Step-wise Motion
Whereas circular progression moves in accordance with the circular of fifths, step-wise motion simply moves up and down the major scale, step-for-step (which ends up being either whole steps or half steps).
Eventually, your job is to tackle those too...IN EVERY KEY.
Focus on descents. Like 1-7, 7-6, 6-5, 5-4, 4-3, 3-2, 2-1.
Then you would focus on ascensions. Like 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-1
Focus then on combinations. Like ballads: 1-7-6-5-4-3-2-5-1 (Believe it or not, just this string of bass notes work for “Jesus is the Answer,” “No Weapon,” “Jesus is Love,” and many more.
HINT: Use diatonic chords on these tones and you’ll be able to play all these songs).
MIXING STEP-WISE MOTIONS AND CIRCULAR PATTERNS
Let us say you have picked out your bass-line to a song in the key of C, and your bass is
C – B – A
That means it starts on some type of chord on C... then moves to some type of chord on B... then finally to some type of chord on A. That’s clearly step-wise motion. C moving right next door to B... and B moving right next door to the next tone of the scale, A.
Knowing what you know about circular movements and how great they sound, you can decide to insert chords between this progression we have just laid out here, and it would sound even better.
So, why don’t we add “E” between the “B” and “A”?
Why? That’s because if you look at your circular pattern, “E” is actually between “B” and “A”.
At the moment, the song is going from B to A, which is fine. It’s just moving down the C major scale, which happens a lot too (i.e. “step-wise motion”). If we want to make this progression more appealing, we would insert some kind of “E” chord after the “B” chord, and that will give us a stronger connection to the “A” chord.
C – B – E – A
That is exactly the way “Thank you Lord”, “As the Deer” work.
For now, we are still talking about bass notes here, not chords. But, if we do want to talk about the chords to go with the notes, we would ask ourselves, “what kind of chords would go with this progression, or what chords would likely occur with these notes of the scale?”
And based on previous training, you’d know that these chords could work:
C Major – B half diminished 7 – E minor 7 – A minor 7
I’m just using the chords that occur naturally on these tones of the scale
If I wanted to change things up a little bit, I’d probably change the “E minor 7” chord to a dominant-sounding chord. When you use dominant “bluesy” sounding chords, they always STRENGTHEN the connection between whatever chord comes next in the circular pattern.
When you substitute dominant chords for minor chords (that would normally occur on the 2nd, 3rd, or 6th tones), we call them SECONDARY DOMINANTS.
C Major – B half diminished 7 – E 7 – A minor 7
It takes the ear to actually hear that the “E7” works better than the “E minor 7.” And if both can work, simply use one the first time around and use the other option when you repeat the song.
Playing by ear is all about having options.
3-4 PRINCIPLE
At the end of the day, this principle is just as the circle of fifths.
RULE: If you’re on a particular tone of the major scale and you want to know what tone will commonly come after your current one, either go UP 3 scale tones or DOWN 4 scale tones.
That’s why I call it 3-4 principle.
CAUTION: Don’t count the tone you’re on... just the “movement.” So if you’re in the key of C major and you want to know what tone C is most likely to progress to (or which tone it has the strongest connection to), just count UP 3 scale tones.
C >> D (+1) >> E (+2) >> F (+3)
F is the answer.
Likewise, you can get the same answer going DOWN 4. It’s up to you which way you want to go.
F (-4) << G (-3) << A (-2) << B (-1) << C
You can also use math. If you’re on the 1st tone of the scale, just add 3.
1+3=4
In plain English, the 1 is most likely to move to the “4.”
If you’re on the 6th tone of the scale, you can add 3 or subtract 4.
(When doing it this way, I typically don’t want my answer to go above 7, since there are 7 unique tones in the scale. So that’s when I’ll subtract 4. Either way, you’ll get the same result... as 6+3 = 9...which is the same as the 2nd tone of the scale... 6-4 = 2).
Again, if you understand and memorize the circle of fifths, you don’t even have to think about the 3-4 principles. But, on the other hand, there are some cool insights that may result from looking at patterns from this perspective.
When a collection of chords sound really good and are almost predictable even before you hear them (there are many songs like this), chances are it’s moving in a circular fashion. When it sounds like something you’ve heard before... when the pattern is just very familiar to you... then it’s probably circular. You can probably pick out the bass notes by literally taking out a few chunks of the circle.
Now, of course, the circle doesn’t ALWAYS work. Notes skip around. Passing chords are injected between “main” movements. But it’s usually at work under the hood and at least if you take the time to understand it, the “ear” part of playing will come a lot easier.
In Martial Combat, you can do a lot of damage with brute strength, but the greatest fighters are strategic. The same thing is true when playing by ear. You can kill yourself trying to pick out every little thing, note for note, bass for bass, chord for chord... but you’ll become exhausted and discouraged.
