Soloing Archives

Learn how to play your first bass solo with beginner-friendly tips on scales, phrasing, and articulation.

Joe Hubbard’s new book introduces advanced triad pair concepts to help bassists expand their jazz soloing skills and harmonic vocabulary.

In this new “Bass & Creativity” lesson by Olivier Babaz, we explore two rhythmic directions for building new ideas in our solo phrasing. First up is managing the “one.” The second is examining our length of melodic fragments.

The best way to engage listeners is to craft a story with your music. In this “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz takes a look at ideas and methods to build a story through your improvised solos and compositions.

Ryan is back with a new “Lightbulb Moment” column, this time focusing around the solo. And not just the bass solo, but what we can also do to support the drummer (and other soloists) too.

In this lesson, Lorin Cohen shares an arpeggio exercise that develops our “Vertical” approach to the fingerboard and the ability to ascend swiftly up the neck.

This week a reader asks Damian for advice on how to “organize material and approach a solo without sounding scholastic or predictable.” Check out what Damian has to say on the subject.

In this lesson, Lorin Cohen illustrates how to use one minor pentatonic scale over five chord types. In this case, using the B minor pentatonic scale to play over a progression. This illustrates what Lorin calls a “vertical” approach to soloing, where we create lines that move swiftly up and across the fingerboard.

Bassists abound in NYC. It’s not uncommon to get on the subway to see two other fellow bassists fighting for a spot with their low-end leviathans. And, you can be sure; these bass commuters can do it all – they can groove and solo. My first two columns have been about the former – the primary background responsibilities of the...

Q: I’ve been working on my soloing and I had a question. It keeps getting repeated to me by other players, teachers, and books that I shouldn’t play the root when I solo. What do you think? Is it really such a bad thing? A: I have a few thoughts on the subject. Some are in line with what you’ve...

Here is the second Parker line as promised – you can put it together with the C-7 F7 line from Part 1 and you get a cool turnaround lick: D-7 to G7 leading to C-7 to F7! So that gives you a nice two bar iii vi ii v line in B?. (And be sure to check out Part 1...

Today we’re starting with the first part of a new series on bebop bass, a topic a lot of my students are getting into lately. Our goal is to incorporate some great bebop vocabulary on the bass guitar. There is a ton of stuff out there to help you get started. Look for books on Charlie Parker solos, for example....