A funny thing sometimes happens with beginning and intermediate bass players. They get pretty good – maybe even really good – at knowing which notes work. They learn the right scales, arpeggios, chords – everything – and that’s great! However, what often happens is that there is such a focus on playing good notes that […]
How To ‘Transcribe’ On Bass
Today, let’s talk about how to transcribe on bass. In case you don’t know, transcribing is just the process of figuring out how to play something by ear. Pretty frequently, I get emails from people asking me to give them tabs or sheet music to songs that they want to play, but can’t find themselves. […]
How To Jam On Bass – 3 Methods And 3 Tips
Have you ever wondered how to jam on bass? You see some musicians get up on stage and create beautiful music from absolutely nothing – and it seems like magic. Do the musicians that do this know some kind of ‘secret’ that the rest of us haven’t discovered? No! Learning how to jam on bass […]
3 Reasons Your Bass Solos Aren’t Working
Have you ever taken a bass solo and just knew it was a total flop? I know I have – hundreds of times! There’s almost nothing as demoralizing as ending your improvisation on bass and feeling like it could have been so much better. What’s even worse is knowing your solo wasn’t great, but not knowing […]
Expand Your Creativity In Bass Solos By Avoiding The Root
One big problem that bass players run into when they start to improvise is always coming back to the root over and over again. This makes sense, right? That’s what we’re doing most of the time when we play bass lines, so this habit carries over into our solos. The upside of this is that […]
The Minor Pentatonic Scale On Bass: 3 Places To USE It
It’s one thing to know your minor pentatonic scale on bass. It’s another thing entirely to know exactly where and how to use it. If you just randomly noodle up and down your bass, is that going to make great music? My guess – probably not. But if you have a solid idea of where your […]
