The Harmonious Blacksmith: A Music Theory Exploration

Ep. 19 : Music Theory - Bass Lines - Part 2

• Kevin Patrick Fleming • Season 2 • Episode 19

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🎙 Episode 19: Bass Lines – Part 2 dives deeper into the world of bass lines—exploring their theoretical foundation, historical evolution, and critical role in shaping musical harmony and rhythm. Whether you're a music theory student, composer, musician, or just obsessed with what makes music tick, this episode offers a comprehensive look at how bass lines anchor chord progressions.

THEORY TERMS that are relevant to this episode: Melody, Harmony, Chromatics, Scales, Chords, Triads, Chord Progressions, Walking Bass Lines, Root Note, Chord Inversions, Melodic Bass Line, SATB, 4-part compositions, Arpeggios, Keys, and I-IV-V Progressions.

Perfect for music education, this episode is packed with practical insights and historical context, giving listeners tools to better understand and write stronger bass lines.

Tune in to enrich your knowledge of music composition, expand your understanding of tonal harmony, and discover why the bass is one of the most underrated forces in music.

#musictheory #musictheorypodcast #musiccommentary #musichistory

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UNKNOWN:

So,

SPEAKER_02:

Greetings and salutations to all my fellow music theory lovers out there. The guitar track that you just heard me perform at the beginning is an excerpt from a piece titled Libra Sonatine by the late great French composer Roland Dienz. It is a three-movement sonatina, and this is an excerpt from the third movement titled Fuoco. Roland Dienz was born in Tunisia in 1955 and he died in 2016. He was the guitar composer and instructor at the Paris Conservatory. He had a storied concert career. He composed incredible music for the modern guitar player, as you just heard. And he was really a nice guy. To share a short story, I had the pleasure of meeting Roland Dienz. after he performed an incredible concert in downtown Atlanta Georgia and I got to meet him right after his concert was over and have a brief conversation with him and I felt like I was just talking to another guitar student at university which is what I was at the time he was so down to earth so very cool it's always great to meet one of your heroes and he is definitely one of mine and it didn't disappoint we got to talk about a Giuliani piece I was working on and how hard the thumb stuff was because he had performed it that night. He just talked about it like we were students playing together. What's really cool about his concert, if you know anything about classical music concerts and classical guitar concerts, they tend to have programs that are very meticulously followed when you perform. Roland Jens was a very interesting character because you would show up at the concert, open the program, and there was nothing in it. Nothing as far as a listing of music that you were going here that night which is very rare and very strange as it turns out he would come out and the very first thing he would do is just do a full-blown improvisation for about five to ten minutes and it was his way of feeling out the performance hall feeling out the room and then he would decide what he was going to play from there so when he played the second piece based on the audience response he would continue to tailor his entire program around what the audience thought of the pieces he played and he did a lot of improvisation and I can't emphasize that enough I think there's a stigma with classical musicians that they only play notes that are on a page but classical musicians improvise with the best jazz blues rock musicians you can think of they really can and this guy was living and walking proof of it and again I just had the joy of meeting one of the heroes of my lifetime the late great Roland de the end. Rest in peace, sir. Welcome back to The Harmonious Blacksmith, a music theory exploration. This is episode 19. It is all about bass lines, and this is part two of bass lines. I am your host, Kevin Patrick Fleming. Hey, too kind, too kind. I appreciate you. I very much appreciate you. Thank you so much. So we now embark upon part two of our two part series about. Bass! Bass! Basslines! Basslines are so fun, and I'm just so happy you're joining me with them. Let's talk about a few of the things that are going to come up today terminology-wise. First of all, you already know basslines. We're going to talk about what bass range is. We're going to talk about SATB, that's Soprano Alto Tenor Bass, as far as different ranges of a four-part chorale or four-part type of writing system. We're going to talk about melody. We're going to talk about harmony chords. chord progressions, triads, and we might even talk briefly about modes and chromaticism. So let's start by recalling just what a bass line is, right? A bass line is a series of connected melodic notes that also play the lowest note in the range of music, and generally they play notes that outline the chord progressions that we're playing. Most of the time, bass lines are going to include a lot of your big root notes of your chords, okay? But not always. As we learned from last episode, you can flip the chords in what we call chord inversions, right? And I'm going to get to audio examples real quick here in a second. So let's just start with the most basic example possible. So let's say I'm in the key of G. And I'm just playing a 1-4-5 progression. So I have a G, which is a I chord. Then I have a C, which is a IV chord. And then D, which is a V chord. And then I'm back to I.

