Lessons
Slap Bass 101 – Part 5: Funk/Rock Scale Basics
Today, we continue the Slap Bass 101 series, adding the basic “funk/rock scale” – the minor pentatonic, with trills, to what we’ve learned so far. Check out the entire Slap Bass 101 series: Part 1: Slap Bass Introduction Part 2 – Building on the Basics Part 3 – Left Hand Slap & Hammer-Ons Part 4......
Slap Bass 101: Part 4 – Right Hand Pluck/Pop
In this lesson, we’ll build on the concepts in Part 3 and add the right hand pluck/pop. Next time: Funk/Rock Scale Basics! In case you missed them, here are Parts 1-3: Part 1: Slap Bass Introduction Part 2: Building on the Basics Part 3: Left Hand Slap & Hammer-Ons For more great bass lessons from......
Slap Bass 101: Part 3 – Left Hand Slap & Hammer-Ons
This week, we continue building on the foundation established in Part 1 (the basics) and Part 2 (building on the basics), and add left hand slap concepts and hammer-ons. Next: Right hand pluck and pop For more great bass lessons from Thomas “MarloweDK” Risell, visit PlayBassNow.com...
Slap Bass 101: Part 2 – Building on the Basics
Last time, we covered the basics in my introduction to slap bass lesson. This week, we’re going to build on the concepts of the introduction, covering basic thumb slapping, ghosted notes, muting and offbeat bass lines. Next: Part 3 – left hand slap and hammer-ons. For more great bass lessons from Thomas “MarloweDK” Risell, visit......
Lesson: Slap Bass 101
Editor’s note: Help us welcome our newest contributor, Thomas “MarloweDK” Risell! By popular demand, I’ve been working on a new lesson series for beginning slap bass. This week, we’ll break down the basics. Part 1: Slap Bass Introduction This lesson covers basic thumb slapping, ghosted notes, muting, hammer-ons and plucking/popping: Next: we’ll build on these......
Introduction to Bebop Scale Forms
In this lesson we’ll explore the basic forms of Bebop scales so you can start getting the patterns down and experiment with them in your music. There are times when you solo that you may want to do a scale run over a chord. Have you ever noticed that a straight descending scale run as......
Lesson: Building an Improvised Composition for Solo Bass with a Looping Device
One exciting way of use a looping device with your bass is to enhance a composition. A recorded phrase can become a backbone over which to improvise. For example, a phrase can take the form of a tapped rhythm (e.g. using muted strings), a short rhythmic phrase lasting only one or two bars or a......
Lesson: Minor Tetrachord Patterns
In the last tetrachord lesson we went over the concept of tetrachords and how they change the way we think about scale patterns. In that lesson the focus was the major modes and a question was posted asking about the melodic minor and harmonic minor modes. Therefore this week’s article will go over tetrachords in......
Live looping: Thinking outside the box
I was in a music retail outlet recently where I purchased a Boss RC-20XL Loop Station. A great piece of kit, a glowing review of which I will post separately. What occurred to me, as the eager shop assistant demo’d the device, was that live looping may have become a little typecast in the minds......
Lesson: Scale Patterns from Tetrachord Combinations
We normally think of scales in terms of eight-note patterns and treat them as a unit. There are the standard modal forms for both major and minor, the bop variations, blues variations, but all of these still cling to the paradigm of an octave based scale unit (even if the total number of notes in......
