by Back when I was in high school and starting to learn bass I had a guitarist friend who LOVED writing melodies and riffs for songs. The ideas just seemed to flow out of him, but nothing ever seemed to get finished.
Every once in a while, he’d show me the songs and melodies he’d started writing and ask me what I thought the bass line should do. Sometimes, he’d just ask me if I could just write a bass line for him. My response:
Immediate and complete ‘blank page syndrome’.
I just had no idea what to do with these melodies and riffs. So what ended up happening? All these half-finished songs remained unfinished.
Back then, as a beginning bassist, I didn’t have the experience or the knowledge to actually contribute something meaningful to my friend’s songs.
But to a bass player with a bit of experience and a bit of know-how – they hear all the possibilities to make amazing music and that’s what I want to help you tap into today.
In this week’s video, I’ve got 3 methods to share with you of creating a bass line if all you have to work with is a melody.
Firstly, I’ll show you the quick and nasty way of doing it, then another intuitive method, and finally, a way of doing it that’s very theory-based.
I also show you how you can ‘ethically steal’ parts of existing songs and use them to create brand new original bass lines. This is something even professional songwriters do all the time, but to everyone else, it’s completely invisible.
You may be surprised at how easy it is as well as how cool it sounds when you do it right.
Check out the lesson here:
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Perhaps if I’d known about all these frameworks for creating bass lines when my friend showed me his ideas, we could have actually finished some songs! But at least we always had a good time playing music together.
Be sure when you’re trying to borrow ideas and parts of other songs that you don’t just straight up plagiarize. It’s not cool and could potentially land you in legal trouble if you’re not careful.
That’s not to say you can’t take inspiration from your favorite music – you absolutely can – although recent case law may be challenging that…
In any case, good luck with the lesson and happy playing!
Cheers,
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