UNKNOWN:

you

SPEAKER_02:

The prototypical chord progression, as we know it, one, four, five in a major key. So the most basic baseline comes from where? Just think in your mind, well, where does the baseline come from? In this case, I'm going to pick root notes. Your bass note on a G chord will be that lowest root G. Okay, so my first bass note will be G. Then as you can imagine, when I go to C, I'm going to take my lowest root note C And then when I go to D, I'm going to take my lowest root note D. And then I'm back to G again. If I wanted to play the most basic and effective bass line of root notes in the key of G, it would sound like this.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_02:

Pretty plain and simple.

SPEAKER_00:

But Kevin, come on man. That ain't no bass guitar. That ain't no funky bass line.

SPEAKER_02:

That's true. I was playing low bass notes on a guitar, but it's important to distinguish between what a bass line is and bass range. We talked about this in part one, which is bass range is a specific set of notes in a really low range that basses sing or play, as opposed to a bass line, which is really just the lowest connective part in any composition. In some of my spare time, I do solo finger style guitar versions of famous tunes. And recently I had the pleasure of doing Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, a great 80s classic. And 100% of the reason that I did this song is because when I heard it again, the bass line and the chorus absolutely captivated me. It caught my ear. I couldn't stop hearing it. And I was like, I gotta do that piece. So let me break it down for you. So my version of Time After Time is in the key of C major. C is one, F is four, and G is five, right? And in this part of it, we're also going to get a minor six chord, the A minor. So we have a four chord progression here for a classic pop tune. Now here's the part that got me in the chorus. So the chorus starts on the five chord, and the bass does what you expect it to do. It plays a root note G. The next chord we're going to go to is going to be the sixth chord. And it does go to the root note A, but it does something fabulously creative after that. So let me play for you first what it sounds like. So we start on the G, and then we go to the A minor. F, G, C. I'll do that one more time. So we're on a G chord, and then we're going to go to an A minor chord. F, G, C. And you can tell it resolves at the end, right? That's always nice. So again, that bass line starts on a G, and then it goes to an A. But what's it doing here? Then it goes to an F, then a G, then a C. Wow, that's really cool. So let's break it down. So on the 5 chord, we have a root note G. When we go to the 6 chord, what in the world was going on there? It goes from the root note to the 3rd, to the 5th, to the octave, and back down again to the 5th, to the 3rd, to the root. And then it connects that to the 4 chord, and then to the 5 chord. And then we resolve to the root on C. So the full bass line for Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper with a repeat would sound like this.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_02:

So who out there is feeling confident enough that they can describe in music theory terms what is going on there on that six chord? Any of you? Well, Kevin, I think I

SPEAKER_00:

got this. That there sounds like a scale-like riff or something like that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02:

Incorrect. Good guess. But no go. Anybody else? Well, Kevin, I think it is a chord that it comes from. Yeah, that's also incorrect. I will give you partial credit for calling it a chord. It does come from a chord, but how do we really describe it in detail? It turns out it is an arpeggio. Recall what an arpeggio is, which is a chord or triad broken into its individual components. So Instead of playing the entire A minor chord, you can play it any way you want. Right? You can play it like that, but you can also play it like this bass line plays it. And that is another way that you hear arpeggio style. So this is like a melodic arpeggio style. So again, it's based on the A minor chord. You get the root of the A minor chord, then it goes to the third, then the fifth, then the octave. So that is an arpeggio. It's also based on a triad. And remember, triads are the most basic form of chords. Remember, a chord requires three notes. A triad is only three notes. Triads are the basis of all other chords, being built on top of them, basically. So in this case, they're just using the basic triad. One, three, five, octave. And then back down again. Five, three, one. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed that. Let's go ahead and move on to example number two of our bass lines today. And I'm going to do a continuation of a song that I was breaking down in the last episode, Blackbird by the Beatles, written mostly by Paul McCartney, who of course was the bass player in the Beatles, period. So it's not going to surprise you that the bass line in Blackbird is super cool and slinky. Now, I will warn you, it's a lot more advanced than what I was breaking down before. So I'm just going to break down this one really cool part that rises and falls in the verse. Let me play it for you first, and then we're going to break it down. It goes like this. The bass line of that part just goes like this. This was, of course, a longer excerpt, but a much different baseline, right? Which is why I wanted to use this example in juxtaposition with the previous, just to give you a comparison. So, is anybody out there brave enough to answer what is going on with that baseline in terms of music theory?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Kevin, I'm gonna have to guess that it's a scale-like bass line again. That's what it sounds like to me.

