In this lesson we’re going to look at a killer funky bass riff and then break it down to see what it’s made of and how we can apply those building blocks in our own basslines. The main concepts we’ll be covering are chord tones and chromatic approach Killer Funky Bass Riff One of the…
In this weeks lesson I’ll be looking at the common double note octave lines you might hear in loads of different disco songs. Double Notes A common technique in disco bass is to double the second note in an octave pattern. This gives us an eighth note followed by a sixteenth. The fingers you use…
Recently I’ve had a few requests for lessons on bass runs. So here are a few simple examples to get you started Simple Pentatonic Bass Runs The term ‘bass run’ covers a pretty wide range of stuff, so we are going to concentrate on runs that act as simple fills. That doesn’t mean however that…
In this lesson I’ll be expanding on the previous ‘Funky Bass Line’ lesson by showing you how we can add scale notes into our riff. Recap Last lesson, we created a bass groove by doubling the kick drum pattern and used the notes of a D7 chord. We are going to expand on that groove…
In this lesson we’re going to expand on last week’s walking line by transposing it to a variety of different keys Recap This lesson is a follow up to the previous that worked through a simple walking bass line over a basic jazz blues progression. First of all, let’s look at the sequence and line:…
In this lesson I’m providing you with a simple walking bass line through a 12 bar blues progression in a jazz blues style What Is A Walking Bass Line? A walking bass line is simply a melodic bass line found mainly in jazz and blues styles in which you ‘walk’ around in quarter notes connecting…
This lesson expands on the 12 bar blues topic by moving into a blues rock style and looking at how we can create some fills using chord tones, scales and chromatic notes. Twelve-Bar Blues The previous lesson, Beginner Blues Bass, explored a common chord sequence called the twelve-bar blues. As we mentioned, there are a…
This is the first in a short series of lessons devoted to playing bass on a 12 bar blues. I’ll be covering Blues Rock and Jazz Blues in upcoming lessons. Please Note: On this video the backing track has a very full sound and the bass can sound a little overpowered on smaller speakers. If…