Pattern Proficiency is all about focusing on and building your pattern recognition skills.
Focus on descents. Like 1-7, 7-6, 6-5, 5-4, 4-3, 3-2, 2-1.
Then you would focus on ascensions. Like 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-1
Focus then on combinations. Like ballads: 1-7-6-5-4-3-2-5-1 (Believe it or not, just this string of bass notes work for “Jesus is the Answer,” “No Weapon,” “Jesus is Love,” and many more.
HINT: Use diatonic chords on these tones and you’ll be able to play all these songs).
MIXING STEP-WISE MOTIONS AND CIRCULAR PATTERNS
Let us say you have picked out your bass-line to a song in the key of C, and your bass is
C – B – A
That means it starts on some type of chord on C... then moves to some type of chord on B... then finally to some type of chord on A. That’s clearly step-wise motion. C moving right next door to B... and B moving right next door to the next tone of the scale, A.
Knowing what you know about circular movements and how great they sound, you can decide to insert chords between this progression we have just laid out here, and it would sound even better.
So, why don’t we add “E” between the “B” and “A”?
Why? That’s because if you look at your circular pattern, “E” is actually between “B” and “A”.
At the moment, the song is going from B to A, which is fine. It’s just moving down the C major scale, which happens a lot too (i.e. “step-wise motion”). If we want to make this progression more appealing, we would insert some kind of “E” chord after the “B” chord, and that will give us a stronger connection to the “A” chord.
C – B – E – A
That is exactly the way “Thank you Lord”, “As the Deer” work.
For now, we are still talking about bass notes here, not chords. But, if we do want to talk about the chords to go with the notes, we would ask ourselves, “what kind of chords would go with this progression, or what chords would likely occur with these notes of the scale?”
And based on previous training, you’d know that these chords could work:
C Major – B half diminished 7 – E minor 7 – A minor 7
I’m just using the chords that occur naturally on these tones of the scale
If I wanted to change things up a little bit, I’d probably change the “E minor 7” chord to a dominant-sounding chord. When you use dominant “bluesy” sounding chords, they always STRENGTHEN the connection between whatever chord comes next in the circular pattern.
When you substitute dominant chords for minor chords (that would normally occur on the 2nd, 3rd, or 6th tones), we call them SECONDARY DOMINANTS.
C Major – B half diminished 7 – E 7 – A minor 7
It takes the ear to actually hear that the “E7” works better than the “E minor 7.” And if both can work, simply use one the first time around and use the other option when you repeat the song.
Playing by ear is all about having options.
3-4 PRINCIPLE
At the end of the day, this principle is just as the circle of fifths.
RULE: If you’re on a particular tone of the major scale and you want to know what tone will commonly come after your current one, either go UP 3 scale tones or DOWN 4 scale tones.
That’s why I call it 3-4 principle.
CAUTION: Don’t count the tone you’re on... just the “movement.” So if you’re in the key of C major and you want to know what tone C is most likely to progress to (or which tone it has the strongest connection to), just count UP 3 scale tones.
C >> D (+1) >> E (+2) >> F (+3)
F is the answer.
Likewise, you can get the same answer going DOWN 4. It’s up to you which way you want to go.
F (-4) << G (-3) << A (-2) << B (-1) << C
You can also use math. If you’re on the 1st tone of the scale, just add 3.
1+3=4
In plain English, the 1 is most likely to move to the “4.”
If you’re on the 6th tone of the scale, you can add 3 or subtract 4.
(When doing it this way, I typically don’t want my answer to go above 7, since there are 7 unique tones in the scale. So that’s when I’ll subtract 4. Either way, you’ll get the same result... as 6+3 = 9...which is the same as the 2nd tone of the scale... 6-4 = 2).
Again, if you understand and memorize the circle of fifths, you don’t even have to think about the 3-4 principles. But, on the other hand, there are some cool insights that may result from looking at patterns from this perspective.
When a collection of chords sound really good and are almost predictable even before you hear them (there are many songs like this), chances are it’s moving in a circular fashion. When it sounds like something you’ve heard before... when the pattern is just very familiar to you... then it’s probably circular. You can probably pick out the bass notes by literally taking out a few chunks of the circle.
Now, of course, the circle doesn’t ALWAYS work. Notes skip around. Passing chords are injected between “main” movements. But it’s usually at work under the hood and at least if you take the time to understand it, the “ear” part of playing will come a lot easier.
In Martial Combat, you can do a lot of damage with brute strength, but the greatest fighters are strategic. The same thing is true when playing by ear. You can kill yourself trying to pick out every little thing, note for note, bass for bass, chord for chord... but you’ll become exhausted and discouraged.
Pattern Proficiency is all about focusing on and building your pattern recognition skills.