Bass Lessons - Page 31

Like everyone else who was hip to late 70’s/80’s music I was instantly transported back to the golden age of 80’s electro funk the moment that I heard Mark Ronson / Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”. However, even though the aural aesthetic certainly reminded me of some of the best times of my life and certainly some of the best music,...

Continuing the theme of British bassists from 1968, this time I’m looking at Danny McCulloch’s bass line on “Monterey” by The Animals. This band formed in the gritty northern English city of Newcastle in 1960, and were one of the edgier sounding bands associated with the “British Invasion” of the U.S. pop charts by the middle of the decade. Their...

There is a step by step process that can help you change ingrained habits. It is a fast and effective technique to practice just about anything so effectively that it can become addictive. But it is also a great catalyst for changing ingrained habits. That is good news, because if you have ever tried to change a habit – be...

Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” is one song from the New Jack Swing era of R&B that has certainly stood the test of time. People who weren’t even living when the song was brand new hit dance and sing to it like it came out yesterday. Two really cool things about this bass groove are that it easily serves as a...

Today I’ll pay tribute to one of my bass heroes: Jimmy Johnson. His versatility always amazes me. He plays smooth jazz with his band Flim & the BB’s, he holds down the groove with James Taylor, and he always keeps the group together under complex harmonies with Allan Holdsworth. Johnson has a unique voice on the instrument, with very melodic...

The use of melodic quotation is prolific within the genre of jazz and its related modern styles. In this lesson, we’ll cover how to use melodic quotes in your solos and breakdown some of the commonalities used by many great jazz masters. Applying this to two choruses of a B? blues progression, we’ll take a step-by-step analysis which includes taking...

In episode 22, we introduced a way of practicing scales that uses intervals rather than going up and down the scales themselves. We went over thirds, which gives you great materials for runs, fills, and solos. Someone asked in the comments if I could give some examples of how to use the material in a chord progression, so that’s what...

“New Jack Swing” is an era of R&B that mixed jazz, pop and electronic dance music sensibilities with hip-hop production techniques. The “sound”, pioneered by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (former keyboardist and bassist for the Time) and Teddy Riley consists largely of synthesized bass lines, swung hip-hop beats created by the TR-808 drum machine and the SP-1200 sampler with...

Here we have the second installment of the Creative Bass Lines, and this month, it’s “Bass Gruv”. For this we’re looking at a Headhunters-esque bass groove I wrote. This would fit the harmony of an E dominant 7th chord, or for a crunchier sound, try setting up a vamp with an E7?9, too. I wanted to introduce some of you...

If you’ve been following this column for a while, you know we place a lot of emphasis on the details of good technique, including the left hand. Sometimes, though, we go to see our favorite bass players and they have the “pistol grip”. So is it really necessary to use one finger per fret and good posture on the fretboard?...

I want to continue the “G-Funk” exploration in this episode by taking a look at the 1995 cut “Safe & Sound” by DJ Quik. This song is a prime example of having a part from a record re-played as opposed to sampling it. This gives the producer so much more freedom in terms of what elements can be added or...

Today we will be tackling Jaco Pastorius’s bass line on the title track from Weather Report’s 1980 album, Night Passage. This is one of the best Weather Report albums. To me, it always sounds fresh and modern, like a timeless record. The group also includes drummer Peter Erskine and percussionist Robert Thomas Jr, who sound very tight together. In this...