The Only Arpeggio Exercise You Need

this might be the simplest exercise that i've ever given on this channel but it'll probably keep you busy for the rest of your life [Music] hello my friends and neighbors welcome back to the brownstone my name is rich brown how are you i hope you're doing very well hope you had a really great week today i'm talking about arpeggios i'm just going to give you a really simple super simple but super excellent arpeggio exercise that is going to change your life huh how about that this is a sequential pattern that i give to all of my students i've been giving this exercise for years and it's really great and it's based on the simplest of ideas it's an exercise that i call odds and evens the reason why it's called odds and evens couldn't be simpler we simply take the odd-numbered notes play them ascending and then we take the even numbered notes and play them descending and with that simple idea you get not one but two great arpeggios that you can practice so let's say i take a simple g major scale huh now remember for my g major scale all i'm doing is i'm taking my fourth fret span one finger per fret and playing two four one two four one three four and then i extend that down to the g string and play one three four again two four one two four one three four one three four major scale no matter where you play so here's what we do if i number those notes i have 11 notes in this scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 notes and again this exercise could not be simpler because here it is this might be a really short video here it is um i just take the odd numbered notes going up 1 3 5 7 9 11. there i've got a nice g major arpeggio going up to the 11th and then i come down with all of the notes that i missed which just happened to be the even numbered notes 10 eight six four two and you know me i like to play that major seventh below the root note which allows me to turn the exercise into a loop so how simple is this check it out 1 3 5 7 9 11 10 8 6 4 2 and the major 7th below the root [Music] this is a really great exercise to work on arpeggios because arpeggios might be one of the hardest things to play on the instrument what's happening is especially with the right hand you are playing the strings in order e a d g which can be super tough for the right hand the other thing is when you come back down the second arpeggio that motion for the right hand is a lot easier because you're using more raking of the strings and things that just allow that motion to be a lot more fluid so the goal with this exercise is to make sure that your notes moving up the arpeggio are as clean and fluid as the notes moving down the arpeggio because moving down the arpeggio is naturally going to be a lot easier [Music] you want to make sure that all of those notes are going to be super even because moving up the arpeggio is going to be a little bit more difficult than coming down the arpeggio because you're using things like rest strokes and raking of the strings and things like that that just allow for that motion to be a lot easier and more fluid so the goal is to make sure that they are both equal making sure that those notes don't change in velocity or intensity or clarity they're all the same now here's the really great thing about this exercise because we're using the number system odds and evens that's all we're playing the odd number notes going up the even numbered notes coming down we can do this on any scale almost any scale things like bebop scales and certain diminished scales maybe not but major scales minor scales melodic minor scales harmonic minor scales harmonic major scales melodic major scales and then the modes of all of those scales odds and events there you go you're set for life for arpeggio exercises how cool and how simple is that so here's what i'm going to do we talked about playing on g major i just demonstrated that so now i'm just going to do the same thing on a g minor scale again each time you work with a different scale you get two two arpeggios for the price of no arpeggios here you go so first thing to do as always map out the scale if i'm playing that four fret span uh one finger per fret the minor scale is as follows if you remember we've got one three four one three four one three five one three five that's my minor scale there are 12 notes in that scale so then i simply play the odd numbered notes going up and the even number notes coming back down 1 3 5 7 9 11. and then i go to 12 10 8 6 4 2 and that becomes my exercise one three five seven nine eleven twelve ten eight six four two one isn't that great so now i have these two scales that i can work with i've got the major [Music] and the minor but again we are working with two arpeggios so another cool thing that you can do with this exercise is simply reverse the pattern odds and evens can also be played as evens and odds huh check this out so if i'm playing that major scale [Music] i get a completely different exercise when i move or when i switch from odds and evens to evens and odds what do i mean by evens and odds well it's very simple now i play the even numbered notes going up the scale and then i play the odd number notes coming back down the scale check this out so now here's what i have 2 4 6 8 10 11 9 7 5 3 one huh so then you get this cool exercise [Music] when i play that one i go down to the major seventh below the root and then it becomes a nice little loop so evens and odds two four six eight ten eleven nine seven five three one major seventh below the root and then i get a nice loop [Music] now check this out this is super cool now what i can do as a really great exercise is play odds and evens four times and then switch to evens and odds four times check this out beautiful exercise very musical and uh and also again you're working on every aspect of your technique with this kind of stuff so this is why i love these exercises there are sequential exercises that are just a must for every bass player to know and this is definitely one of them odds and evens four times evens and odds four times sounds like this [Music] third time fourth time now evens and odds [Music] now odds and evens [Music] not evens and odds [Music] how cool is that huh taking a very simple idea odds and evens evens and odds can it get any easier than that and then when you apply that to the scale beautiful things happen let's do the let's do the exact same thing now with the g minor scale map out the scale first [Music] and then get your two arpeggios so i'm doing odds and evens first [Music] 1 3 5 7 9 11 12 ten eight six four two back to one so now i've mapped out my two arpeggios so let's just play through the exercise odds and evens and then evens and odds i'll take it slow [Music] one three five seven nine eleven twelve ten eight six four two now i'll play evens and odds that's so great two four six eight ten twelve eleven nine seven five three one that was hard what a gorgeous pattern now odds and evens [Music] now evens and odds [Music] how about that that's it what a simple exercise which is also a very complex and difficult exercise i'm going to leave it there i don't have anything else i can say about that except to have fun with all of these exercises i really love this one it's so beautiful and musical and again you're working on every aspect of your technique with the left hand and the right hand and it's just an enjoyable thing to play on the bass and of course you can set a metronome at any tempo you like and really work these ideas into the muscle memory and eventually into your vocabulary all of these sequential exercises are great melodic tools and great uh improvisational uh ideas that you can use whether you're soloing or or constructing bass lines or what have you and that is why i love them there are no useless exercises on this channel none zero i refuse so hey y'all if you like this lesson please do me a huge favor click like share this video with as many people as you can um who would appreciate it or not and um and subscribe to the channel the channel is constantly growing it's amazing to see um and it really keeps me going the other thing that really keeps me keeps this channel going is um your donations so if you find some value in these lessons then please do donate to the channel i will leave the link in the description box below no donation is too large or too small every cent is appreciated and it allows me to keep these videos coming to you i'm having so much fun presenting this information to you and i'm having uh such a great time reading all of your comments and your encouragement that is another thing that really keeps me going so don't hesitate to say hi in the comments section i love that i read every single comment i don't have the time to respond to everything but i try i try my best that's it friends and neighbors odds and evens till the cows come home my name is rich brown thank you so much for visiting me here in the brownstone today peace and love and i will see you in the next video you

Channel: Rich Brown - The Brown'stone

Views: 65,472

Keywords: bass, bass lesson, bass lessons, rich brown, arpeggios, arpeggio, scotts bass lessons, groove, melody, bass player, electric bass, bass the world

Id: kuCGvw-N_BA

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021