“House Is A Rockin” by Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas Style Boogie or Dominant arpeggio exercise for bass? These are the kind of questions that must be answered if I’m going to continue to ramble on pointlessly. haha But seriously though folks, this is a short, fun tune to blast through. They played it in C, but they tuned down a half step so if you’re tuned regular (A440) then you would play it in B along with the recording. Its a ‘ I IV V ‘ tune just listen for the changes.

The basic note pattern is a Dominant arpeggio (mixolydian, a Major triad + b7) and the Major 6th as shown in the video. You can just play that pattern for each chord, or you can always mess around with it. You can switch around the order of the notes or play some notes only once instead of twice each time. I just always thought it was a fun tune to play and a borderline “exercise”. Like an etude, i guess. A blues bass etude? Maybe not. Have Fun!!!!

Technorati Tags: bass guitar lessons, Stevie Ray Vaughn, video bass lessons

This video features random info on playing blues bass. A lot of the topics could be entire videos themselves, but I wanted to try and cover as many aspects of blues bass as I could. The topics I’m talking about here are what I consider to be some of the most important parts of playing blues bass in a band.

Firstly, the bass is where the band gets all its forward momentum, especially in blues. The drums are helping to form the rhythm section, but it’s the bass part in particular
that provides the propulsion that the rest of the band can ride on.

When you play blues tunes, it’s best not to play too busy during the main groove and verse parts. You can loosen it up for the solos, but mostly there’s are certain walking bass lines over a shuffle beat that gives blues music it’s sound and drive. Note wise, a simple Major triad (1st, 3rd, 5th) works very well over Major or Dom7 based blues tunes. From there you can add in the 6th and/or b7th step of the Major scale.

Those are the notes, now what about the feel? The beat is called a blues shuffle and it workd best with a very steady, pumping walking bass. Don’t get me wrong – there’s all kinds of ways to play some blues. I play funkified blues all the time, but for straight ahead Mississippi Delta/St Louis/Texas/Memphis/Chicago Blues songs it’s all about that walking shuffle.

A super important thing is shifting from the basic Major scale finger setup (middle finger on the root note) to get at the lower notes and shifting back. It makes playing walking bass lines really easy. Just shift your pinky onto that root note where your middle finger was. You can put your index finger three frets down. That’s the root of the relative minor.

Bass walk-ups are huge in blues and some other genres (like country). Usually there’s a walkup into th four chord. Walkups are a way to guide the listener into the chord change. It’s very common and effective. In fact, people get so used to hearing the bass walkup in popular tunes that one time, I had the riot act read to me by an overzealous band leader when I left it out. It’s like they need to hear it.

A good way to play the walkup is (on the last measure of the I chord – before it changes to the IV) start with the root on the downbeat, then go up to the second note of the scale (a whole step, or two frets) on the next beat, and then the next two frets in a row on the other two beats. Then right up into the root of the IV chord on the downbeat.

Be sure to check out Part 2 of this video for a whole bunch more Blues Bass Tips

Technorati Tags: bass guitar, blues bass, video bass lessons

Okay. This is the part where we really get down to business – the business ofbuilding some serious bass chops!

Yes indeed kiddies, you wanna really be able to take it for a ride? Many, if not

all the major bass greats have practiced these 

patterns, and I can speak from my own experience that these specific exercises

will increase you dexterity and mental

focus in leaps and bounds! For real. These are just note sequences – nothing

fancy, but when you learn to play them fast

and accurately, they can be easily added into your solos and bass line

concept. You’ll probably do it automatically.

The painful part is that there’s only one way to get good at these. You

guessed it, playing them over and over and over. 

Then playing them over and over some more. The key to it is to just try and

play each note clean and even AS IT COMES

ALONG. When you start on one note and play that sequence (of notes), you know

what note the next sequence is going 

to start on. Don’t let your thoughts get too far ahead of the note you’re on

right now.

It’s very important that you play these with a drum machine (drumbeat of some

sort) or  a metronome click. Playing these

in time is a huge part of it. The payoff is phenominal within a short period

of time. Don’t believe me? Try for yourself. It 

doesn’t take that long, just enough repetition for you to develop the muscle

memory for these patterns. Then you’ll be

doing them in your sleep.

Leave some comments. Lemme know whats up.

