Skip to main content

Bass & Creativity

Bass & Creativity: Melodic Phrasing & Swing Feel

Bass & Creativity: Melodic Phrasing & Swing Feel

In this lesson, we’ll cover the topic of phrasing and using swing feel as an expressive tool. We’ll accomplish this by having a clear view of the rhythm feels and how to dial in more or less flexibility in the melodic phrasing.

Get daily bass updates.

Get the latest news, videos, lessons, and more in your inbox every morning.

Bass & Creativity: Chord Colors & Building Harmonic Movement

Bass & Creativity: Chord Colors & Building Harmonic Movement

Olivier Babaz is back with another “Bass & Creativity” lesson. He covers how we can progressively build chord changes, starting from a static modal section and adding modulations and harmonic movement to it while keeping a consistent groove.

Bass & Creativity: Beat Phrasing & Time Elasticity

Bass & Creativity: Beat Phrasing & Time Elasticity

By playing behind or in front of the beat, we’ll experiment with laid out or edgy time feels on a constant tempo. We’ll see how it affects tension and release of the chord changes, how the body expresses it, and how it helps build rhythmic awareness and agility in a band setting.

Bass & Creativity: Ghosts & Voicings

Bass & Creativity: Ghosts & Voicings

In this new “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz talks about how improvisation is a great tool to practice and expand the use of new musical techniques or ideas. He covers two ideas: ghost notes and modulation with voicings.

Bass & Creativity: Cycles, Grid & Rhythm Blocks

Bass & Creativity: Cycles, Grid & Rhythm Blocks

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.

Bass & Creativity: Rhythmic Phrasing Ideas

Bass & Creativity: Rhythmic Phrasing Ideas

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.

Bass & Creativity: Melodic Development

Bass & Creativity: Melodic Development

Olivier Babaz is back with another “Bass & Creativity” lesson, and this time, he’s sharing a boot camp on melodic development with three concepts. Utilizing these tools, you’ll be able to come up with tons of ideas to explore.

Bass & Creativity: Building a Story

Bass & Creativity: Building a Story

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.

Bass & Creativity: Spicing Up the Chords

Bass & Creativity: Spicing Up the Chords

Today we will explore simple ways to discretely modify the harmony while maintaining the bass movement. Once again, experimenting with the piano will help underline those modifications, but we will also cover ways to express it on the bass.

Bass & Creativity: From Improvisation to Composition

Bass & Creativity: From Improvisation to Composition

In this lesson, Olivier Babaz discusses some key elements on how to structure an improvisation in order to transform it into a full-grown composition.

Bass & Creativity: Suspended Chords & Modes, Part 1

Bass & Creativity: Suspended Chords & Modes, Part 1

In this “Bass & Creativity” lesson, Olivier Babaz focuses on the beautiful colors made through suspended voicings. He walks through the basics of sus4 & sus2 chords and their most common use.

Bass & Creativity: Alternate Lydian Modes

Bass & Creativity: Alternate Lydian Modes

For this lesson, we'll be looking into some alternate Lydian colors. We will take a look at the colors and applications of the Augmented Lydian and Dominant Lydian, both as full modes and as temporary colors integrated within more usual chord sequences.