10,000 Post Celebration: Top 10 Lessons & Transcriptions

Editor’s note: After seven plus years of publishing, we just hit the 10,000th post here on No Treble. We thought we’d celebrate with some of the all-time reader favorites by category over the next week. Thanks for being here!

Continuing our celebration of 10,000 posts on No Treble, we’re looking back at the top 10 reader favorite bass lessons and transcriptions since our debut on May 2, 2009.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy.

Transcription: Tal Wilkenfeld’s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” Solo

1. Transcription: Tal Wilkenfeld’s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” Solo

This transcription is bassist Tal Wilkenfeld’s fantastic solo on the Jeff Beck classic “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers”. There are several live recordings of this track, but the one transcribed here is from the Crossroads Guitar Festival from 2007. Download the transcription and follow along…

Lesson: Scale Patterns from Tetrachord Combinations

2. 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. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the tetrachord – a collection of four notes…

Fretboard Exercise: C Major Triad Reggae Groove

3. Fretboard Exercise: C Major Triad Reggae Groove

As bassists, it is important that we know our chords and arpeggios. Coupled with that is the importance of knowing the entire fretboard. In this exercise, we’ll play only three notes – the C Major triad. To make it fun, I’ve set it up as a reggae-style groove…

Covering All the Keys Using a Cool Minor Bass Lick (And Having Fun)

4. Covering All the Keys Using a Cool Minor Bass Lick (And Having Fun)

We’re taking a bit of a detour from our regular bass lick series lessons to work on moving around the fretboard and playing a line through all the keys. In this lesson, we’re going to start with a lick in A minor, and work through the cycle of fifths…

Bass Transcription: “Overjoyed” by Victor Wooten

5. Bass Transcription: “Overjoyed” by Victor Wooten

This month’s transcription is “Overjoyed” by Victor Wooten. This superb arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s classic song was originally found on Victor’s debut album A Show of Hands, although this video from 1987 shows that Victor had been playing it for nearly ten years prior to the release of that album…

Bass Transcription: Michael League’s “Continuum”

6. Bass Transcription: Michael League’s “Continuum”

“Continuum” is one of the most well known songs for bass players, and I’d argue it is one of the greatest tunes on Jaco Pastorius’s self-titled debut album. I stumbled across this variation of “Continuum” with Michael League and Cory Henry. After listening to it three times, I decided to transcribe it…

Bass Transcription: Miki Santamaria’s “Thinking Out Loud” Solo Bass Arrangement

7. Bass Transcription: Miki Santamaria’s “Thinking Out Loud” Solo Bass Arrangement

This month’s transcription was suggested to me by No Treble founder Corey Brown, serving to remind me of Miki Santamaria’s fantastic solo arrangements of pop songs for bass guitar. This song, originally by Ed Sheeran, translates nicely onto the bass due to the relatively open key of D major…

Expand Your Bass Fretboard Knowledge with the Pentatonic Scale

8. Expand Your Bass Fretboard Knowledge with the Pentatonic Scale

Here’s a great exercise aimed at expanding your fretboard knowledge. For this lesson, we’re going to use the five positions of the A minor / C Major pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale contains five notes, of course, and you can play this from different positions. Learning these patterns will significantly increase your fretboard knowledge…

Advanced Bass: Crackin’ the Slonimsky Code

9. Advanced Bass: Crackin’ the Slonimsky Code

Using concepts derived from classical music, Joe delves into demystifying diminished patterns commonly used by jazz musicians, such as John Coltrane, Pat Martino, Jaco Pastorius and countless others…

Talking Technique: The Permutation Exercise

10. Talking Technique: The Permutation Exercise

In this lesson, we’re going to be working on our left hand dexterity with the “Permutation Exercise”. Each finger is assigned a number. By practicing each variation or permutation of the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, we can build finger dexterity and coordination…

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