Jonny

Technorati Tags: bass guitar, bass guitar basics, bass guitar how to play, bass guitar learn online, bass guitar video lessons, beginner bass, blues bass, learning bass guitar, major scale bass guitar, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Hey folks,

Jonny here.

The minor scale is your ticket to playing some the fiercest riff jams there are.

Not only that, it will enhance your abilities and understanding in any style of

music. Once you get the note patterns down, it doesn’t take long to develop your

speed and power. It just takes some practice with a drumbeat or metronome click.

If you need beats to practice with, just lemme know in the bass vids contact

form on the upper left side of this page and I’ll make some more up.

The first thing you wanna do is get the notes under your fingers – just get used

to playing through the scale – up and down. Then fire up a drum machine or

metronome click and start playing it in time – slowly at first, and then

gradually push the envelope. But speed isn’t the primary goal right now, that

will happen naturally. Just focus on picking the notes cleanly,clearly, and in

time. If you do this, it will massively accelerate your learning process in a

few different ways:

1. You’re learning the fretboard note layout

2. You’re building dexterity in your fretting hand

3. You’re getting better picking hand coordination

4. You’re developing rock solid time

Once you know the Major and minor scales, you can start to completely map out

the entire fretboard. The minor scale is actually one of the “modes” contained

within the Major scale. If you play a Major scale starting from the sixth step -

that is the scale’s “Relative minor.” For instance, if you play a G Major scale

starting on the E (or sixth step of G Major), then you are playing an E minor

scale – and the E minor scale is the “relative minor” in the key of G ( or G

Major). In C Major the relative minor is A. If you count up six letters from C ( or

down three letters ), you get to A.

You can play through the exercises to gain total dominance over the minor scale

note patterns. These are note sequence exercises so you get to know the patterns

every which way. It really builds up your dexterity, muscle memory, and the

muscles themselves.

In the first exercise, play from the root note up four notes. Then play

four notes off the second step, and just keep going – all the way through each

scale step. Then do the same thing descending from the top note. This is a

sequence pattern that you hear violin players doing really fast in classical

music, and its a rock guitar solo staple. It’s really great to learn to play fast,

then mutate it for soloing.

In the second exercise, start from the root and play three notes up then thefirst

note again. Then start on the second step and do the same for each scale step

going up and coming down.

The third exercise is breaking the scale into thirds. A third is an interval. An

interval is the distance between two notes. If you play the root note, then play

the third note of the scale – that’s a third. If you play the first note of a

scale and then the sixth note – that’s ( you guessed it ) a sixth. In a Major

scale that would be a Major sixth – root to sixth in a minor scale is a minor

sixth, since it is a half step ( or one fret ) smaller. Same goes for seconds,

thirds, and sevenths. Just play from the root and go to the third note. Then the

second note to the fourth. Then the third step to the fifth, and so on.

This s**t really works! Try it.

Jonny.

Technorati Tags: bass guitar basics, bass guitar how to play, bass guitar learn online, bass guitar video lessons, bass video lessons, beginner bass, learning bass guitar, Minor Scale For Bass, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Wanna be able to shred over 90% of the most commonly played bass lines ever?

It all starts with the Major scale. The best part is – its easy! It may take a little practice to get used to which finger goes where – but it’s a such a familiar sounding pattern of notes that your fingers should take right to it.

Just get set up so that your fretting fingers cover one fret each for four frets (in a row). If its hard to make the span at first, move up to a higher fret until your hand gets used to the motions. Soon you’ll be able to cover the first four frets. I play through this as a little warm up in the video – and its something I regularly do when I first pick up my bass to practice – just to wake the fingers up.

The most common way of playing a Major scale in one “position” (four fret span) is to start with your middle finger playing the root note. Then your pinky goes down two frets up from the root note on the same string. Then move to the next string up and fret the notes under your index, middle and pinky. Then up to the next string to finish with index, ring finger and pinky.

Its a completely movable pattern so you can start the scale on any note. Its the arrangement of whole and half steps that gives the scale it’s sound, and the fingering pattern gives it a visual shape on the fretboard that you can remember and refer to. It’s a good idea to play through the scale in time with a drum machine at both slow and faster speeds. Just practicing through a bit will develop muscle memory astonishingly fast.

