Hi, it's Geoff here for Discover Double Bass.
We've got another video lesson for you today and we're going to be
looking at the "G Minor 6 Blues" that I just played then.
Now the backing track is available for free at
DiscoverDoubleBass.com and if you subscribe for free you also get the sheet
music for this lesson.
We're going to be looking at how you play the tune
and I'm also going to give you some other exercises to iron out some issues
of technique that surround this piece.
So let's get started and look at the "G Minor 6 Blues".
Now whenever I'm playing the new tune like this, I like to
look at the technical challenges it posses and I wrote this piece because I
though it would be nice to have something that looks shifting, something that
looks at maintaining hand shape and also something that helps practice
the neck heel.
If you've been following the following previous technique lessons, you'll
have seen that we cover all of these aspects in detail so it's nice to tie
up the things together.
What I like to do is just to give you a preparation exercise which is essentially a shifting exercise
which will help you to establish what the notes are in the scale.
The piece that we're playing is a "G Minor 6 Blues" and the key signature
is F major because G Dorian which is the scale that we're using is the
second mode of F major.
Don't worry if you don't understand it, but it just
means that you've got 1 flat in the key signature which is B flat.
Also just remember it's worth noting that minor 6 chords actually contain a
major 6 so G minor 6 contains, a G minor rift but with a major 6.
Let's have a look at a preparation exercise that
we can use to get our fingers moving in the right way.
I just like to do this simple shifting exercise.
What we're doing there is we're just getting used to playing the scale.
The pattern is the D followed by the A that you
move to the next note on that string, down string to the next note which
is an E natural, shift up, cross back to the first string, shift up, and continue
up, until we reach the G harmonic on our third finger and then we go
backwards.
And move back to the beginning.
This exercise is really good because it just prepares the hand by looking
at all the different shifts that we're going to be using.
I'll play that 1 more time here and if you need the sheet music
for this, it's available at DiscoverDoubleBass.com.
Have a look at that, it might help you just iron
our the problems before you start actually looking at the pace.
The blues starts on the note G and then we got a fifth immediately...
Let's have a look at the hand shape there.
I'm maintaining the correct hand shape, I can reference by using the harmonics
and then we shift in to the first position the neck heel.
So my neck heel is against my thumb, and it means that when I play the A
and the B flat which are the next two notes I'm quite confident that will
be in tune.
Then we move the hand back and chromatically from C, C sharp D
and then we go back to the first note and repeat.
Let me play that for you again a little bit slower.
G, D, E, E flat, and then C, C sharp D. Second time we do the same
start of the rift and then B flat and E, sliding down into a D. And then
the beginning, variation, and if you want to check your tuning make sure
you hit the harmonic when you go back there.
That whole two bars of sequence repeats, but there's a fill.
And this fill
is D harmonic just by [baring] the note there and then the B natural to the
G and that gives it a kind of dominant sounding sound.
D leads into the C minor, this is the same pattern and at this
point you cross back into the G.
Let's just step back a second and look at this C minor.
So I set it the same bar just to give you the notes C, G,
A, E flat, chromatic up to the G, and it's repeats it and then plays the D.
Let's just step back a bit and have a look at the notes for when we reach
the C minor part.
C, G, A, E flat, F sharp, F, F sharp, G, and then you do
it again but this time instead of the chromatic part you play D which leads
you back to the G. Maybe you want to check your tuning, okay.
Same rift again, then you go down the A minor 7 flat 5 scale or half
diminished if you prefer to call it that and it's A, G, F, E flat and I'm
sliding form the A and the G so the fingering is first on the A, little
finger on the G so I can slide, F, E flat, then we move onto D, C, and this
is over the dominant 7 part of the chord progression.
It's open D, C, B flat, D, B flat, A yeah.
So I just go back from the A half diminished.
The original rift, and here we're going to C, G, G sharp, A and then A,
C, C sharp, D, C, A, D. Sounds more complicated when you're spelling it out
one note at a time, as I said earlier don't forget the music for this is
available for free at DiscoverDoubleBass.com.
I'd like to just play it through for a final time so you can see what it
sounds like with the backing track.
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and if you want more free double bass lessons including the backing tracks
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