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Jazz Studies With Bill Harrison: Play-Along Tracks Lesson 6 – Learning Tunes
Meet Bill Harrison –
This month’s column is a bit of a departure from past entries. I’m going to describe a method I’ve successfully used to add tunes to my repertoire. As bass players, our primary functions are to supply rhythmic forward motion and to clearly define the root motion from chord to chord. So learning new songs poses a couple of challenges that other instrumentalists don’t have to reckon with:
1) Most of us play an accompaniment role most of the time, so we rarely get the opportunity to play melodies (after all, the saxophone player doesn’t want to stand idly by as we play the majority of the in- heads).
2) The bass is primarily a single line instrument, so it is not ideal for providing chordal accompaniment.
Here’s a method for learning tunes that addresses these difficulties, and won’t take you ten years to master. It’s not fast but it is thorough.
Pick a tune with a melody that you’re already familiar with or that moves slowly enough for you to be able to learn by ear. (All The Things You Are would be a much better choice than Donna Lee). DO NOT use sheet music or a fake book to begin with. Music is an aural art; you want to involve your ears as much as possible in this process. While reading is an excellent skill, it is not the best way to internalize material that you want to master as an accompanist and improvisor.
1) Learn the melody and form by playing along with a recording. Sing it, play it, whistle it in the shower, rinse and repeat until you’ve really committed it to memory. (It helps to pick a tune you like to begin with). Notice what sections repeat and where the bridge (if any) occurs. When you start getting sick of it, that’s how you know you’ve got it.
2) Go back to the recording and learn the roots of the chords, again by playing along with the track until you to get it. I suggest doing this in 4 or 8 bar chunks. Much of this may have sunk in subconsciously while you were learning the melody; now make it conscious.
3) SING the melody and play the roots of the chords simultaneously. This will help you cement the relationship between the top line (melody) and the root motion that it’s connected to. You don’t have to sound like Sinatra to do this – just sing as best you can.
4) If you are able to transcribe the harmonies, do it. The melody notes will point you in the right direction a lot of the time but you will have to go back to the recording to listen to what the pianist or guitarist is playing. If you can’t hear the chord qualities, now’s the time to break out an accurate fake book (Chuck Sher’s books are excellent).
5) Use a play-along track without the bass part and play everything you know: the melody, the roots, arpeggios, walking lines, solo lines. SING the melody to yourself whenever and however you play the tune – that’s the best way to keep your place in the form.
The idea is to depend on your ears, not your eyes, for as much of the process as possible. I guarantee that you will never forget a tune you learn with this technique.
To help you get started with this process I’m including a PlayJazzNow play-along track for Sonny Rollins’ classic tune Doxy.
Doxy Pno_Dr
If you don’t know the melody, spend 99 cents and download Sonny’s recording: http://tinyurl.com/39qeqz8. I doubt you’ll need a chord chart, but if you do you can grab a free pdf here: Doxy
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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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