Playing effective bass is mostly about organizing note choices. Learning the Major scale pattern is a huge help in that department, since its used so commonly.

Be sure to check out Part 2 of this video next time where I go over some really awesome, simple exercise you can do to completely own the Major scale and build up some soloing chops too.

Have fun!

Jonny

Technorati Tags: bass guitar, bass guitar basics, bass guitar video lessons, beginner bass guitar, beginning bass guitar, blues bass, learn bass guitar, Major Scale for Bass, Ripping Bass Major-ly, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Hey, your Video Bass Coach here!

Do you want some serious Bass Chops?

Well of course you do! And you know what? It doesn’t have to take as long as you might think to develop.
What really matters is what you practice and how you practice it.

And my Video Bass Lessons are here to hand you some of my 25-year experience as a bass player.

One of the best things to practice is arpeggios. Arpeggios are the chord tones of a scale. The chord tones
of a scale are the first(root) note, third note, fifth note, and seventh note of any scale. When you play the
chord tones one after another in a line, it’s called an arpeggio. The most basic type of arpeggio is the first,
third and fifth notes of a scale. This is called the “triad” of the scale. That’s what I’m dealing with in this
video.

The exercises in this video serve two purposes. The fretting hand is playing a triad off of each note of a
Major scale and moves up the neck stepwise with each triad. This will give you the feel for playing the
notes of one Major scale all the way up and down the fretboard. It’s also tricky for the picking hand, since
it’s just one note per string. These are tough exercises. If you can get some speed built up doing this,
you should gain a lot of control.

There’s a million different ways to practice arpeggios so there’s more to follow…

Jonny

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… CY: wait… I: wait… YCat: wait… C: wait…

Technorati Tags: arpeggios on bass, bass guitar basics, bass guitar video lessons, beginning bass guitar, how to play bass guitar, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Attention Bass Players!

Do you ever feel stuck in one spot on the fretboard? It sucks when you want to move around on the fretboard but feel locked in one spot. Sometimes if the music is going by really fast, you may not want to lose the groove by making some radical shift. Then there’s the problem of getting confused over which notes are which.

No sweat, because my Video Bass Lessons are here to help!

Using pentatonic and Blues scales is a fast, easy way to get a visual map of the entire fretboard. The patterns are simple, and they contain mostly chord tones which makes pentatonic scales really useful for bass players – and super quick to learn and apply! Once you get them laid out in one key, you’ve taken a big step toward total fretboard domination. A fast, easy way to get a visual map of the entire fretboard using pentatonic and Blues scales. The patterns are simple, and they contain mostly chord tones which makes pentatonic scales really useful for bass players – and super quick to learn and apply! Once you get them laid out in one key, you’ve taken a big step toward total fretboard domination.

A big part of what I want to show you is how to memorize the fretboard and have instant recall, control and confidence.
An easy way to jumpstart this process is by learning to map out an often overlooked (but EXTREMELY) useful scale: the pentatonic scale. They are mostly made up of available chord tones, which are (usually) safe notes to play for bass.

A lot of times when you’re covering chord changes on bass, only the chord tones from the scale are going to work. The other scale tones don’t really fit and may muddle up your bass part if you try and jam them in there for the sake of playing more notes. Over the years, I’ve found that using pentatonics scale patterns work perfectly for creating and expanding on bass lines in lots of different styles like Rock, Blues, and even Jazz/Bop.

In this video I talk about just covering three frets at a time. With this setup, you can mostly use your index and pinky to fret the notes. Once you see where all the little “boxes” are, you can get some serious mobility going.

Turning a pentatonic scale into a Blues scale is a really great way to add some flavor to your bass parts. It’s just one little note – and a weird one at that – use it as a passing tone for awesome results. Using that Blues note can also work really well for quick licks at the end of four bars.

This is mostly just an intro. I got more to say on this in a bit… till then – lemme know what area you need help with by entering your questions in to the form on the left and you’ll get a free video bass lesson made specifically for you!

Rock on -

Jonny

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… CY: wait… I: wait… YCat: wait… C: wait…

Technorati Tags: bass guitar basics, BassGuitarStarter, beginner bass guitar, learning bass guitar, play bass guitar, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Don’t Be The Guy Who Makes These Simple Mistakes!!!

