R & B bass lines have a lineage that passes through many genres, including blues, folk, ragtime, boogie-woogie, Dixieland, swing, and even marching band music. R & B bass parts borrow generously from those developed on piano, upright bass, and tuba. However, with the advent of the electric bass, and electronic music in general, the bass has also grown more modern and cutting edge. Before funk and rock existed, R & B bass was closely related to blues itself. At that time, bass lines were typically centered around the root of the chord, usually played on beat one. This was followed by thirds, fifths, sixths, dominant sevenths, and even seconds on beats two through four. The walking bass line (with the quarter-note pulse) comprised the basic rhythmical feel in old- school R & B. This type of bass line also inspired much of early rock-and-roll, which, for all intents and purposes, was merely a hyped-up form of R & B. Figure 9-1 illustrates a typical pattern that might be used. Figure 9-1. R & B walking bass line
The major pentatonic scale is the basis for a wide variety of bass lines. Composed of five different notes (the prefix penta means five), the major pentatonic is used extensively in contemporary pop, R & B, funk, soul, and other styles. Its origin, however, is extremely primitive. Many ancient and ethnic forms of music use the pentatonic scale (as does blues) as the basis for the melody and is one of the most universal scales of all time. There are two main types of pentatonic scales: major and minor. Each major pentatonic has a relative minor. The relative minor pentatonic contains the same notes as its major counterpart. Relative minor pentatonics are found a minor third below (or a major sixth above) the given major pentatonic. The most common type of major pentatonic uses a tonic, a major second, a major third, a perfect fifth, and a major sixth. You should familiarize yourself with all the possible positions and configurations for this scale. You will learn more about minor pentatonics later on in this chapter. For now, Figure 9-2 shows you three typical positions for A major pentatonic. All three examples use a closed position. This simply means that there are no open strings. Closed position is beneficial because it is moveable up and down the fretboard. In Figure 9-2, the first and last notes are tonic pitches. If chord changes were present, the tonic would correlate to the root of the chord (in this case, A). The major pentatonic can typically be used on any major chord in R & B. In order to compose a bass line, notes are often pulled from this scale, sometimes in some combination with other scales or musical devices. Every time the chord shifts, the corresponding major pentatonic may shift too. Figure 9-3 shows how you can use three pieces of three major pentatonic scales. On each chord, the pentatonic shifts to correspond with the chord. You should try composing (or improvising) your own bass lines using these three scales. In order to do this, play the root of each scale on beat one and a segment of the appropriate scale on beats two, three, and four. This assumes you're playing in 4/4 time. In Chapter 7 you learned that the dominant seventh interval technically called a minor seventh is a special chord extension. Harmonically, it captures the essence of the blues like no other extension. As you can imagine, the dominant seventh is also an essential element in R & B. When you combine the dominant seventh with the major pentatonic, you have even more good options. Some of these options are shown in Figure 9-4. Here you will play the same chord changes as Figure 9-3 but with a new bass line; the bass line used inFigure 9-4 always incorporates the dominant seventh. Figure 9-2. A Major pentatonic in three positions
Figure 9-3. Major pentatonics on three chords
Figure 9-4. Expanding your use of major pentatonics