Bass Lessons

If you want to add a great groove to your bass repertoire, look no further. James Jamerson’s bass line to “Ball Of Confusion” by The Temptations is simple to learn and play. Ryan Madora covers that in this new “Keep It Groovy” bass lesson.

To start off this new Brown’stone lesson, Rich Brown says "We're not messing around today." Why? Because he's showing us the funkiest note in the world (and how to use it in your lines).

Here’s a fun lesson on improvising over an extremely common chord progression, the “I-V-vi-IV”! We’ll be working in the key of A and I’ll break down the process of moving from chord to chord, connecting notes within the arpeggio, and creating your own bass line.

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown is talking about a subject he gets asked about quite a bit. He’s taking us through his approach to playing so-called “odd-time” signatures.

In this episode of “Keep It Groovy,” Ryan Madora covers a variety of ways you might read music, from standard notation to TAB to various forms of shorthand or Nashville Number Charts.

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown takes us through his favorite Jaco Pastorius exercise. But not only that, he shows us his version of the exercise, played in reverse.

In this new “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz talks about rhythm in improvisation, specifically managing the rhythmic grid with cycles. By changing where we feel the metronome, we can build our inner pulse for more creative ideas.

This one features a super easy walking bass line that can make your blues progression a bit jazzier and your jazz walking bass line a little more accessible. Think about it as a good gateway between the genres.

This week in The Brown'stone, Rich Brown says, "This might be the simplest excercise I've ever given... but it'll probably keep busy for the rest of your life.” Check out this lesson Rich calls “The Only Arpeggio Exercise You Need”.

Ryan Madora is back with a new “Keep It Groovy” bass lesson. This one focuses on adding variety to eighth note grooves by adding rhythmic and tonal accents to pulsing eighth notes to provide shape and movement to an otherwise "root centric" line.

This week in The Brown’stone on No Treble, Rich Brown takes a look at a great way to practice when playing over the II-V-I chord progression. These tips and exercises open up the mind (and the fretboard).

Tim Fletcher’s and Troy Hughes’ epic project “Kansas: Leftoverture – The Complete Basslines” has reached its seventh chapter, featuring Dave Hope’s work on “Cheyenne Anthem”.