5 Miles Davis ii V I

licks.
BASS CLEF

Matt Lawton
WWW.MATTLAWTONBASS.COM | MATTLAWTONBASS@GMAIL.COM

About The Author

Thanks for downloading my eBook! If you dont know who I am allow me to introduce myself; my
name is Matt Lawton and Im a bassist from Liverpool, England. I gig up and down the country
playing anything from pop and rock to soul, folk and of course jazz! I also teach at music schools
around the North West of England as well as privately and over Skype. Alongside this I like to fit
in as many sessions as I can get my mitts on and run a blog dedicated to all things bass but
specialising in jazz transcriptions and lessons.
Onto the book! I am a huge Miles Davis fan and after spending the last few years working with
his material I really wanted to collate some of my favourite licks of his into one easy to use
resource. In this book youll find key points about each lick as well as a couple of ideas to start off
your practice routine to try and integrate some of these ideas into your playing. This last part I find
most important in terms of finding your own voice.
The way I think licks should be used isnt to jam them into every ii V I progression you see
(although that is one way you can use them!) but more to analyse the techniques used and
incorporate these into your own playing.

About The Book

All licks, ideas, concepts in the pages following should be practiced in all 12 keys. I have not
notated this for the same reason I have not included TAB. The more playing you do by reading
from a book the less the information will sink in! If you really want to be able to integrate these
ideas into your playing then reciting the lick in 12 keys by reading them from the page will not help
you! Practice singing the intervals in the licks to help you move them through the keys.
The benefit of not including TAB is that it will force you to try each lick in various positions on the
neck, exploring different ways of playing the scales and arpeggios used that you would not get by
using my recommended fingering in the TAB. That being said, I have enclosed a video of each of
the licks so you have a guide for fingering and also for the way these parts sound. The more work
you put into learning these phrases the more you will get out of this short eBook!
As always, any questions on this material just drop me a line over at my website and Ill be happy
to help!

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

What is a ii V I?
If we take each note from the C major scale in turn and build a chord from that note by stacking
3rds on top of it, we make a chord for each of these notes. These are the building blocks for the
modes and is what all chord progressions refer to, for example the 12 bar blues is a I7 - IV7 - V7.

If we look at the ii chord, V chord and I chord, this is where we get the chords from for a ii V I
progression. In the key of C this would be;

Dmi7 - G7 - CMa7
Video Of The Five Licks

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

Lick #1

Key Points

Scale lines.
Common Tones over bar lines.
Starts on the offbeat.

This lick starts on the offbeat with a run up the C Dorian mode, starting from the 13th, passing
the root and landing on the 9th. A similar ascending phrase is played over the F7 chord but this
time starting from the 5th before hitting the 13th and ascending right up to the 3rd this time
rather than the 9th. The 3rd is held across the bar line to become the 7th of the I chord, finished
with a descending arpeggio of 7th, 5th, 3rd.

Practice Tips

Play repeating patterns from scales over chord changes. E.g. 13, 7, R, 9.
Learn the common tones between chords and practice holding these over bar lines, this
is a great way to make your lines flow as well as avoiding start a phrase on beat 1.

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

Lick #2

Key Points

Extended arpeggios.
Full bar of quarter notes.
End on root.
Starts on the offbeat.

This lick also starts on the offbeat using a turn around the 3rd of the chord. This is a great way
to accent chord tones without playing a straight arpeggio. By combining the eighth note rest with
the turn it also lands the chord tone on a strong beat, following this is an arpeggio for a C-11.
The second bar in this lick breaks the usual 8th note rhythm that we find in jazz improvisation,
four quarter notes directly on the beat can make for a welcome change in the middle of a solo.
This is all finished with a two root notes on the I chord which functions as a nice big full stop to
bring this lick to an end.

Practice Tips

Practice extended arpeggios. C-11, F13 etc.

Target chord tones using a scale note either above or below.
Use a mix of eighth notes and quarter note rhythms.
End your lick with the root of the I chord.

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

Lick #3

Key Points

Bb Major Pentatonic used as blanket scale.

Starts on the offbeat.
Ascending - descending shape.

After working through licks 1 and 2 this example above should look quite familiar. It starts on the
offbeat, mixes quarter notes with eighth notes and ends with two chord tones from the I chord.
This lick can be viewed with each note in relation to the chord it is played over, as the numbers
underneath the notes show, but can also be viewed as Bb Major Pentatonic. The only note not
from this scale is Eb, the b7 played on beat 1 over the F7. Another reason this lick works so well
is the shape, what goes up must come down! This gives a nice rounded and complete feel to
the lick.

Practice Tips

Experiment using one scale to cover the full ii V I progression, in the key of Bb these
could include C Dorian, F Mixolydian, Bb Ionian, Bb Major Pentatonic. Experiment with
other scales to see what sounds they create too.
Concentrate on the shape of your lines, play along to standards you know well and try to
control the shape of your lines. Everything ascending, everything descending, up then
down like the example above, and finally down then up.

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

Lick #4

Key Points

Starts on a strong beat with a chord tone.

Uses an altered note over the G7.
Triplets to break up the eighth note rhythm.
Using outside notes.

This lick was originally performed at break neck speed, around 280bm, so doubles up as a killer
speed building exercise. If you want to check out the original, this lick came from Tune Up from
the album Four. You can hear the lick around the 1:00 mark. On this lick Miles takes a much
more scalar approach than we have previously seen, this could be due to the ferocious speed
that the lick was pulled off at! Miles also uses some notes from outside the key in this lick. The
first is over the G7 in the shape of a #9. This comes from the altered scale but could also be
viewed as a passing tone to the chord tone beginning the next bar. Using altered notes over a
dominant 7 chord is a brilliant way to create tension in a line. In the second half of the third bar,
Miles also uses another outside note. This one is a chromatic passing note between two scale
notes over C Major.

Practice Tips

Trying to get this lick up to speed is TOUGH! Start slowly making sure you can play the
lick cleanly and slowly increase the tempo.
Instead of starting on a weak beat, start on a strong beat but make it a chord tone.
Mix triplets in with eighth note runs.
Use the altered scale to bring tension over dominant 7 chords. Do this one or two notes
at a time rather than trying to run the whole scale over the V chord.
Use chromatic passing notes in scalar runs.

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com

Lick #5

Key Points

Simple rhythm but make it swing!

Repeated phrase using common tones.
End with a simple phrase on the root of the I chord.
Starts on a strong beat with a strong note.

The final lick in this eBook is what I think of when I think of Miles. A really simple idea but
executed to perfection. Check this one out from Miles first chorus of Bye Bye Blackbird. It
swings so hard, I probably should have notated this all as quarter notes but I have tried to bring
some of the feel to the written lick. Just using two notes for the first two bars, these notes start
as a 9th and 11th and change to a 13th and root over the V chord. This lick is finished off with
an almost identical phrase to lick #2, two root notes from the I chord.

Practice Tips

Use common tones to sequence a melody through the chord changes.

Use simple rhythms but really make them swing.
End licks with a short statement using just the root note.

All material produced by Matt Lawton. www.mattlawtonbass.com