So the next time you come across a II-7 V7 or a sus4 chord, try uncorking some of the lines in this solo. You can really mine this solo for new ideas that you can add to your regular bag of licks and because the lines lay so nicely on the fingerboard you can work those ideas up in speed as well. The goal of learning this solo on the bass is not to exactly match the register the guitar is in but rather to give you some new ways of moving your fingers when playing through chords. Don’t worry too much about the “8va” sections. That shouldn’t be too surprising considering we share 4 of the same strings with the guitar and McLaughlin’s lines really make you notice that. recorded many solo albums throughout the 70’s and 80’s including his classic School Days and the album this transcription is from Journey To Love. I play a 6 string bass but whether you play 6 or a 5 or a 4 string, you will notice right away when you begin to play through the solo just how “comfortable” and “guitaristic” the notes lay on the fingerboard. Before Victor Wooten, before Marcus Miller, and yes before Flea, there was one god of the funk bass and that was Stanley Clarke. The second reason I chose this particular solo is because of the way McLaughlin’s solo lines actually lay on the neck. That said, McLaughlin mixes in other stuff like chromatic notes and pentatonic scales but for the most part his choice of notes is very “inside” and that is a good thing. All the minor 7th chords are treated with the Dorian Mode as the default scale. Later on in the song you’ll see an F/G which can also be written as G7sus4 and it too takes a G Mixolysian mode. You can still play a regular D Mixolydian mode over it no problem. Again it’s just a dominant 7th chord except the 3rd (F#) is taken out and replaced by the 4th (G). C/D can also be thought of or written as D7sus4. ![]() That’s followed by an Emi7 to A13 to C/D. ![]() ![]() It’s a basic dominant 7th chord and takes the E Mixolydian mode. It begins with an E13 chord which is just an E7 with the 13th (C#) in it. First, the chord progression is very simple and repetitive. ![]() I chose this solo for a couple of reasons. ![]()
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