Rhythmic Playing Archives

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown talks about upbeats. If you can master the upbeats, you can master the groove. So grab your bass, and let’s get started!

Two-hand tapping on an electric bass can be used in a multitude of ways. In his new “Tapping Technique” lesson, Josh Cohen covers the creation of improvisations in the upper register with the right hand while playing a bass line in the left hand.

Josh Cohen is back with his second installment in his “Tapping Technique” bass lesson series. In this episode, he shares tips on “Rhythmic Displacement” in an effort to improve playing two or more independent parts at the same time.

This week, Damian got a question about moving between triplets and 16th notes within a single line. He decided to reply with a video on how he feels and practices the divisions.

For this week’s column, a reader asked about practicing rhythms. Instead of writing out a response, I decided to make this video to show you how I practice subdivision exercises.

Q: I’ve been playing around with hemiola rhythms and, no matter how much I try to “feel” them. I can’t. Help? A: I assume that you’re talking about rhythmic figures that repeat in a cycle and cross the barline (no obvious downbeats until the cycle has repeated enough times to bring it back to starting on the one). Literally speaking,...

Rhythmic Displacement is a concept based on being able to hear and perform rhythmic patterns starting on different subdivisions of the beat. The new superimposed rhythm creates an interesting illusion with the lines you are playing, which in turn creates tension. This lesson is aimed at giving you usable ideas for improvising walking bass lines using the concept of Rhythmic...

Q: I’ve only been playing bass about 1.5 years – still a newbie trying to learn the tricks of the trade. I mostly learn a song and play basic, but as of late, I’ve been learning to read. I’m not fluent in reading, but that’s not my problem. My problem is trying to play the rhythm of the notation. I...

Rhythmic phrasing is an often overlooked subject in bass guitar education, much of it left to chance and feel. However, the bass guitarist should become “rhythmic aware” as being an integral part of the rhythm section of a band. In this lesson I explain how to use rhythm as motific building blocks to develop your ideas – enabling you to...

Q: Lately I’ve been finding myself in situations where tunes with odd time signatures are called up on gigs. I’m finding it a challenge to switch gears on the fly and be able to come up with a grooving bass line and not lose the one. How do you handle – and prepare – for these types of situations? A:...

Q: For a while, I’ve been focusing on developing a percussive finger style bass technique, in a similar style to yours. I have great fun with it when playing on my or own or looping, but whenever I try it in a band situation, it just never sounds as good. All the detail – and most of the groove –...