Bass Tutor

From Theory to the Groove II

2009-06-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

This lesson series also includes:

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B, R'n'B or RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The term was originally used by record companies to refer to recordings bought predominantly by African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.

The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. Starting in the 1960s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term R&B became used - particularly by white groups — to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Since the 1990s, the term Contemporary R&B is now mainly used to refer to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music.
- Wikipedia -

In R&B music the rhythm is in emphasized role. The job for the bassist is to maintain and support this rhythm. The right length, the emphasis/intonation of the notes and even ”playing” the rests becomes important. In rhythmic music bass is most often locked with the beat the drummer produces. Bassist can achieve this either by following the kick drum pattern or the overall pulse of the music. You can notice this when listening the samples in the previous lesson.

Music Theory - Rests
Here are the most common rests and their corresponding notes (with the same length). The third example is an exercise you can try after you feel confortable with the lengths of the notes and the rests. Try following the rhyhtm by clapping the notes with your hands or tapping your finger against a table top while counting to four.

Bass technique - finger technique
Next we go through two more basic grooves and practice them with a simple backing track.

Try following the groove one below by tapping the surface of a table with your left hand finger(s) or by clapping your hands. After you feel comfortable with the rythm, grab your bass and try playing along.

Advanced: Try imitating the alternating fingers technique with your fingers against the table. Notice how the number of notes played in the first groove is odd. This would mean that each bar would start with a different finger. This might generate uneven pulse since your fingers naturally produce a slightly different sound. Some rhyhmic players use pick, thumb or just one finger to create more steady pulse. Playing the groove one, stating with different finger each bar is a good finger exercise though. This helps you to find a more balanced feel between your first and middle finger - give it a go!

Both example grooves here are good for exercising reading and ”playing” the rests. In rhyhmic music it is very important to stop a sound at a particular time. Try playing the second groove with the alternating finger technique, starting with your first finger, playing the groove and stopping the last quarter note with your middle finger. Try this first with your finger tapping against a table top. Once you feel comfortable grab your bass. Try it first with just one finger and then with alternating finger technique.

Groove samples 3-4

Tracks 1-3

HOMEWORK: Try playing the new grooves with the backing track. HOMEWORK: Practise the rhythm exercise. HOMEWORK: Try the previous two grooves with the new backing track. Which one works the best with this track and why?

©BassTutor 2009

Lesson Series 1 - Foreword

2009-06-12T03:43:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Bass Tutor! This is the first lesson series containing both theory material and practical excercises to support your bass lessons. The first lesson series is called Lesson Series 1 and you can find all the lessons from this same lesson series by clicking the link list below or by clicking the Lesson Series 1 -link on the Categories list on the sidebar.

This lesson series also includes:

Whatever the situation or level you're playing at, my feeling is you've got to be a strong player. Bass is a strong instrument; you can't allow yourself to play it weakly, with no authority. You've got to play with an attitude, because everybody's listening to the bass..."
- Chuck Rainey (Bass Player Magazine, February, 1997) -

You will find notation images in the studybook and the website. Bass Tutor encourages students to use notes instead of tabulatures (representing bass or guitar strings with a number indicating what fret to press to produce a certain note). Instead of providing tabs, the examples include a stave for you to write tabs on to. Learning to read notes is a great advantage and an investment in your skills. It requires a little bit of extra work in the beginning, but it pays off in the long run.

In the BassTutor online version most of the examples include a player (such as below), which will allow you to listen to the samples on your computer.

This first example includes tuning notes (E, A, D, G) for a standard 4 string bass.

For the copyright reasons Bass Tutor does not provide music samples to support the lessons (other than those specially produced by Bass Tutor). Some of the examples are linked to outside online services (YouTube etc.). Unfortunately these links can be broken, eg. if the person who has uploaded the sample removes the video from the service. If you find a broken link, please let us know.

Bass Tutor articles include audio samples and backing tracks for practising. It is important to learn to play with metronome and with backing tracks. Producing a steady pulse (so called backbone) for the music is the responsibility of the bass player and the drummer. The pulse should stay steady even when the drummer is not playing, this is why it is important for a bass player to get into the habit of using a metronome.

Enjoy the lesson and most of all - feel free to ask questions and give feedback. It is all about learning.

