Indiana - adding a bass line

Enhancing Your Music Interpretation

So once you've learned the melody of a tune, I'd recommend adding the roots of the chords as your first step in your journey through different ways of interpreting a lead sheet, like we did with "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Practicing "Indiana"

Let's play "Indiana" a little bit slower, perhaps, to give us time to play the roots of the chords while keeping the melody in the right hand.

• If the chord lasts a bar, you just play one note.
• If it lasts two bars, you play the root twice, on the first beat of each bar, but maybe in different octaves.
• If there are two chords in a bar, like in bar two, then you just play two roots, two beats each.

Let's try it.

Timing is Key

Work like that on the whole tune. Try to keep good time. You could do that with a metronome at different tempos until you get comfortable with the bass line.

Remember: The bass line or the root movement is the second most important thing in the tune, after the melody. It's even more important than actually knowing the chords, it's essential to be able to hear the root movement.

Introducing the Two-Feel Bass Line

We are now going to move on and do the same thing, but with a two feel left hand, which is the next level of bass line up.

• The first bar won't change because we've already got two notes in that bar.
• However, in the other bars, most of them, you'll have to put the fifth in as well as the root.

Generally:

• Play the root on the first beat and the fifth on the third beat.

Let's try that, and so on.

Versatility of Two-Feel Bass Lines

Two-feel bass lines are a very versatile and solid way of accompanying yourself, even when you're first reading a lead sheet.

• We've seen that they can be used in not only swing tunes, but also Latin tunes.
• Because everything's on the beat, it works in swing or straight quaver feels.

Thickening the Melody

The last thing we're going to do in this lesson is to add some extra notes in the right hand to thicken the melody. The way we played it before was a little bit thin because you were only playing single notes in each hand.

You can thicken the right hand without sacrificing the bass line if you add notes below the melody. Here are a few tips:

1. The melody note should be uppermost; the notes that you add will be below that.
2. Play with your third, fourth, and fifth fingers of the right hand on the melody, leaving your thumb and second finger free.
3. If the melody is the third of the chord, then add the seventh underneath, and vice versa. If the melody is the seventh, add the third underneath.

These are the most important notes of the chord. The fifth is kind of dispensable in many cases, and in any case you're going to have the fifth as part of the two-feel bass line.

In most bars, it's not necessary to harmonize every note. I'll give this a try this time with the same two-feel bass as before, but with some extra notes, sometimes just one extra note added in the right hand.

Final Practice

Try playing this example a few times at different tempos until you're comfortable with the fingering and the notes. Continue to practice for the complete tune as well.

In the next lesson, we'll try a different style of left hand shells.