Bass Lesson Archives - Page 19

This series has been dedicated to learning the fretboard, the previous lesson covered the major scale. In this lesson we will cover an applying the major scale to a basic chord progression, the II-V-I. There are a multitude of ways to think about music. For this exercise we will focus on thinking laterally and vertically. When we think laterally we...

This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF, Kindle Book and the all-new paperback formats. So far we’ve covered Anchors and Pivots in previous columns. Roots and fifths – the bread-and-butter of the working bassist. Now we start to get into the really...

One of the essential skills for any bassist is mastery of the fingerboard. At any point in time you should know exactly where you are and where you can go. Most of us have the first part of that down, it’s rare that you’ll be playing and not know where you are, but how many people have an understanding of...

This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF or Kindle Book formats. We left off last week with an overview of the topics we’ll be covering in this series. The material this week is foundational; I doubt that you’ll be running to the...

This is the first in a series of three lessons from my new online course Contemporary Techniques For Bass Guitar.  This lesson is an excerpt from my new book/DVD, Tapestry, which is scheduled for release in September. The song illustrated here is called Ebenella and was written by a good friend of mine, Rob Gourlay. These techniques are the same...

We’ve all heard about “chordal scales.” Chordal scales are useful; they contain the chord tones—we really need those!—and a set of neighbor and passing tones that will sound reasonably and reliably good. Chordal scales are emphasized in a lot of teaching methods. Are they the basis of what we need to know as bass players? Do we make our lines...

One of the biggest creeds for bassists is “thou shalt worship thy metronome” (it comes right after “thou shalt be the sexiest member in the band”), and with good reason. Sexiness aside, we are the foundation, both harmonically and metrically, for the rest of the band. We’re the pulse. These exercises will help you get more mileage out of your...

There are a ton of Youtube videos out there with amazing bassists using this technique. Want to learn how? As a disclaimer, this takes a lot of time to get to a functional level, I spent 4 months of consistent practice before I was able to use it. That being said, the technique is totally learnable with regular practice, this...