©BassTutor 2009

Chord Theory I

2009-06-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

This lesson series also includes:

Chord Theory I

It all starts with C major scale
To understand the chords and chord progressions it is good to start with a major scale. (If you have forgotten what a scale is here is a reminder). Lets take C major scale as an example. C Major scale consists of the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. In the following example you hear these notes played up and down with a full note long break in between to make playing along easier.

Advanced tip: When playing a major scale, play the root note (in this case C) with your middle finger. This means that when you are moving up the strings you have to slide your middle finger when going from step 6 to 7 (see the notation). The goal is to make this slide as silent as possible.

Lets start with a major chord. When building any major chord, simply take the first (the root note = C), the third (= E) and the fifth note (= G) of the major scale and these three notes played simultaneously form a major chord. The root note gives the name for the chord, in this case C.

Chord Progression Theory

You can figure out what chords might go with a certain key by building chords from the scale notes as the root note of the chord. Lets start with the first 5 notes of a C major scale. The chord created from the root note of the scale is a C major (I = C), the second chord is D minor (ii = Dm7), third one is E minor (iii = Em7), fourth one is F major (IV - Fmaj7) and the fifth one is a dominant seven (V = G7). We will go the rest through in the next Chord Progression Theory -lesson. If you know that the song is in key C, it is very likely that you will run into the above mentioned chords.

Three chord symphony
If you wondered what the upper and lower case Roman numbers in the previous paragraph were, here is the explanation. In western classical notation this is commonly used method to represent the relationship between the chords. This way the chord progression is not tied to a certain key and can be easily transposed the song to any key. You can read more about this subject on Wikipedia.

Lets take this straight into action and start with just three simple chords. One of the most common chord progression is I-IV-V, in the key of C that would mean C-F-G. Believe it or not, there are hundreds of hit songs written using this very basic chord progression.

HOMEWORK 1: Practise left hand finger technique with C major scale and slow tempo.

HOMEWORK 2: Play the song with the backing track and with the first two grooves learned earlier.

HOMEWORK for the advanced: Try to memorize the basic I – IV – V chord progression in two different keys. Where can you find the root notes of these chords on your bass neck? Try them with the grooves learned earlier.

©BassTutor 2009

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2009-06-03T21:21:00.001-07:00

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2009-06-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

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From Theory to the Groove I

2009-06-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

This lesson series also includes:

Musical notation basics

Here we have notes from low E to G. In the second bar there are standard 4 string bass string notes, E, A, D and G. Notes tell you the pitch and the duration of a particular sound. In the last two bars there is a whole note, half note, quarter note, eight note and sixteenth note.

Groove basics I

Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing" created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section (drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards). The term is mainly used in the context of genres outside of Western art music, such as funk, rock music, power groove, fusion, and soul...

Musicologists and other scholars began to analyse the concept of "groove" in the 1990s. They have argued that a "groove" is an "understanding of rhythmic patterning" or "feel" and “an intuitive sense" of "a cycle in motion" that emerges from "carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns" that sets in motion dancing or foot-tapping on the part of listeners.”
- Wikipedia -

Before we start learning the basic bass grooves it's good to hear how musicians use bass guitar. Here is a great sample of different roles of the bass guitar. What is your favourite?

Bob Marley (soft grooving bass – relaxed riff outlining the chord progression)
Kent (soft pop bass, rhythmic element, soft 1/16 pulse).
Eminem (synth bass, strong rhythmic element).
Jamiroquai (”meaty” bass, groovy riff outlining the chord progression).
B.B.King (soft rock bass, creating steady swinging pulse, outlining the chord progression).
Jaco Pastorius (unique bass style, a great example of how to create music out of techique exercise).
Jaco Pastorius (jazzy interpretation of Beatles classic).

Groove samples 1-2
Lets start with two basic bass grooves.

Tracks 1-3
Try to follow the example.

The track 3 includes a backing track for the basic grooves. Start with your first finger only and try to follow the examples. After you can keep up with the backing track, try playing the rhythm alternating between your first finger and middle finger.

HOMEWORK: Try playing with the backing track.

HOMEWORK: Memorize names of the notes on a bass strings and where you can find them on a bass stave.

HOMEWORK: Try alternating fingers technique.

The Basic Elements of Music

2009-06-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

This lesson series also includes:

The elements of music can be broken down into rhythm, harmony, and melody. These categories can be divided to several sub-categories. In this lesson we go briefly through these concepts and take our first look at bass guitar technique.

