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Adam Nitti Technique Series: Practicing With Chord Tones, Part 2: Navigating Changes
Meet Adam Nitti –
In this installment, we are going to continue where we left off in part 1 by practicing over some more complex chord changes. For the exercises in this lesson, we are once again going to limit ourselves to the use of chord tones only. If you have so far been practicing your arpeggio forms and inversions over the entire range of the fingerboard, you should by now seeing some significant improvement in your ability to navigate the fingerboard while outlining harmony. I will present you with 3 new exercises in this lesson to practice improvising over using chord tones. Each of them is modeled after a popular jazz standard and represents common harmonic movement that you might encounter on a regular basis on jazz gigs.
Exercise 1 is a standard 12 bar jazz blues progression in F. An example of a tune that would contain changes like this would be “Straight, No Chaser.” The changes in exercise 2 are similar to the changes in the tune, “Tune Up.” Exercise 3 contains the identical chord changes to the tune, “Autumn Leaves.”
For each of these exercises, you will once again start by playing continuous swing 8th notes using chord tones only. As you will be faced with having to play through many more individual chords and modulations, it is absolutely critical that you look ahead as much as possible. In other words, keep your eyes moving ahead of the measure you are currently playing so that you are able to pre-meditate your position shifts and arrive at each chord change with accuracy and confidence. As we have done in the past with prior challenging exercises, start with very slow tempos and work into a comfort zone before kicking up the speed. For examples of how to play through each exercise, check out the accompanying videos.
exer 1: (Click to enlarge)
exer 2: (Click to enlarge)
exer 3: (Click to enlarge)
Obviously, once you get these progressions down you’ll want to move onto new challenges. One thing you can do to challenge yourself is to try playing tunes you know transposed to new keys. This is vitally important, because if you play the same changes over and over without any variation, your eyes will have a tendency to rely on the same visual cues on the fingerboard and you will find that you are not able to play as well in other keys. Ideally, you should practice playing through these exercises in all 12 keys. If that seems intimidating to you right now, start simpler by trying to improvise over a ii-V-I progression in all 12 keys.
Once you become proficient with controlling placement of chord tones, then you can go back to practicing in a less restrictive manner, for example using only chord tones 3, 5, or 7 on the downbeats of each chord change, and then completing your phrases using combinations of other scale tones or chromaticisms. This ‘chord-tone-boot camp’-like approach that I have shared with you in this lesson is primarily designed to make you much more aware of where the chord tones are found on the fingerboard. Ultimately this helps you to navigate harmonic motion better and will also help you to become a better foundational bassist, as well.
Until next time, keep on chord-toning!
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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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