In this vid I just wanted to be clear on a couple things. They are simple and kind of subtle – but they make a HUGE
difference in your bass playing!!!

The first point I’m attempting to make is that when you cradle the neck of the bass in your hand so that the palm of
your hand touches the back of the neck, you are robbing yourself of all your mobility. On the other hand, if you only
need to pedal one note for a while, then it doesn’t really matter. If you have to play a fast scale type lick or riff,
its way easier to play if you simply drop yur thumb down to around the middle of the back of the neck.

The other thing I wanted to mention involves keeping the fingers of your fretting hand planted after you fret them. If
you’re fretting a note with your pinky, then the other three fingers should (normally) be planted down on the strings.
There are plenty of exceptions, but this is typically the rule of thumb.

These are simple but they make a big difference in your overall technique – especially the thumb thing -

Well, until the next lesson, hold down that low end and make me proud…

Jonny

Technorati Tags: bass guitar, bass guitar basics, bass guitar video lessons, bass video lessons, beginner bass guitar, blues bass, learn bass guitar, learning bass guitar, video bass lessons

Get The Skills To Fly Through Octaves With Your Picking Hand!

Hey there boss,

Have you ever gone to pluck a quick note on the high string of your bass but fluff on it, or miss the string entirely
with your picking hand? It happens when you’re looking at your fretting hand and your picking hand doesn’t have the
distances between the strings memorized.

Playing octaves is a good example of this. Its extremely common for bass players to hit the octave note above the low
note they’re playing. It’s a good idea to get your picking fingers used to the distance between the strings so you can
pluck the different strings quickly and cleanly. That’s the focus of this vid. I go through the different note groupings
playing an octave starting on the E string and an octave starting on the A string.

The exercises in this video are just an example of some of the things you can do to practice octaves and sure up your
picking hand. As always, I encourage you to look for as many ways to practice this as posible, and create your own ways
to practice. Using a drum machine can help keep your practice sessions musical and easier to get creative.

Anyway, it’sa good idea to get good at hitting those octaves and the exercises in this lesson should help get you going.

Please leave your comments and let me know if this vid helps. These are the same exercises I did (and still do) to
develop my picking hand skills. If you come up with any other cool exercises, let the rest of us know about it!

Until next time…hold it down and keep it tight!

Jonny

Technorati Tags: bass guitar basics, beginner bass guitar, beginning bass guitar, crossing strings, learn bass guitar, video bass lessons, video guitar bass

Learn How To Get Your Picking Hand Flying Across All The Strings!

Hey there bass slinger!

Do you ever have trouble picking notes cleanly and clearly when you need to go from string to string? Do your picking
fingers ever get jumbled up when trying to play fast across all the strings? In the beginning its a common problem, but
not to worry – you can put a fix on this in a jiffy!

Did I just say “jiffy”? Whatever -

I want to take a couple minutes to talk about building up the ability in your picking hand to jump from string to string
and skip over strings with ease.

Most of the time, when playing in a band context, bass players will be playing on the E or A string. This makes sense
since that is where the lowest notes are located. But there are (at least)four strings on our basses, and for various
reasons we find the need or desire to play on them all.

At first it can be a little tricky to start skipping around the strings. It helps to develop some dexterity and muscle
memory in the picking hand to maintain control. That’s the idea of this video. It shows some exercises you can do to get
your picking hand to remember exactly where the strings are so you can jump around and pick notes on the different
strings accurately. These are just examples – there are infinite ways to practice this kind of stuff. It’s a good idea
to try and come up with your own patterns note groupings to use as exercises. Practicing with a drum machine can help
make it a bit more musical and keep the creative juices flowing.

With a little practice, it shouldn’t take long to get a good feel for it. Its not something you need to practice for
hours and hours at a time. If you just work it into your warm up routine, it’ll start to become second nature after a
couple weeks.

Well, thanks for watching – and please be sure to leave your comments and let me know if this vid helps. Also, if you
come up with any other good ways to practice crossing or skipping strings please share it with the rest of us!

…Keep on truckin’

Jonny

Technorati Tags: bass guitar basics, BassGuitarStarter, beginner bass guitar, beginning bass guitar, crossing strings, fingerpicking for bass, video bass lessons, video guitar bass