Bass Line Construction Archives

In today’s “Keep It Groovy” lesson, Ryan Madora goes over two popular major scale shapes and a great way to connect them to play over two octaves. Ryan focuses on what she calls the “4-fret span” and “5-fret span” shapes.

In this “Keep It Groovy” lesson, Ryan Madora shows how to play the E minor pentatonic scale across two octaves, both ascending and descending. Then, she adds a bit of rhythm to the scale to create a simple yet effective bass groove.

In this Keep It Groovy lesson, Ryan Madora covers how to create a simple bass line using minor triads. Taking inspiration from the drum groove, we can find a rhythm that works, apply the arpeggio, and create a simple yet effective groove!

In this episode of “Keep It Groovy,” Ryan Madora features a funky bass line over a 12-bar blues progression. She uses the blues box pattern but adds a few grace notes for maximum funk.

In this episode of “Keep It Groovy,” Ryan Madora shows us how to build a groove using the e minor pentatonic scale as our groove prompt. It can be extremely helpful to give yourself a starting point, both rhythmically and harmonically.

Ryan Madora’s latest “Keep It Groovy” lesson is all about finding a simple yet effective part to accompany a song. Here are some basic tips for improvising a bass line. Always let the chord progression be your guide and keep it groovy!

To start off this new Brown’stone lesson, Rich Brown says "We're not messing around today." Why? Because he's showing us the funkiest note in the world (and how to use it in your lines).

Here’s a fun lesson on improvising over an extremely common chord progression, the “I-V-vi-IV”! We’ll be working in the key of A and I’ll break down the process of moving from chord to chord, connecting notes within the arpeggio, and creating your own bass line.

Ryan Madora is back with a new “Keep It Groovy” bass lesson. This one focuses on adding variety to eighth note grooves by adding rhythmic and tonal accents to pulsing eighth notes to provide shape and movement to an otherwise "root centric" line.

Ryan Madora’s new “Keep It Groovy” bass lesson is here, and it’s a follow-up to the previous one about pedaling vs. pulsing eighth notes. In this one, she shares a few ways to add accents and pizzazz to our bass line.

In this “Keep It Groovy” bass lesson, and this time around, Ryan Madora is focusing on building your bass groove through the use of octaves and palm muting.

In this “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz focuses on the beautiful colors made through suspended voicings. He walks through the basics of sus4 & sus2 chords and their most common use.