A Blues Bass Line

The best thing about a jazz swing bass line is it does 2 things. The first is it is supposed to outline the chord changes very clearly. The second is in it's main function it insists on being played on each beat. A great way to study chords and improvisation is to play bass lines.

This doesn't have to be strict for our purposes. By this I mean you don't have to stick to the low end of your instrument. If you're not a bass player just play quarter notes and outline the chords. Below is an example of a simple blues bass line.

The exercise is also simple (in theory!). Memorize the bass line and play it in all 12 keys. Why? To develop your ears in hearing the blues, hearing your way through soloing and forcing you to play a note on each beat.

When you've played this blues bass line in all keys and have studied it thoroughly, work on your own blues bass lines. Write some out and most importantly improvise some... in all keys.

Things to notice in the blues bass line are how everything works by circling around the chord tones, using scale passing tones and neighbor passing tones.

爵士樂中的Bass line有兩個重要的功能，第一個就是能大致勾勒出和弦的進行 ，第二個是總會穩固的彈奏在每一拍上。所以學習如何演奏Bass line是一個幫助了解和弦以及即興很好的方式。

當你在自己的樂器上演奏時，不需要侷限在樂器的低音處。如果你不是Bass手，你只需要用四分音符的節奏去演奏和弦的輪廓音（也就是和弦音，例如：根音、三音、五音、七音）。

這個練習如何練呢？請先熟記這個特定的Bass line，然後轉到12個調裡。這樣你的耳朵可以熟悉這個聲音，藍調（Blues）的聲音，並且強迫自己每一拍（每一個四分音符）都要演奏。

當你把這個指定的Bass line練得滾瓜爛熟後，你可以開始創造你自己的bass line。
在練習時要注意，每一個音都是圍繞著和弦音（Chord tones），或是用到音階中的音(scale passing tone)以及鄰近的經過音(neighbor passing tones)。