BopLand.org
Inspiring Melodic Ideas for Improvisation
Jazz Licks:
Walking Bass Lines:
Guitar Tabs:
Guitar Fret Diagrams:
The Goal
BopLand.org is a database of musical ideas for improvising musicians. It aims to build and extend the melodic vocabulary of both students and professional musicians, empowering everyone to develop their unique style of playing wonderful and melodically rich solos.
Overview
The idea behind working with the BopLand.org knowledgebase is that the material is divided into short melodic patterns, or licks, which are searchable by chord progressions. These licks can be used to quickly integrate melodic ideas into one's repertoire. The project is not intended to replace traditional educational methods such as learning theory, scales, and transcribing solos. Instead, it offers a complementary approach, allowing individuals to select melodic concepts they like and adapt them to their taste and style preferences.
The database has the following sections:
- Treble Clef Licks (Standard Notation)
- Bass Clef Licks (Standard Notation)
- Walking Bass Lines (Standard Notation)
- Guitar Licks (Standard Notation with Tabulatures)
- Guitar Chords (Fret Diagrams)
Different databases may contain varying numbers of licks and chord progressions. Licks are typically provided for all keys, though specific licks may not be available in every key. Whenever possible, we cover all keys, which for most tunes means 13 keys, including both Gb Major and F# Major, which are enharmonic and have the same number of flats/sharps.
Project Name
The name BopLand comes from the concatenation of "Bop," a shorthand for "Bebop," and "Land." BopLand is phonetically similar to the famous Birdland jazz club, which capitalized on Charlie "Bird" Parker, one of the main contributors to Bebop and Jazz in the 20th century.
Treble Clef Licks
The Treble Clef Database contains some beautiful melodic fragments over such tunes as:
- All The Things You Are
- Autumn Leaves
- The Days Of Wine And Roses
- Giant Steps
- How High The Moon
- It Don't Mean A Thing
- Lullaby Of Birdland
- My Funny Valentine
- On The Sunny Side Of The Street
- Satin Doll
- Someday My Prince Will Come
- Stella By Starlight
- Take Five
- Take The A Train
In addition to that there are also a few essential generic chord progressions that are applicable to a variety of tunes, like those listed below.
A few sample licks are shown below:
Bass Clef Licks
All chord progressions of the treble clef database are also available in the bass clef:
- All The Things You Are
- Autumn Leaves
- Blues
- Circle of Dominant 7th Chords
- The Days Of Wine And Roses
- Giant Steps
- How High The Moon
- It Don't Mean A Thing
- Lullaby Of Birdland
- Major 2-5-1
- Minor 2-5-1
- My Funny Valentine
- On The Sunny Side Of The Street
- Satin Doll
- Someday My Prince Will Come
- Stella By Starlight
- Take Five
- Take The A Train
- Turnaround
A few licks in the bass clef from the database are given below:
Guitar Licks
Guitar Licks database is very similar to the Treble Clef section in terms of content with a detail that guitar licks are adjusted to the guitar range and are supplied with tabulatures for easier reading. The list of chord progressions available for guitar includes:
- All The Things You Are
- Autumn Leaves
- Blues
- Circle of Dominant 7th Chords
- The Days Of Wine And Roses
- Giant Steps
- How High The Moon
- It Don't Mean A Thing
- Lullaby Of Birdland
- Major 2-5-1
- Minor 2-5-1
- My Funny Valentine
- On The Sunny Side Of The Street
- Satin Doll
- Someday My Prince Will Come
- Stella By Starlight
- Take Five
- Take The A Train
- Turnaround
A few sample licks from the guitar lick database are depicted below.
Walking Bass Lines
Progressions for walking bass lines include:
Some sample licks are shown below.
Guitar Chords
A lot chords over essential chord progressions like:
A few sample guitar chords sequences are shown below.
