Chords for How to Practice James Jamerson's Chromatic BASS Exercise!

[A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [Dm] _ _ [C] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ In the legendary [N] bass book Standing in the Shadows of Motown, there's an exercise that
James Jamison created for his students to help them understand his chromatic approach
to playing bass.
Today I'm going to break this exercise down and show you how to practice it.
So with that in mind, grab your bass and let's get started.
The book Standing in the Shadows of Motown chronicles the life and music of the legendary
Motown bassist James Jamison.
If for some weird reason you've been living under a rock for the last 25 years and don't
have this book, then I suggest you go out immediately and buy this book today.
It's loaded with a bunch of Jamison transcriptions from the Motown era and it also contains a
cool etude that we're going to look at today called Igor's Chromatic Exercise.
The etude shown in this book is only written out in 6 keys, but the notes in the book suggest
that it should be played in all 12 keys.
There aren't any chord changes notated either, so I'm going to go through that as well with
you as we break this down.
I'm going to go ahead and play this as it appears in the book in 6 keys, and then I'm
going to come back and show you a great way to practice this. _ _
[F] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [B] _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Dm] _ [F] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Fm] _ _ _
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
[G] _ [Db] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _
_ [Db] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _
[B] _ [Db] _ _ [N] Here's some important performance notes to pay attention to when going through this etude.
This 4 bar line consists of swing 8th notes that outlines either a dominant 7th or a major 7th chord.
In bar 3, the last 2 beats differ from the key of C compared to the rest of the keys.
In the key of C, Jamison pedals off the 13th, where in the other keys he pedals off the 5th.
The line in C starts in the 2nd position and then traverses down to the 1st position where
the rest of the exercise stays in 1st position.
Also notice the pitch in the last 8th note in bar 1 repeats itself in the first 8th note
in bar 2 for every key.
We break down the essence of this pattern.
The whole thing is based on the way that Jamison loved using pedal points as a method to house
chromatic approach note combinations, most notably in this exercise, the double chromatic
approach from below.
So if we take a look at the first part of this exercise, what he's basically using is
a C triad and then inserting double chromatic approach notes from below into the 5th and the root.
And he's also doing this while pedaling off of the 5th and the root.
So it goes [C] like this.
[G] _ _
_ _ _ _ Notice [Gb] this _
[G] is the double chromatic into the 5th and the rest of the notes around [Em] it is
[G] the triad.
So he does the same thing from the 5th going back up to the root.
[Am] _ _ _
[G] _ [C] _ _ So this is a really unique way that Jamison used to kind of sneak these double chromatics
in around these pedals and it had a really cool effect.
The next section is made up from a major triad.
_ _ [G] _ _
[N] Then this is followed up with a double chromatic from below while pedaling on the 13th.
[F] _ _ _ [A] _ _
[B] And then this is followed up by a 5 root 13 double chromatic from below back to the root.
[C] _ _ _
[B] _ [C] _ _ [N] Okay, now you go practice.
Okay, so a really cool way to practice this is after you've played through five keys is
just start taking the fingerings up one half step.
So instead of playing the key of D flat in position like I did earlier, I'm going to
play that same fingering that I did in C.
The fingering in C was this.
_ [F] _ _ _
[C] _ [Bb] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [C] _ So if I do that in D flat now I get this.
_ [Gb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Db] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
[B] _ [Db] _ And what's cool about that is it creates a little bit of tension with the melodic content
because he's going up the octave and then down two octaves to get that low F there.
And then you apply that same principle to the rest [C] of the keys.
So what I played in the key of F, I move up to F sharp.
What I played in B flat, I move up to B.
What I played in E flat, I move up to E, etc.
And it just keeps moving up.
So then by the time you get around the next five keys, you'll go to D.
So then I'll bring that up here.
_ _ [A] _ _ _
[C] _ [D] _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ [B] And then for G, I just played the same fingering that I did for F and F sharp.
So what's really cool about this concept is that you're keeping positional integrity,
but you're doing so in an organized way through all 12 keys.
And what you'll come to realize is there's really only five different fingerings that
make up everything in 12 keys.
This etude is a cool exercise that you could use for a warm-up drill while at the same
time learning to understand melody, rhythm, and harmony, not to mention positional integrity
on the fingerboard.
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_ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ [Dm] _ [C] _ _