About Playing With A Background Options

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I wrote a mail to Bogdan and he asked me to post it for the others so here it is :

Hi Bogdan

This is Antoine (if you remember a little wink.gif).

I am sorry to bother you again with a thing I already post : https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...mp;#entry281446

I still try to improvise with Band in a Box and I can not do that. I have watched some tutorial videos on pngmusic.com but I can't find good music to play on, I am looking for rock music that sound pretty good.

My real question is : I can't just improvise with a background music. I put some chords (or predefined song) and I try to play arpeggios, and notes on the scale of the chord with a low tempo etc.. But I have no good results, it just sound pretty weird...

I really want to work on my bass play and I am completely stuck when I try to play by my own with music in background (I want to apply your lessons on arpeggios etc).

Can you help a little please if it doesn't bother ? If you have precise example of music on band in a box to play on, it will be helpful too.

Thanks a lot for your lessons Bogdan,
Good evening

Antoine

Here is the answer of Bogdan (to avoid him to repeat it on the forum) :

Hello Antoine,

When it comes to improvising (with a help of band in a box) here are some advices:
Setup the Band in box to play a progression (any one you like) and TURN OFF the bass in the player.
If you know your arpeggios you are in a good position since all those notes will be your strong notes.They are "Strong" because they are the exact notes included in chords played in backing.Of course you need to match backing chords with appropriate arpeggios.Now to the improvising part.You want to listen to the drum beat of the track..Just take a good listen and analyze it a bit.You want to hear especially when the kick drum plays in order to get in the "groove"..Next I want you to start playing just root notes on bass drum kicks..You will see that you already have a basic bass groove going on by just doing that..Next you should go on to improvising and I by that I mean playing in between the bass drum kicks (you want to have roots on those kicks) and in between you should play around with the arpeggios notes for example.Try to make up simple yet melodic lines using the arpeggios (or appropriate scale) note choice.You want to still play roots on a bass drum beats in order to have a good grooving track..(this is not a general rule of course but its best to keep it that way when practicing).So you will basically end up with groove-phrase-groove-phrase-groove-phrase...structure.
Next is the second place to lay an improvisation and that is usually in the 4th measure in 4/4 music, you know the place when drummer goes in and does a Fill in.That is the place where you can do a sort of "turnaround" to go with the drummers FILL.At that point you can stop playing roots and just go for a longer phrase utilizing notes you know match the chord in backing (arpeggios, scale)...Ideally you can start that long phrase on a root note and end up somewhere near the next chord's root note so there is a nice and smooth transition between that phrase and going back to playing root note of the next chord.

Its all about experimenting and it takes some time to learn how to jam so don't feel discouraged and take it slowly..As you develop your bass playing you will start getting better and more interesting ideas for your bass lines improvisation.

Also I recommend my "Walking Bass Concept" series..They are all about improvising on bass and walking bass is one of most fun lines we get to play as bass players.

Cheers,

Bogdan

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