Rhythm

As a general category, rhythm tells us about the time and rhythm-based qualities of the music. Rhythm can be divided into beat, measure, tempo and rhythm.

Beat - "The pulse of the music"
Beat refers to the underlying pulse of the music. Most music has a steady beat to it. When you listen to a song, you usually feel like tapping your finger or foot to the beat. One of your biggest responsibilities as a bass player is to maintain this pulse of the music.

Measure
Measure refers to how the pulse of the music is divided and counted. Most commonly the measure is 4/4, which means that the music is divided into repeated groups of 4 beats counted 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4. It’s possible to count in 3, 5, 12, or any other number of beats. Your basslines will help define the measure of the music. Defining where beat 1 occurs helps people to feel the meter. Usually this is done with the drummer.

Tempo of the music
Tempo refers to how fast or slow the beat of the music is. The drummer and the bass player are most commonly responsible for maintaining the tempo.

Rythm
Rhythm is mostly about when the musical events happen. For rythm instruments the rests are almost as important as the actual notes you play. The more skillfull you become the more "magic" you can deliver with those tiny gaps between the notes.

A big part of bass playing revolves around rhythm, and it should be a major part of your practising. The more fluent you are with different rhythms and combinations of rhythms, the more you can concentrate on expressing yourself through harmonies and melodies.

Harmony
Harmony refers to how the notes are combined with one another. Groups of notes can be played at the same time or notes can be played one after another.

Chords
Chords are groups of notes played together at the same time. For example, a C major chord contains the notes C, E, and G. When playing the notes C, E, and G at the same time, a C major chord is produced. You might see chords named Fmaj7, Am7 or Gsus4. The latter part describes the type and the qualities of the chord.

As a bass player you need to have an understanding what notes chords contain (the chord tones). Bass players dont usually play the chords, but they outline the chord progressions by playing the tones the chords contain. Playing the chord tones one after another is called playing an arpeggio. Playing and practicing arpeggios on bass will be a major part of learning and understanding chords. Knowing this will help you interact with the chords of a song and the chords other musicians are playing.

Chord Progressions
A chord progression is a series of different chords played one after another. Defining the chord progression is one of the bassist’s main responsibilities. This is why a bassist must really learn chords and chord tones.

Scales
In music, a scale is a group of notes played in ascending and descending order. Scale is different from an arpeggio because it is not based on only the notes of a chord. Scales are named with their starting note, or root note, followed by the type of scale it is. You may see scale names like E major, A minor, F major pentatonic and D dorian.

Scales complement chords. Some study materials advice you to play a certain scale over a certain chord. Even if you are playing a melody out of the notes of a scale, a good melody will still outline the underlying chord progression.

Key
Usually all the notes and chords in a song have something in common. When studied closely the notes might belong to the same scale (for example C major scale). This means that C key is the scale that a piece of music revolves around. Usually this is a major or a minor scale. That doesn’t mean you can only play the notes of that particular key, but the notes of the key provide a kind of musical guideline for the piece of music.

Melody
A melody (also called tune, voice, or line) is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity (Wikipedia). Technically we could call a melody a coherent series of notes. Usually when we are talking about melodies, we are talking about the singable part of music. An instrumental solo, a guitar solo for instance, is another kind of melody.

Traditionally, bass players don’t play the main melodies of songs. Of course, that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t. Bassists are doing it more and more and it is an area where bass players should develop their skills.

Bass guitar technique I - The right way to hold a bass guitar

The left hand should be able to grip the guitar neck firmly. Place each of the four fingers in consecutive frets on the fretboard (semitone difference between the notes). To provide support for the fingers the thumb should be on the rounded side of the neck, on the opposite side of the second finger. When playing notes with your ring finger or pinkie, the supporting thumb can be moved slightly towards them for better support.

Adjust the strap to find a comfortable feel to play your bass. The most natural way for the arms to be positioned is bent 90 degrees from the elbow. Tighter angles makes your muscles work harder and you become easily tired. Greater angles can result in loss of control. The right hand thumb can rest on the pick-up and moved up to lower E string or even up to A string for more control, when moving up the strings.

HOMEWORK: Pick three of your favourite songs and think about why you like them – is it because the rythm, melody, sound or something else perhaps?

HOMEWORK for the advanced: Practise shifting the left hand balance (i.e moving the supporting thumb of your left hand) between 1st finger and pinkie.