Know Your Arpeggios! The Stuff of Which Great Bass Lines Are Made.

I have been using Crescendo music notation software for the past few days, to write out bass lines, to experiment with arranging the notes in the chords (arpeggios to us bassists), to gain understanding of what works and what doesn't.  To do this, I need to know what notes are in a particular chord, such as A-7, BbMaj7, B-7(b5), etc.  I have these notes partially memorized, but I am not completely there yet.  So I refer to arpeggio charts (that I made myself in Excel), to see what notes are available.

For example, here are the first two lines of Autumn Leaves, written out in Crescendo music notation software (which is very easy to use).  (Click in the image to see full size):

A free version of Crescendo Music Notation software is available for download,  and the licensed version for home use is a bargain at $35 ($50 for business use).  See this link.

To facilitate building the bass line, I put the chord notes just below each bar.  For example, the notes in A-7 (A minor 7) are A, C, E & G.  Then I put quarter notes in each bar that correspond to the chord notes, but arranged in an ascending or descending order, and using passing notes where needed.  (Note:  the notes below each bar show the notes in order, but the notes in the bar above are arranged differently).  For example, the first bar is A-7 and the notes in A-7 are A, C, E & G.  However, the notes written in the bar are A, B, C and E.  (The B is a passing note, not a chord note).  In the next bar we have D7 (D dominant 7) and the notes are D, F#, A and C, but the notes I used in the bar are D, E, F# and A.  The E is a passing note.

You may need a reference of arpeggios in order to create your own bass lines.  Here is a graphic I made of major 7 chords, dom 7 chords, minor 7 chords, and minor 7 flat 5 chords.  This chart may help you learn your arpeggios, as well as choose notes for each bar in your compositions.

Please report any errors you may see.