You’ve probably played the 2-5-1 progression on bass before, even if you didn’t realize it. And even if you haven’t, I can virtually guarantee that you’ve at least heard this progression before. It’s just about everywhere from classical music, to jazz, blues, country, hip-hop, pop, rock – even metal. It’s one of the most common […]
The Pentatonic Scale For Bass: A ‘Hack’ For Memorizing And Combining Pentatonic Shapes
When it comes to learning and using the pentatonic scale for bass, how do most people do it? If you’re like me or thousands of other bass players, at some point, you’ve probably sat down with some tabs, sheet music or scale shapes and just tried to learn your pentatonic scale that way. Up and […]
Walking Bass Lines – 5 ‘Plug-And-Play’ Formulas
Walking bass lines can be an absolute mystery. Someone shoves a chord chart in your face and expects you to know exactly how to get through it. In theory, it’s easy. You just have to play 4 notes per bar, right? In reality, it can be a lot trickier than it sounds. The conventional wisdom […]
The Antidote To Boring Bass Solos
Why are so many bass solos just so dull and boring? There are plenty of reasons, but one of the big ones is that bass players don’t give the audience any reason to pay attention to their bass solos. And when nobody is paying attention, what happens? People start to talk when the bass solo […]
Inject Melody Into Your Playing With This Interval
Have you ever noticed that when you try to make up a bass line or take a bass solo, it just sounds like you’re just going up and down a bunch of scales? If so, you’re not alone! This is something that a ton of bass players struggle with. I definitely went through this myself. […]
Advanced Bass Improv – How To Play ‘Outside’ The Harmony
I got an email a few weeks ago from an email subscriber asking about an advanced bass improv concept – playing ‘outside‘ the established harmony. This is very much an advanced topic. If you’re still in the process of learning how to improvise using scales and modes, keep at it. You can even use my […]