SPEAKER_02:

That is correct. It is a scale-like bass line. But it's a specific type of scale. Can you name what type of scale it is? Well, sounds like a happy major to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is based on a... Chromatic scale. Do you remember what chromatic means? Here's the reminder. Chroma, the root of chromatic, in Latin means color. or colors, kind of like a chroma key that is used for videography. So chromatic in music means all the colors in the spectrum of music. So in the case of our Western system, that is gonna be all 12 half steps. So a chromatic scale is gonna include every single pitch in our system in a row and would sound like this. So now that you recall what chromaticism is, back to our Beatles example, and let's break it down with the chords. Blackbird is in the key of G. So our I, IV, V is going to be G, C, and D, of course, and those chords are going to come and go. So this particular part starts on IV chord C. And then the chromaticism starts here. This particular part starts on the four chord C. And then the chromaticism starts from there. So we go from C in the bass line. We go from C to C sharp on this chord, which is a diminished chord that is used to create this chromaticism. Look, if you haven't gotten that advanced yet, don't sweat it. It's no big deal. Just keep listening to this podcast and I'll eventually get to all of it, I promise. But for now, just accept what it is. Remember that we have major, minor, and diminished triads in our diatonic system. So you're going to have some diminished triads here and there. From the four chord C to the C sharp diminished triad. And then that chromatic chord is going to lead up to a D chord. So we went from the four to the five in G, but in between, we had this chromatic diminished chord. And then we made it to the five chord. And then guess what? We have another chromatic diminished chord that pulls in that musical tension kind of way, pulls you up to E minor. So then you get an E minor in G, which is the sixth chord. So that whole part again would sound like this. Four chord C, C sharp diminished, five chord D, D sharp diminished, and then that pulls us up to E minor. So now they start to go back down. So the bass line chromatically pulled up. You can hear all that tension from before. Now it's going to droop back down as I describe it. So from the E minor, our bass note is an E and it drops one half step and then all of a sudden you have an

SPEAKER_00:

E flat

SPEAKER_02:

