Thursday Theory To continue with the last theory posting on the pop-punk chord progression, I’ll talk about some of the variants. The I-V-vi-IV (Major 1, Major 5, minor 6, Major 4) chord progression does have a few notable variants changing it from the “pop-punk chord progression” to: The Sensative Female Chord Progression: This variant is vi-IV-I-V. A classic example is Joan Osbourne’s “One of Us”. Doo Wop Chord Progression: Obviously it predates the Pop Punk chord progression, but this chord progression is I-vi-IV-V. Just go raid your parents records if you don’t know doo wop and if you do know doo wop, kudos! Other Variants: There are some other variants. Some involve a different order of the progression, and some are just chordal substitution (which we’ll get too). IV-I-V-vi. A chord progression seen in Lady GaGa’s “Alejandro”, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”. V-vi-IV-I. Spice Girl’s “Wannabe”. The V is also replaced by these different chords: iii(minor 3 chord) [Jessie J’s “Price Tag”], III (Major 3 chord) chorus to “If We Ever Meet Again” [Timbaland ft. Katy Perry], IV (Black Eyed Pea’s “I Got A Feeling”]. And so on. But this chord progression is so very common you can hear it in other songs from the likes of Rob Thomas, Jason Aldean, U2, Taylor Swift, Linkin Park, anywhere! This chord progression is a derivative itself of the famous chord progression of I-vi-ii-V (ii=minor 2 chord), the most common chord progression in music. 

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Thursday Technique

Double stops and chords are (on the bass guitar) more confusing than it sounds. The term originates from the upright bass, and other stringed instruments with a curved bridge. With that curved bridge, being played with a bow, it makes it significantly difficult to play two strings at once with the bow. So double stops refer to playing two notes on different strings with one bow stroke. There are triple stops (three strings) and quadruple stops (four strings) which make it seem more like a chord. Now, on a bass guitar, our bridge is flat and we have an easier time playing more than one note. So, in theory, when we play more than one note at a time, we are playing double stops rather than chords, even though we are playing power chords, and in some cases, major/minor/diminished/augmented chords (that enters into the realm of triple, quadruple, pentuple and so on and so forth stops). Like I said, it’s confusing. But look at it this way! Basslines are more defined by playing one string at a time, so when you throw in a 2 or 3 or 4 note chord, you’re playing a double, triple and quadruple stop instead of a chord.

    Wednesday Technique

Counting is an ever important technique for any musician. There are plenty of times when it’s easy to count out a piece, but more times than you’d think, it’s tough to count and count out a fairly difficult passage.

I’ve not talking about shifting from 11/8 to 16/32, we’re going to look at delaying the start of a musical passage.

This example is lifted from the June 2005 issue of the now defunct Guitar World’s Bass Guitar magazine. You’re playing a series of dominant 7 arpeggio’s (so the root, 3^rd, 5^th, and minor 7^th) but you’re playing the arpeggio’s as triplets.

This is where it gets complicated. Triplets are three notes to a given beat, but the dominant 7 arpeggio’s have 4 notes. Your ascending arpeggio is going to end on the downbeat of 2 and your descending arpeggio is going to start on the “&” of beat 2. This means that the further into the series of arpeggio’s you go, the more delayed the start of your next arpeggio is going to get.

This messes with you head more than you would think.

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 Tuesday Profile

Sublime is one of the big indie ska punk bands of the 90’s. Formed by bassist Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh as exclusively a punk band, Bradley Nowell joined the band in 1988 introducing the band to Reggae and Ska music. So, what would a band of kids who were still around the age of high school seniors with the case of Nowell dropping out of college do with a wide palate of musical influences? Play everything!

The first gig the band ever played was on the fourth of July and it resulted in the arrests of 7 people after a riot formed. This worked against the band, not to mention there wasn’t a clear way for a venue to market the band, so Sublime created Skunk records with the intention of being taken a little more seriously at venues, and it worked!

But when the band started to pick up steam, including the success of 40 Oz. to Freedom, the typical debauchery for young kids getting big to fast happened. Drugs, drinking, unruly behavior, the band got KICKED OFF as co-headliners from the inaugural Van’s Warped Tour for all this shit! And Nowell became hooked to heroine, ultimately resulting in his death shortly before the release of their third and final album.

Musically, the band was ALL OVER THE PLACE! Just listen to any album, it goes from the Caribbean influences of Ska and Reggae, hip hop, punk rock, ska punk, rap, and (in the case of “What I’ve Got”) acoustic rock. With ska punk being an omega fusion style, Sublime in and of itself is a musical fusion genre of itself!

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    Wednesday Technique… on Saturday

The second part about sweeping that is the more difficult aspect is the coordination between your right and left hand. To paraphrase from a sweep video with instructor Herman Li of Dragonforce, this is what you need to know about sweeping:

Sweeping is like playing an arppegio (that’s why I use chordal arpeggio shapes in sweeps) but instead of playing all the notes and letting them ring out (listen to the 3 Doors Down single “Kryptonite”) you need to abbreviate and choke the note so that it plays really REALLY short. You also need to keep your movement in one specific direction.

So lets look at the two hands:

Your left hand needs to keep the notes short. Either choke them with your left and right hand combined or some variation of just one hand or the other. When the note is struck, I tend to lift the finger immediately off the string while not using my non fretting fingers to choke that string out!

Your right hand needs to execute the sweep in one direction. If you’re using your fingers, use one finger or the other to achieve the sweep. Going down (from higher string to lower string) I use my index finger, and going up I use my thumb.

There are millions of different sweep videos and lessons for bass out there on the giant interwebs, but this is the closest things I’ve seen to executing guitar sweeps on the bass. Try it for four strings, 5 strings, whatever type of bass you have. But again, start SLOW!

