Let’s talk about how to write a song on bass. It’s an interesting one.
Bass is usually a ‘monophonic’ instrument – it only plays one note at a time. This is perfect for creating bass lines, but it can actually make it trickier to write songs.
With the guitar or piano, it’s common and relatively easy to put together chord progressions to make songs out of. Even just playing some chords on guitar and singing a melody can form the foundation of a great song.
It’s not quite as straightforward to write a song on bass though. It’s not always possible to ‘hear’ the rest of the song if you’re just working with the bass line.
So if you want to write songs, does that mean you have to learn an entirely new instrument like the guitar or piano?
This is exactly what Steve, an email subscriber was wondering about when he reached out to me and asked about writing songs on bass.
So in today’s bass lesson, we’re going to look at 5 ways you can write a song using nothing but your bass.
Check out the video here:
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The best part about all these 5 methods is that you can use all of them at the same time. There’s no rule that says you can only use one or the other – use all of them!
As always, if you have any questions, just let me know by replying to this email or you can leave a comment down below or through the contact form on the site.
I’m always happy to help out however I can.
Good luck with the lesson and happy songwriting!
Cheers,
Rider says
You are the best bro this video was awesome!
Pops B says
Sorry for this but, Luke what kind of software or machine do you use to play along with. Please respond.
Thanks
Luke McIntosh says
I use a bunch of software for different things. I usually just use Garageband for recording my bass and listening back (and recording my bass for the videos), I use an app called iRealPro to create a lot of the backing tracks for the videos. I also use a program called Transcribe! every once in a while if I need a hand hearing things a bit better.