An intro to Slap

Slap bass is a technique mostly used in bass for funk or forms of jazz. It involves striking one of the lower strings with your thumb. Popping is a technique often used with slap, only on the higher string.

The technique

Place your hand in the way you would when normally fingerpicking. Then place your thumb at a 90 degree angle from...

As with my first lesson, my excercise is a hybrid of what I've found on the internet, as well as of my own invention.

Realizing to become a better player, not to mention an "accomplished" player, I needed to learn all the notes on my instrument, top to bottom. With a 20 fret/4 string bass, that can be a lot of notes!

One excercise I adapted is a...

I didn't see a stretch/warm-up specifically for bassists, so I thought I'd post what I do.

My routine is a hybrid of various excercises I've found from different sources. I simply combined several of these for a routine that works great for me.

First, before picking up my guitar, I stretch my fingers. I begin with a static...

Today we're going to be going over various patterns on the right hand. This lesson will be for fingers, so pick bassists go get a coffee. Now, a common misconception is that a pick allows you to play faster than with fingers. At first, maybe because it requires somewhat less precision to alternate constantly, but I feel using fingers allows for...

All right. In this lesson, I’m going to teach an easy way to achieve an “outside” sound. The outside sound is anything that seems almost like there is no melody behind it, but it’s actually technical and pretty hard to get a good grasp on (not to mention it freaks people out when played correctly). The outside sound will sound familiar to those of ...

All right. As you may know, the minor scale is very important and is used in most genres of music. But what most people don't realize is that there are scales within this scale that are hard to uncover unless you move the scale over a position. That is what I am going to be teaching.

Let's start off with the standard E minor

Position...

The way I remember the Pentatonic Scale is by remembering the 5 Shapes and giving them rememberable names. (The following Scales are in E Minor)

Shape 1

G|-0-2-|
D|-0-2-|
A|-0-2-|
E|-0-3-|

Shape 2

G|-2-4-|
D|-2-5-|
A|-2-5-|
E|-3-5-|

G|-4-7-|
D|-5-7-|&#13...

Most bassist don't even get to show there talent during a show. All they do is stand out of the spotlight and thwack away at the E and A strings. Well I'm tired of that and hopefully you are too! Music is all about expressing yourself, and that's why you need to show your chops.

I'm not going to tell you that all bass solo's have to be part of a...

Begin on open notes, slowly building your tempo until use of the pinky beccomes more fluent.

G|-----------------------------...

NB Essential to playing jazz and fully understanding some examples in this will be the ability to read bass clef.

Walking bass

One of the major things you need to know for walking is how to construct scales and chords. Scales and modes here. Chord Construction here & there.

Now, first thing, a walking bass line is a line in which the bass player...