Easy bass solo: If you’re a beginner, it almost sounds impossible. How can taking a bass solo be easy?!?! But imagine this: You’re at a gig, on stage, bass in hand, and things sound amazing! You’re standing next to the drummer, both great big smiles on your faces. Song after song, you’re grooving hard, locking […]
5 Vintage Blues Bass Riffs
Blues bass riffs are just about the perfect thing to pull out of your arsenal at a blues jam session. Why? Because if you play some authentic blues bass riffs, it signals to all the other people playing that you know and understand the language of the blues. And it doesn’t hurt that you know […]
How To Walk Through 2 Chords Per Bar
“How can you play a walking bass line if there are 2 chords in the bar?” A student asked this on a live stream not too long ago, but I thought it was a great question and worthy of its own dedicated video. Walking through chord progressions with multiple chords in a bar is trickier […]
How To Get An Upright Bass Sound On Electric Bass
Sometimes you just need that upright bass sound. Maybe it’s when you’re playing some walking jazz bass lines, a bluegrass 2-feel or if you just want to feel like you’re rocking a stadium with Mumford And Sons. It’s alright – there’s no judgement here… However, even though an electric bass and an upright share the […]
Tabs vs. Sheet Music: Which one should you learn?
Tabs vs. sheet music/notation – Nearly everyone has an opinion on which one you should learn. But, after years of experience I don’t think one size fits all. For some bassists, reading sheet music is nothing but a distraction that won’t actually help them. For these players, learning and reading tabs makes total sense. On […]
The Modes Vs. The Pentatonic Scale: The Critical Difference
If you’re a beginning bass player, you’ve probably at least of heard of the ‘modes’ and of the pentatonic scale shapes. You may have even learned both of them. But how are they different, and where should you use each of them? The confusion usually crops up around the purpose and use of the modes […]
