I decided to use the name “Bass Maze” for this series, as it’s quite different from my earlier “Bass Riffs” series. In this series (see this post), I will let my app randomly give me four notes to use as “waypoints” in a riff. I will in each “episode” show a screenshot of the app running so that you can see which notes I’m stringing (no pun intended) together in the riff recorded below, and possibly explain why it sounds so “weird” (if it does to you, that is).
So here it is for episode 1/Bass Maze #1:
NOTE: The chart above is wrong, but I’m leaving it in because it shows the notes to be played. Starting with Bass Maze #3 (#2 also has the wrong chart), the boo-book will be correctd (D#3 is missing from the upper end of the G string, and it shows F#4 is the highest note, whereas it’s actually F4).
I always play a note (via the “Play a Note” button) first and try to guess which of the four randomly/programmatically selected notes it is. I incorrectly guessed “G2” first on this one, so I was way off — yikes!
Here is my riff that moves from G#1 to C#1 to G2 (which could be rather inharmonious, after beginning with G# and C#) to D#2:
I semi-cheated on the move to G by just passing through it chromatically (G2, F#2, G2, G#2), but staying on it long (remember the three-millisecond rule from the introductory post) would have sounded sourer than a batch of Frisco bread.
To make it more challenging, I will henceforth go by the order of the notes displayed after “Create a riff using these notes” rather than the ordered list listed on the top half of the form, which would usually be easier. So I gave myself a break this time, but from here on out, the moves from one note to the next might be all over the fretboard / note spectrum.