Lesson Archives

Playing with good time, develop sensitive dynamics, produce a solid tone and have the confidence to express interesting musical ideas on your bass is essential. It only makes common sense that developing a deeper bass guitar specific technical understanding and prowess is the essential path as an improvising bass player. In this lesson, we will cover some ground to gain...

Today we’re talking tapping! I get a lot of questions about tapping because of Oon, my duo with bassoonist Paul Hanson. I get to play chords, melodies, and grooves – sometimes at the same time. Tapping is a helpful technique to expand the possibilities of the bass, but it must be used with taste! Function comes first. This lesson will...

The Blues is one of the major building blocks for jazz and improvised music, making it a logical starting point for applying your improvisational concepts. The problem exists when people learn some concepts and then attempt to jam along with no specific goals in mind. This is a big mistake! In this lesson, we’ll cover just one of the stepping...

Dead notes are percussive effects that can really liven up a groove. There are a variety of ways to create them, including left-hand muting, right-hand percussion, and left-hand percussion. For this lesson we examine how dead notes (and silence) affect the groove. As is often the case, a good way to begin practicing them is by utilizing scales. We’ll be...

In this Advanced Bass lesson, we’re diving into the realm of playing over minor II V patterns. I’m including a solo etude along with two skill developing drills as we work step by step through a common chord progression. This lesson includes an easy to follow chart (PDF) detailing the specifics of this lesson providing you with a valuable resource...

As with many scales, the harmonic minor scale gives us a great tonal playground to work with, but it also gives us a great platform to work on our technical playing. This lesson will work on some J.S. Bach-inspired harmonic minor bass lines to focus on our coordination and speed training. There’s nothing like a fun technical exercise! If you...

Bass grooves often have lines that move across strings on the same fret. To keep a smooth and legato feel, we need to focus on the technique of jumping from string to string. Here we’ll dig in on a few exercises with plenty of variations to get all your fingers in shape. Today’s tip is on getting an even attack...

In this lesson we’ll cover an effective concept of superimposing melodic lines over multiple chord types. We’ll then develop this idea through the introduction of a technique called “framing,” which will enable you to hear the chord you are playing over with more harmonic clarity. This concept will enable you to expand your ideas and end up with more mileage...

Want to know more about classic compressors and need to learn with a quick course? AudioSchoolOnline is offering an 82-minute course covering 11 classic compressors and five compression types, with examples given on bass, drums and vocals. The course was created by Audio School Online’s Ken Lewis, a producer/songwriter/engineer/musician who owns his own analog SSL Mix Studio and regularly works...

Today we’re talking technique with the right hand and getting those fast fingers. I’ll be going over the two finger alternating plucking style, which will get you through most playing situations. Oftentimes, players get wrapped up in coupling their right hand and left hand processes when playing patterns. I recommend making alternating your fingers an automated process so you don’t...

Now that your fingers are getting in shape from the first two lessons, but how do you tackle making large interval leaps on the fly? Accurate shifting is an equally important skill to mastering technique. Upright bass players work meticulously on shifting to be as accurate as possible. We’ll borrow a few pointers from them as well as dive into...

A cool harmonic concept that bebop players have used for years is substituting dominant 7th chords – built in minor 3rds – over the V7 chord of the key. In this lesson, we’ll cover this concept to learn the possibilities of Diminished II V chord substitution over the II V I progression. Follow along with the video, and be sure...