by Here’s an incredibly common scenario:
You get handed a chord chart or a lyric sheet to a song you’ve never played or even heard before.
Without any time to prepare or listen to the song, you’re expected to play something that not only sounds good by itself, but also works with what the rest of the musicians are doing.
And these charts and lyric sheets provide almost nothing in terms of direction. It’s just words with chords above them…
What are you supposed to do?
In this 6th lesson of Bass Lines From Scratch, that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about. Chord charts and lyric sheets are fine if you know how the song is supposed to sound, but you can still use them to create basslines on the fly – even with songs you’ve never even heard before.
In fact, you’ll see me do this in today’s lesson. I’ll be making a bassline for a song that I’ve never played before, using nothing but the first lyric sheet that comes up in Google.
Check out exactly how I do it in the lesson here:
Video Not Showing Up Here? Watch On YouTube
FREE: Get The Bass Lines From Scratch Checklist
Use this quick quiz to 'test' your own bass lines to make sure they're world-class. If not, the checklist will show you exactly what you need to do to improve it so your bass lines are as good as they could possibly be.
You'll also get all the tabs, notation and practice tracks from the entire Bass Lines From Scratch Series.
Obviously, in an ideal world, you would have heard the songs you’re supposed to be playing before you play them. But even if you haven’t, you can absolutely still make some great music.
Just remember to start simply – and possibly even stay playing simple ideas. You don’t need to have a complex bass line for it to be effective. Usually, it’s the simpler lines that end up having the most impact.
Make sure you check out the Bass Lines From Scratch Checklist where you’ll learn how to ensure your basslines are always the best they can be. Just ask a few simple questions about any bassline you’ve created and if it stacks up, you’ve got a keeper!
To download your copy, just fill out the form above and I’ll send it to your email address – 100% free.
As always, I’m happy to answer any questions you might have in the comments section. Just let me know and I’ll do my best to help out.
Good luck with the lesson and happy bassline making!
Cheers,
P.S. Here’s the link to the actual song that we dealt with in the video:
Luke,
Good job and great advise. I always recommend to friends to jo to Jams and hone their listening skills. I’ve often found the “online” Tab/chord charts can be a bit off or the transcribers will miss or even skip sections of a song. Love your bass BTW.
Luke, just been given a new song list for the coming year for the u3a Ike group. Was having some trouble trying to play base from the words and chords, some new. Your new video has just given me hope, I will be practising over the coming week to try and yes this system to have some good base next Saturday.
Paul
I have been playing bass for 4 years and belong to a band comprising of myself, a lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist / vocalist. We play country rock and the songs are mainly our own, so I have to come up with the bass lines for each of them. My approach is to record the guitars and vocal and then work out something I think is appropriate, usually using the vocals as the framework. The other guys in the band will then give their opinions on the result! More often than not they are happy with what I create without any changes. At this point I’d like to mention that we are recording our first album in a professional recording studio and the sound engineer also seems happy with my contribution. HOWEVER, I’ve always had this nagging doubt about whether my approach is correct, or whether there is a better way to construct the bass part. I have watched and subscribed to a number of online bass
courses over the years, but they mainly seem to cover chord progressions / arpeggios and the technicalities of bass line construction, when what I wanted was someone to explain simply “how to create a bass line to fit a particular song” At last I seem to have found a course that can tell me how to do that. So thank you Luke for this second lesson and I look forward to receiving the rest of the series.
Great video lesson.
Luke,
I think this is one of the most helpful lessons I’ve seen. This is where I really live, chords on a sheet and needing to “create” on the fly.
Keep up the great work!!
Phil
Thanks so much Phil – I’m happy to hear you’re finding it useful! That’s my goal with every video.