Bass
Upright Bass Lesson: Walking Bass Lines Over Altered Chords
Walking bass lines are a fundamental aspect of jazz and blues music, often performed by upright bass players. These lines provide a rhythmic and melodic foundation, guiding the harmonic progression of a piece while maintaining a steady groove. Upright bass, also known as double bass or contrabass, is particularly renowned for its rich and resonant tones, making it an ideal instrument for crafting intricate walking bass patterns.
Bass Guitar Lesson: Walking Bass Lines in Blues
In the intricate tapestry of blues and jazz music, there exists a rhythmic heartbeat that pulsates beneath the melodies and harmonies, guiding the listener through a mesmerizing journey of sound. This rhythmic foundation is none other than the enigmatic walking bass line—a fundamental element that gives blues and jazz its distinctive groove and swing.
Slap Bass Guitar Lesson: Popping & Pull-Offs
Slap bass is a dynamic and percussive technique predominantly used in funk, jazz, and rock music genres. It involves striking the strings of a bass guitar with the thumb in a downward motion, followed by a popping or snapping of the strings against the fretboard with the fingers. This creates a distinct and rhythmic sound characterized by its sharp attack and pronounced articulation.
Bluegrass Bass Lesson: Using the Number System
When first learning to play an instrument of any kind, one of the most seemingly daunting tasks that musicians face is transposing their favorite tunes from one key to another. Transposing tunes quickly is a skill that is required commonly in the context of bluegrass. Whether adjusting the key of a tune to accommodate the preferred register of a vocalist or fellow instrumentalist, transposing tunes from one key to another is a talent that’s exercised at essentially every bluegrass jam session.
Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson: Alternating Bass Using The Thumb
One of the most beautiful features of the guitar is its expansive harmonic range. Guitarists have access to notes ranging from a low E (or lower depending on the guitar’s tuning), all the way up to a high C more than three octaves above, in most cases.
Slap Bass Lesson: An Introduction to Popping
Since its inception in the 1970s, slap bass and its signature sound have become essential to the aesthetic of a variety of genres ranging from rock to funk, jazz, R&B, country, soul, and more.
Electric Bass Lesson: Arpeggios for Common Chords Found in Jazz
Three fundamental elements define the structure of all western music—scales, chords, and arpeggios. Chords highlight the most critical notes of a scale and do so by sounding these prominent tonalities in unison. Arpeggios, on the other hand, outline the tonalities present within a chord individually, allowing players to create melodic lines that draw attention to the most critical notes within a composition’s chord changes. Jazz music, in particular, is known for utilizing very complex harmonies. So, sometimes crafting arpeggios can feel a bit daunting for jazz musicians of all instruments and levels.
Bass Guitar Lesson: An Introduction to 5-String Bass
Conceptualized by Leo Fender in 1951, the electric bass guitar was initially designed to replicate and amplify the deep low-end tone of an acoustic upright bass. Much like the upright bass, the first electric basses featured four strings tuned to E-A-D-G from low to high. However, unlike the acoustic bass, electric basses featured frets much like a guitar, which allowed for perfect intonation and sonic precision (hence the name of the instrument’s first model—the “Precision Bass”).
Electric Bass Lesson: Using Space & Simplicity
A common perception among many listeners and aficionados of music is that a musician’s virtuosity is defined by their ability to play highly technical, complex melodies and harmonies at fast tempos with precision. While many virtuosic players are able to do this, often the most prolific musicians are masters of exercising restraint, of leaving space between the notes and chords to create musical passages that not only sound wonderful but are deeply moving and emotive. This is often most true among the world’s best bass players.
Electric Bass Lesson: Creating Harmonic Chords
One of the interesting and unique qualities of stringed instruments is that their construction allows players to quickly access a wide range of harmonic tones with relative ease. The easy access to harmonics allows players of nearly all stringed instruments to implement these unique sonic textures into their playing in limitless creative and boundary-pushing ways.