by When you’re a bass player, most of the time you’re at the back of the stage, out of the limelight, supporting everyone else and making everyone else sound good.
Not that there’s anything wrong with this at all. I spend most of my gigs doing this exact thing and it’s a ton of fun.
Every once in a while though, it’s nice to step forward into the limelight yourself, and one way to do that is through playing whole songs on your bass.
Instead of playing just the bass line or just the melody, you can play the whole song. This isn’t something that’s very common, so when people hear it, they’re immediately drawn in.
In this lesson, I want to show you how to make solo pieces on bass by using just 2 elements. Using just these crucial things, you’ll be able to play whole songs on your bass – not just the bass line!
The best part about this is that it’s not complicated. In fact, it’s pretty easy to get started.
I’ll also show you 2 ways to go beyond the basics and show you how to give your solo pieces some depth, character and make them really stand out. Check out the lesson:
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Click Here To Download The Tab/Notation For This Lesson
Hopefully you can see exactly how simple this process is. When you look at most bass solo pieces, you can usually distill it down to the melody and the accompaniment. All of the other bells and whistles, like chords, are just the icing on the cake.
Be sure to download the Tabs and Notation for this lesson. It includes the melody by itself, the melody by itself as well as how to put them together. It also includes all of the visual chord diagrams that I used in the lessons.
I even give a few suggestions about what songs you could try making into a solo piece for yourself.
If you watch this lesson and make a solo piece using these ideas, I’d love to hear from you. Even better, I’d love to see and hear any solo pieces that you make. I’d love it if you could send me a quick email with a link of your solo piece. You can reach me at the contact page.
Just in case you wanted to see the full clip of the song, check out this video of me playing the whole thing.
Thanks so much for watching and reading – I really do appreciate it. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out – I’d be more than happy to help!
Enjoy the lesson and have fun making your own solo pieces!
Cheers,
Luke:
Great lesson on doing solo bass pieces.
Jaco said always learn the melody to songs
even if you are playing the bass. Such great
advice. When you listen to Jamerson you can
often hear melody notes weaving through the
bass line.
I wanted to do a solo bass piece of Michael Jackson’s
Human Nature. I just love that song. Can you point me
in the right direction?
Howard Alexander
Hey Howard! Great question! There are a good few versions that people have done on Youtube. You can check some of them out here.
Here’s Uriah Duffy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or8M3C6GuCs
Or you could check out my good friend Nathaniel Andrew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_MURrZ1e-U
There are tons more – some different than others, but check out a few, see what you like and go from there! Remember, you only really need those 2 elements.
Very helpful for me. I’ve played bass in many bands and never knew or had to play chords back then. Now, I’m in a 3 pc band, acoustic guitar, bass & cajon. When the guitar goes to play lead solo, I want to start playing bass chords so I can fill in where the guitarist was playing chords to keep our sound full. I just ordered a high C string to tune one of my 5ers, EADGC which may help with my chording.
Awesome Ernie. Glad you found it helpful. Having that C will definitely help you make the chords super clear. Just make sure that you still take care of the low end and you’ll be golden!
that awesome thank you for sharing . i like it. it is very useful to me i hope you may put some more of this on youtube\
Not to worry Wesmond – I put a new lesson out every week.
I notice that I like how chords sound over just playing one note at a time, and I tend to lean more towards playing chords while I’m learning and creating my own bass lines, even when I’m just learning songs I’ll do the same. I can feel it likely turning into something I “specialize” in. Thank you for this, it’s such a huge help!