Solo Bass Archives - Page 8

We’re celebrating Independence Day with a clip of U.S. Air Force bass player Colin Trusedell performing his take on “Amerika, the Beautiful,” as popularized in the bass world by Jaco Pastorius. The track comes from Trusedell’s latest recording, All By Myself. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

It is always exciting to see a new video from Jesús Rico Pérez. Here’s his latest – a solo fretless bass performance of his tune, “A Never Ending Winter”. Once again, Jesús creates such a rich sound on a single instrument, with no overdubs.

Olivier Babaz has a specialty in performing double bass, kalimba, and shaker simultaneously to create a unique and beautiful texture. His latest video takes on the iconic Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven,” and it has to be seen to believed. Babaz starts the melody on the kalimba before switching to focus on bass during the breakdown, while his footshaker...

Here’s another great example of how versatile the double bass is as an instrument. Greek bassist Petros Klampanis paints a vivid picture with his bass on “Blue Cave,” a song inspired by an area on his home island of Zakynthos. Utilizing looping and effects, Klampanis builds a haunting and beautiful backdrop to build a melody and solo over. You can...

Bassist and educator Pablo Elorza recently posted a new blog on exercises for musicians. Part of the lesson is a video with stretches to warm up before or after a playing session. The bassist composed this beautiful bass solo to accompany the video, and it’s just as inspiring as the information. Elorza crafts a lyrical melody complete with chordal backing....

This bass 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.

Adam Stevens has shared a new solo bass video he calls “Sweet Lullaby”. Adam said the tune is “inspired by a traditional lullaby from the Solomon Islands and Toronto bassist, Rich Brown.” Sweet indeed.

We can learn a lot about our instrument by transcribing other instrumentalists, and Charlie Parker’s recordings are a lifetime of lessons. Bassist Felipe Gianei spent four months transcribing Bird’s solo on “Cherokee” and applying it to bass. “[The] first time I listened to this recording of Cherokee I thought, ‘Man, I want to know what he’s doing here, I wanna...

Simon Fitzpatrick has taken “Nessun Dorma” – one of the most well-known tenor arias in opera – and turned it into a solo bass arrangement. “Nessun Dorma” (“None shall sleep”), is from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot. For this performance, Simon is playing his Sei Bass Flamboyant 6.

Matt Lawton shared his new video with us, performing a solo bass arrangement of the Al Green tune “Let’s Stay Together”. There’s plenty to like about this one.

Double bassist Nenad Vasilic is back with a new cover video of Deep Purple’s “Burn.” While the whole arrangement is acoustic, check out his innovative method for getting “distortion” to match the ’70s rock vibe.

Steve Lawson is a master of looping and effects to create enormous soundscapes. He recently sent us this great clip of an improv session that turned out very musical. “[It] started out as a video test and ended up featuring some rather nice music, sort of by accident,” Lawson shares. “It starts out with an ambient loop using my toneprint...