Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
First idea is that no note is more than a semitone away from a 'good' note. If you get too much dissonance, move by a semitone. That's rather the essence of approach notes generally ... a dissonance that resolves quickly to a 'good' note. Ideally on the bass that would perhaps be to the 'right' note, but hey....
I'm thinking this is exactly right. It's all about dissonance vs consonance. But for us bass players (and perhaps others) it's not as simple to just move a semitone if it's too dissonant. There's what semitone do you move to (up or down) and also for what duration while maintaing the proper rhythm.

It also works fine if one plays the tones or semitones both above and below before hitting the 'right' note. That's the 'enclosure'. For example to arrive at C, you might play D, B, C.
Yep, that is exactly what he explains in the video.

Generally the notes from the chord and the notes a whole tone above those sound good.
Note how he demonstrates that the 3rd to Root works and also 3rd to 5th. The combinations that work are almost endless and I'm thinking that the masterful musician knows how to apply these combinations.

The fascinating thing about all this is how us humans are wired for good music. And that dissonance is not always bad, in fact, dissonance can be good and actually welcomed. BUT (or so it seems) that dissonance must be resolved or it doesn't work per our wiring. I'm not talking about advanced jazz harmony here but the kind of music folks post here or you might hear on popular radio/streaming stations.

So there is at least one fundamental rule for good music which is if you use dissonance (tension) it should resolve to consonance (release). You can see this in his facial expressions when he doesn't resolve a dissonant note. An exception to this "rule" may be at the very end of the song where you intentially want to leave the listener hanging on a dissonant unresolved note or chord.

Another way I look at this is music is a language. And just like there are rules in spoken language that can be bent (good use of slang for example) the rules in music can also be bent, but for it to work, care is needed.

Sense hope makes I this smile

https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677
BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.