major. Yeah, don't ask where that comes from. It is a chromatic chord and it is used for coloring and they are borrowing it from another key. This is not a key change or a modulation mechanism. This is what we call a borrowed chord, and I will get to those very soon. Once again, I realize this is more advanced than I usually get into, but stay with me. So after the E flat, that leads us straight down a half step to the V chord D. And then it goes right back to that C sharp diminished, which has the C sharp in the bass, to a C chord with the C in the bass. And guess what? This is kind of cool. From the C major chord, which is your IV, he then just chromatically drops the other voicing to get a C minor. So he went from a C major to a C minor. So the bass note actually didn't move. Then that one goes to a... G slash B, which again is a chromatic move from C to B. But this is a G chord, which is a one chord, right? But it's an inversion now because the B's in the bass. Root position G would have a G in the bass, right? So I'm just reminding you about chord inversions. We flipped the chord and the bass note now is the third of the chord. Then we go to an A7, which has a root bass. Then we go to a D7, which also has a root bass, and then we're back to home. So this is the V7 chord, and then it resolves back to home. Ah, we finally made it. So to recap, my chromatic line going up, C, C sharp, D, D sharp, E, and then it droops back down, right? It's so interesting and colorful. E, E flat, D, D flat, C, C, then B, then A, Then it goes to the V chord D, and then resolves back to G. What a cool bass line. Whew, all right, that was a lot really quick. So let's pivot one more time and go to our final example of our bass line. two-part bassline series. And in this one, we're going to analyze the wonderful old hit called Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. This is yet another song in the key of G. You can see that that's a pattern. I mean, really, key of G is the most common key when people write in guitar. It is absolutely the most common key. So if you recall, the song opens like this. But didn't I just say it was in the key of G? This one's interesting because the entire thing starts on a IV chord. And you're going to ask, holy cow, how would you know it wasn't in the key of C and not in G? Ooh, that's going to bake your noodle for the week. But it is, in fact, in the key of G, and you'll figure that out as we go. So we're starting on a C chord with a root note, C. Then our next chord is this. which is actually a G chord. It's a I chord. But it doesn't use the root note in the bass. It uses the third. So remember, it is a chord inversion, the first inversion to be exact. Now, I want to discuss why they make choices like this, because you might be asking, well, why aren't we using the root note? It really is to make a smooth, connective, melodic-sounding bass line, which is really what we've been talking about. So the C chord starts on C, then the G slash B has a B. So notice the bass notes, C, B, rather than C, G, right? So it's just smoothly connecting it. One rule I can give you right off the bat, when you're writing a riff or a melody or a harmony, generally speaking, it is a lot easier for the ear to listen to notes that are closely connected together rather than jumping around. So after the four chord C goes to the one chord B, then you get this chord. And that's an A minor seven. And so the A minor seven chord actually has a root note of A. Now, why didn't this one go to an inversion? Again, because the bass line is smoothly connected using that root note. So our bass line now goes C, B, And then we're going to go back to G over B. So G over B is every other chord in the main part of this song. C, B, A, B. So notice when you play that, it's connected. Nice, smooth, and connected. So when we put it together, see if you hear that smooth and connected bass line now. So this particular bass line, as opposed to the chromatic one in the Beatles song previously, this one really does line up diatonically with the G major scale. So it does come from... It comes from the good old-fashioned major scale. And by the way, eventually, now we'll move to the next part as we go towards the second part of the song. After we go C, B, A, eventually it goes to... F sharp. Ooh, which again is still in the key of G. That is the only sharp we have in the key of G, if you recall. And you go, all right, well, what is the bass doing there? So it's actually connected to... the V chord, okay? And the V chord in G is D. And so it's not a root note. So, hmm, what's going on there again? It's an inversion in order to make the bass line smooth and connect. So instead of having a D bass note, they chose an F sharp. Why would they do that? Because the F sharp is the leading tone. It has all this tension in the key of G, right? Ah, that's going to pull you back up to the root. So instead of going... Which would have been perfectly acceptable, by the way. Instead, they chose to do this. Closer, smoother, more tension in the music, from tension to resolution with the leading tone. That becomes the choice. So if I keep going through this, D over F sharp... Then we're back to the I chord, which is a G bass note, like I was saying. Then right back to the D chord with the F sharp in the bass. And then that bass note gets connected to a VI chord, E minor. So your bass line's going F sharp, G, G, F sharp, E, right? Smooth and connected. So... G... five chord over the F sharp and then six chord with the E in the bass. Then they jump back to something a little more conventional and go back to that beginning part where you go to a four chord. And then the cycle continues after we go to the two chord. Then they go to the Inverted five chord again with the F sharp in the bass that resolves up to tonic G. The key of the music. And it just keeps circling around like that. How cool is that? Wow, that was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And to go ahead and let you know, I am segueing these two bassline episodes into how to hear a chord progression in my next episode. We're going to be combining a little bit of ear training with our knowledge that we're learning about basslines right now, and we're going to turn it into a session on, if I'm listening to a song, how can I, by ear, figure out what the chord But now it's time for breakdown. Today was our second part of learning all about bass lines. We reiterated concepts like bass range, Gregorian chant, scales, melodies, harmonies, triads, chords, and chord progressions. We talked about chromaticism. We talked about inversions and why they're used in bass lines to create smooth, connected bass lines. Coming up on the next episode, you're gonna wanna tune in for the ear training and the chord progressions. But until then, I will look forward to... continuing this music exploration with all of you. Thanks again, everybody. Until next time, have a beautiful music-filled week.