Berklee offering bass courses online

Berklee College of Music is offering classes in rock and jazz bass, along with a certificate program for career musicians.

Rock Bass

A grounding in rock is necessary for any work in popular music today, and this course offers more than the basics. You’ll learn the 12-bar blues form and the major and minor pentatonic scales, and you’ll learn phrasing, feel and improvisation, allowing you to affect and contribute to a song rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically.

If you have a year’s playing experience, can play classic rock bass lines, and you understand tablature and traditional notation, you’re ready for this course.

Jazz Bass

“When a walking bass line is done right, everybody in the audience wishes they could play bass.” –Jim Stinnett, Jazz Bass course author.

If you have basic knowledge of the bass guitar fretboard, modes of the major scale and a bit of reading experience, you’re ready for the Jazz Bass course. You’ll learn to play a walking bass line, as well as to hear and recognize chords, to transcribe bass lines and to transpose jazz blues to any key. You’ll also develop your physical technique, and develop focus and good practice habits.

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