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 Tuesday Profile

Rancid is considered one of the leading bands who helped revive interest in punk rock music in the beginning of the 90’s along with Green Day and the Offspring. But unlike either of those bands, Rancid kept more true to a certain punk rock mentality wherein they didn’t sign to a major label, and kept most of their underground following (probably as a result of that).

Formed from the ashes of one of the most influential cult ska-punk bands Operation Ivy (featuring current Rancid guitarist/vocalist Tim Armstrong and bass GOD Matt Freeman), Rancid was formed as a way for Armstrong to combat his alcoholism. Truthfully, shortly before the band broke out big, Billie Joe Armstrong (that guy from Green Day) was asked to join Rancid after he helped to pen the song “Radio”. But Lars Fredrickson would join the band cementing the future of the band.

…And Out Come the Wolves is considered to be the bands most financially successful record to date. Elements of their ska/reggae roots can be found on cuts “Time Bomb” and “Roots Radical”, with the BILSTERING bass solo from Freeman on “Maxwell Murder”. I say, if you haven’t checked that album out DO IT!

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 Tuesday Profile

Apologies for the brief and unplanned break from doing these posts. But we’re back!

Bad Brains are (as I mentioned) one of the bigger names in the hardcore punk movement, largely considered to be one of the pioneers of the genre, and was a band that consisted entirely of black men.

Originally started as a fusion band, the band became a big hit in D.C. (where they started) mainly because of the fact that they were one of if not the only all black band in a predominantly white music scene, and the fact that they had more undeniable musical talent than most of the other bands in the genre. They ended up moving to New York City due to an unofficial ban.

What help set the band apart was that the band had experimented and showcased more rhythmic diversity than other hardcore bands whilst also incorporating solos into their music. They started to delve off and showcase reggae, hip-hop, heavy metal and soul music into their later recordings, once again separating themselves from the rest of the pack.

Like most hardcore punk bands though, they had a lot of problems keeping a solid lineup together. They went through a ton of singers and eventually broke up in 1995, which is impressive because many punks bands that reach the kind of success that Bad Brains achieved dissolve much faster. They have reunited and since played more reunion shows.

One of the most well known acts that were directly influenced by Bad Brains is the band Faith No More.

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    Wednesday Technique.

Sweeping is an overtly obnoxious yet at the same time awesome technique that has been abused by guitars for years. Bassists are now just starting to catch up to the six string menace (joke) and incorporate sweeps of our own. But there are just so many damn interpretations on how to do it that it can get really freaking confusing.

Well, you’re paying attention to what I have to say so I’m going to put my own spin on things. My way of doing the sweep borrows heavily from all the sweeping technique video’s/article’s I’ve read for guitarists over the years. But first and foremost we’re going to start off with step one of the two part step: patterns.

Sweeps are block patterns that are laid out for the ease of the individual musician that are repeated until the desired speed and sound is achieved. I like my sweeps to be as melodic as possible (the notes have a clear harmonic sense) but there is something to be said for the dissonance (really just a cluster of notes that harmonically don’t really ad up to much, but sound cool).

So I’ll show you something easy first, it’s sweeping based off of a chord. We’ll use a 7^th chord (a chord using 3 notes instead of three). And we’ll start with the Cm7th chord. A Cm7th is a C minor triad with a minor seventh. Reverting back to our theory we know that:

A C minor triad is spelled C, Eb, and G.

A major seventh in the key of C major is B natural. Lowering it one half step would make it minor, so a minor 7^th related to the note C is Bb.

You can create a pattern that starts each sweep playing each individual note across all 4 strings (if you have more, than use more) but I’ll show you how to do it across the G, D, and A strings. My patterns consist of two different triads. The first triad (a three note chord) is G, Eb, and Bb, which can be spelled out as a EbMajor chord. The second triad is a C minor triad. Why do I do it like this? Well, when I move from one triad to the next (I start with the Eb triad and move to the Cm triad), the joined triads together create a musical phrase that spells out and sounds the Cm7 chord.

Try coming up with your own patterns and next week we’ll look at the right hand technique. Always I am available for lessons.

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            Thursday Theory

The Motive (pronounced Mo-tive or Mot-teef) is essentially a riff in rock/metal music. It’s defined as a relatively short musical idea that “functions as a cell or basic unit from which phrases and larger structural units are constructed”. What does that mean? This was lifted after all rom the text book I used for Music Theory I and II in college.

The absolutely best way to hear a motive in action, is to go back and listen to some classical music. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in his infamous 9^th symphony. You know the main melody, and you’ll hear me sing it in the video accompaniment. But the main melody of that song is defined by it’s melody and rhythm. If you hear the intro to Derek and the Dominoes “Layla”, that intro right up to the first verse, is an example of another motive. You have the main riff played, and then the harmony played over the main riff. That’s an example of a motive.

So how can you create your own motive? Find a musical passage that doesn’t really need a strong harmonic structure, but find a series of notes and find an interesting rhythm that accompanies that series of notes. If you can find a way to keep that grouping of notes in that rhythm, and pop it up all over the course of the song you’re writing/covering, you just played/created a motive.

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    Wednesday Technique.

Ghost notes are a simple, percussive element to add to your playing that millions of players have been utilizing for decades.

The difference between a ghost note and a muted note is not that hard to understand. The Ghost note is muted by the left hand. When you’re fretting a note, you hold down the string firm enough that you don’t create a harmonic, but light enough that you don’t sound the damn note. If you look in music notation/tablature, it’s that “x” that appears from time to time.

A muted note (at least on the bass guitar) is a note that you rest your plucking hand in such a way that you muffle the string so that it doesn’t ring out as loud or as long. The video (while on the upright) should help clarify.