Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb

Author:Jimmy Webb [WEBB, JIMMY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781401305680
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2013-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

This is our most dissonant alternate bass so far. It seems not so much to desire a resolution toward another chord as to want to slide off a whole step down to an A (6) bass and leave the C chord in peace. I adore this sound even though some may find it disturbing. It is godlike, evoking images of towering pipe organs and scenes of awesome significance. It is what we might imagine a “lost chord” would sound like even though some will say, “What’s all the fuss over a C-major seventh with the seventh tone in the bass?” Then why does it grind and pull on us so? Because of the close interval—the half step between the bass note (7) and the root of the C chord (1). The closer the interval between the alternate bass and any one of the notes in the simple triad, the more friction and psychic disturbance.

I have presented a fair assessment of the effect of alternate basses when they are taken from the diatonic scale and used beneath a simple triad. Obviously a bass note does not always have to be the same as the root of the chord. This fact makes it possible to construct bass “lines” in which bass notes because of their independence from the root of the chords will begin to take on melodic properties. Here is a simple progression where the bass line is a descending diatonic scale:

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