Bass Lessons - Page 22

Welcome to installment two in my series on my favorite and most efficient practice “hacks.” You have probably heard of this one – taking breaks. Here are some tips on making the best of these breaks! After about 20 to 25 minutes of focused, distraction-free practice (one “Pomodoro” if you are hip to the Pomodoro Technique), take a break. When...

In this lesson, I’ve taken a pretty classic and fairly easy to play bass part from Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” and given you a few examples of how to use that as a springboard for creating other bass lines around that core groove. This can be really useful when playing under multiple soloists on the same tune. It’s not always enough...

Are you (like me) always on the hunt for the latest and most efficient practice “hacks”? Today I am starting a series here on Talking Technique introducing you to my personal favorites. Some of them are quite unexpected, and I encourage you to try them and see the results for yourself. Some go back to ancient wisdom, and science has...

It’s no secret at this point that Prince is, has been and always will be my favorite “B.A.S.E.” player – him and just about anyone who had the salt to hold the chair in his band. Yes, I’ve got my preferences out of that bunch as well, but we’ll rap about that later! In this episode I’m going show you...

Last July, I published a Talking Technique lesson called “Beautiful Practice“. It recently made a reader’s favorite list for 2016 here on No Treble thanks to your likes, shares, and comments. Thank you for that! The lesson brought together music theory, comprehensive fretboard knowledge, and lots of technique aspects. I thought we’d bring the lesson back with a twist, namely...

Dee Murray is a giant of the bass guitar many people do not rate as being among the best of all time, but I certainly do. His playing on the holiday single “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John is nothing short of impressive as he finds many inventive ways to make very simple chord changes sound exciting and new. After...

This month I chose the self-titled track from Steely Dan’s 1981 record, as a focus of study. I had never heard this group before, though my friends told me all the time there are a lot of good studio musicians on the band’s records. I never was interested in their music until recently when I found this record at a...

Some people are afraid for their fingers, while others swear by it: the one-finger-per-fret position. Is there is a reason to fret “one-finger-per-fret”? Not if done right. Is it worth getting it down? Yes! [Read to the end for “Practice-with-me” videos.] I definitely recommend having a solid grip (so to speak) on the one-finger-per-fret method. Practicing this way has numerous...

Sometimes a simple shift in accent or change in the length of a note can really mark a particular style or genre. In this episode, I’m taking a very recognizable Dominant 7 line and shifting accents and note length to demonstrate how the exact same harmonic material sounds different in Blues, R&B and Quartet music. Follow along with the transcription...

Every bassist has been in situations where they have had to hold down a one-chord or repeating bass line ostinato for long periods of time or an entire song. It can be challenging to approach these mind-numbing repetitive songs and keep it interesting while not overplaying. Many Rolling Stones’ songs feature verse sections, such as this, that consist of only...

Pentatonics using hammer-ons and pull-offs sounds great, but maybe you have noticed that if you stay within the same pentatonic pattern, you can only hammer on certain notes. In an effort to go beyond that, we are stringing two pentatonic patterns together so that we can pull off pull offs from every single note. I’ll show you two major pentatonic...

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...