Ah, the lower harmonic structure. The essential pulse and heartbeat of American music. Is the bass line the groove originator? Does the bass line potentially anchor the rest of the musical elements in a song to the tonal spectrum of available aural colors? Could very well be eh? However one see's the importance of the bass line, the following ideas simply look at basic ways we create bass lines with basic 12 bar blues changes. Thinking musical style, this first chorus is pretty primative, and would be cool in a delta blues or 3 chord rock / blues format. Example 1( both midi files have all 12 bars ).
| C 7 | C 7 | C 7 | C 7 | F 7 | F 7 |
| C 7 | C 7 | G 7 | F 7 | C 7 | C 7 G 7 |
Easy enough eh? Hear the form? Got these sounds / pitches under your fingers? Could we use this line with minor chords as well? So cool in that by just hearing the bassline we can get a real sense of what kind of story the song will tell. As our ears get better at hearing and understanding the music, as more songs are learned and memorized, the bass line can become what it's name implies, the basis of the music and when properly crafted, will clearly define where the harmony of a song goes as well as place it with other compositions with similar characteristics, or as I think of it as "similar vehicles." Am I describing another one of those long term goals for the career musician? Yep. Back to the music? O.K.
In this next 12 bar blues chorus, we begin to slip in pitches that imply a more advanced harmonic scheme from our first example, using common cadential motions to set up the key points in the form. Example 2.
| C 7 | F 7 | C 7 | G-7 C 7 | F 7 | F# dim 7 |
| C 7 | A 7 | D - 7 | G 7 | C 7 | Bb 7 |
Sounding a bit jazzier? This next bass line continues to move along the direction of a gradually increasing complexity of the harmonic choices. Example 3.
| C 7 | F 7 | C 7 | F# 7 | F 7 | F - 7 |
| E - 7 A 7 | Eb -7 Ab 7 | D - 7 | G 7 | C7 Eb7 | Ab7 Db7 |
So, as we move from the folk and blues / rock combinations towards the jazz sounds we sense a gradually increasing complexity of the lines? Pretty much, although lest we forget that "anything can be anywhere in American music" right?
Want to continue exploration of the lower harmonic structure, i.e., the bass line? Pick a tonality, click and off ya go!
| blues realizations / major tonality |
| blues realizations / minor tonality |
"Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to perfect truth." Charles E. Ives