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Building Improvisation FAQ’s : Jazz Improvisation With Andrea Fascetti
Meet Andrea Fascetti –
Hi my friends! Thank you very much for interest in my column. I have received some emails about my work and am very happy to make clear some concepts that I mentioned in the last lesson.
Some bassists want to know why we have to learn all types of chords. It’s certainly true that most of the time we use major, minor and dominant 7th chords, but often in modern bass players like John Patitucci or musicians like Michael Brecker, Chick Corea or John Scofield, for example, we appreciate beautiful harmonies full of chords as mentioned in last lesson. For example, check out John Patitucci’s “Our Family” (from his debut album)… Here we find beautiful sounds.
Often my students ask me why I insist on studying jazz. They don’t know that most famous players from other music genres have great jazz skills. Learn the rules, and then adapt it to the music you love. Our goal is to achieve a great musical knowledge…. so we are ready to face every situation!
Some friends want to know if practicing with a metronome is right… this is an important question! I remember my early years; I studied double bass in La Spezia Conservatory. It was like living’ in a nightmare! I played double bass with the bow (it’s really difficult) while I read music and played along with a metronome. I just remember his awful sound when my teacher said, “Andrea what are you doing?” I stopped playing… I said to my teacher that, “I can’t learn three things at the same time.” I hurt him, but it was a great person and a great teacher… he understood.
One month later, he said I was right! I was inexperienced, was a bad music reader and my bow technique was poor, so using a metronome created big problems for me. The purpose of this little story is this: If you don’t know very well what you’re practicing, don’t use a metronome! Play the music note by note, slowly, sometimes out of time… let your brain learn all information correctly. You can use metronome when you have all notes under your fingers. At this second stage, a metronome is a great friend. (In the next lesson I’ll teach you some great ways to use it.) And please remember… obviously, this is my personal point of view.
Okay… now it’s time to talk about homework. First of all, please review the chords you learned in past lesson.
Next download the lesson at the bottom of this page.
In ex.1 you have to sing all the chord tones for each type of chord, up and down the chord, along when you’re practicing.
In ex 2 you sing chord tones in all 12 keys, so your ears will become familiar with the sound of each chord.
Ex 3 is this… take a single type of chord then play all chord tones as fast as you can. AS FAST AS YOU CAN! Next time I’ll explain this concept.
It would be great if you can play chords with a piano or a keyboard. If you don’t play keyboards, you can use music software and listen over and over to the sounds.
I know it’s a lot of work my friends………..but…..no pain, no gain!
I wish you the best of success with all your musical endeavors.
Thank you for interest in my lesson.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Ciao!
Andrea
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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