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The Jazz Gym by Todd Johnson: Part 1 of the Improvisers Workout Program | Melodic Reps
Meet Todd Johnson –
Hi Friends, my name is Todd Johnson and I’m excited to have this opportunity to work with you all here at Bass Musician Magazine.
I’m a bass player and instructor from Los Angeles. I’ve been blessed to have worked with some of the worlds finest musicians like Mike Stern, Dave Weckl, Poncho Sanchez, Mundell Lowe and Frank Gambale in addition to being a member of the Ron Eschete trio since 1991.
As an instructor, I’ve been on staff at B.I.T. (1991 – 1999) and Cal Arts (1997 – 2003) in addition to performing at clinics and festivals throughout the country. I’m currently adjunct faculty at The Master’s College in Newhall, CA.
It’s been my experience that the greatest bass players all have certain skills in common. They are, in no particular order; technique, reading, bass line creation, theory and improvisation. A working knowledge of these skills is a must if you want play with the big boys.
The first of these skills we’ll focus on in this column will be improvising.
As an educator, the best way for me to teach you about improvisation is through jazz. Please don’t let the “j” word scare you. My goal is not necessarily to turn you into jazz musicians. I would encourage you all to give this a shot regardless of your musical background. Jazz is just the gym we’re going to work out in. Fair enough?
Once you learn to play jazz then everything else will be a lot easier. It’s like having plenty of money in the bank. You’ll never regret having a little extra currency in your harmony account. A good friend of mine refers to this as musical headroom. So, welcome to The Jazz Gym. Here’s some simple common sense solutions to get you started improvising.
Your first assignment is to download the song we’re going to learn.
Download the MP3 below, Autumn Leaves from the Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley cd Somethin’ Else and give it a serious listen. This version is a classic and it’s played at a learnable tempo.
Too many people try to learn how to play jazz from a book with their eyes without ever really listening to it. You wouldn’t try to learn to speak Japanese out of a book, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d use the book, but you’d also hang out with Japanese speaking people, watch Japanese TV and basically immerse yourself in the language. Learning to improvise requires the same thing. You have to listen to what you’re tying to learn. Now, click below for a quick preview of my Autumn Leaves video. It might give you some ideas for later on.
Your second assignment is to learn the melody to Autumn Leaves. Learn it by ear or from a chart, but learn it. The easiest way to sound melodic is to learn melodies. It seems obvious, but as bass players we don’t do it. We spend most of our time practicing scales, arpeggios and bass lines. The reason most bass solos sound like a doubled up bass line up an octave is because that’s what we practice!
Play the melody straight, without embellishments. Be sure to listen for the holes. Basically, holes are where the rests are. Pay close attention to what you hear in those holes. This will come in handy for our next assignment.
Practice playing the melody along with Miles. This may sound extreme, but try playing the melody 100 times. Remember this is a language, so if you have to stop and think about it too much you won’t be an effective communicator. This stuff needs to be internalized. The only way to achieve this is through repetition.
Your third assignment is to practice playing the melody with embellishments. I want you to start dressing up the melody. Start filling in those holes we listened for in our second assignment. Play something simple and build from there. Make sure that if you hear an idea and miss it, that you go back and figure it out. Practice it a few times, then go back and play it in context several times. Repetition is critical.
Improvising is often referred to as playing the melodies you hear in your head. By going back and figuring them out, you’ll strengthen and develop your ability to transcribe yourself. I realize this seems obvious, but if you don’t practice playing what you hear then you’ll never get good at it. Don’t make the mistake of just learning a scale and thinking you’ll be able to solo. It doesn’t work like that. Scales are great, but they’re just an alphabet. An alphabet doesn’t say anything by itself. You can’t just learn the alphabet and think well now I’m going to learn a new language. We use combinations of letters to form words and then sentences. Melodies are the words and sentences that scales form.
FIGURE 1 shows you the chord progression and chord structures to the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves. Here are some chord structure formula reminders; All minor-seventh chords are (1 mi3 P5 mi7), all dominant-seventh chords are (1 ma3 P5 mi7), all major-seventh chords are (1 ma3 P5 ma7) and all minor-seven-flat 5 chords are (1 mi3 dim5 mi7). I’ve provided some of the possible fingerings. These will work fine, but I would encourage you to explore other possibilities as well.
FIGURE 2 shows you the scales that fit the chords for our progression. Except for the D and G Spanish-dominant scales, everything is a mode of the Bb major scale.
So download and listen to Autumn Leaves, learn the melody, then practice embellishing and filling in the holes around the melody. Study and memorize figures one and two and next month I’ll show you how to add this information to our melodic workout.
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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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