Blues bass for total beginners

[first inversion]

Wonderful. Thank you sir.

 

[nickonbass]

You are welcome first inversion.

I have recorded 12 tracks starting with the most basic lines I can think of that walk/lead into the chords in the blues progressions and they get more complicated as they move along.

I have to tab them out and then I can put them up on the net. I'll try and get it done during the week but I have a lot of rehearsing and 1 night in the studio - so might not be till next weekend.

See how I go.

 

[nickonbass]

ok - as promised - here is the firist installment of learning walking bass lines.

This is aimed at beginner bass players but other bass players might get something out of it too. Even if it's just seen as someone elses point of view.

It's very detailed on purpose - I'm trying to give you all the knowledge I studied/study from the ground up. Obviously I don't think about all the stuff like this when I play - who does - but when you write it out like this, it just forces you to think about everything to the extreme.

So without further adieux - here is lesson 01 of constructing a walking bass line for the blue (and beyond).

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If you have any questions feel free to post them here. I'll answer anything I can and there are plenty of players on this forum that are A LOT better a musician than I am.

So let's share as much as we can.

 

[nickonbass]

oh - ps, I'll try and put up a few more lessons next weekend. I won't need to go into so much detail going forward - I just wanted to try and start the thing off right.

 

[Nashrakh]

Mad props for your efforts.

Always good to see someone doing something worthwhile. Thanks a lot!

 

[backline112]

I've been using it and going through all the lessons but, haven't looked at the tabs. I read the title, read what you say about the lesson, skip the tabs, and figure out the notes myself.

Please do not take this as trolling, or non-constructive criticism, I appreciate very much your effort, but in my opinion, people would benefit more from it if it were written in standard notation, or at least just the notes, to purge the button-pressing habit from the student.

"[...]I will push you onward or drag you down to failure[...] I am habit."

 

[nickonbass]

Thanks Nashrakh.

Yeah backline - I'm the same as you - I'd just listen and play it myself.

I don't write it in standard notation partly cause it would take me forever to write it out. But also cause I'd then go an explain how to read music and rhythm.

I want anyone to be able to read and play the notes, instantly - so the tab is there for those players. Plus tab is good cause it shows the positions that I'm playing in - not that I'm saying that's where to play it, it's just where I'm playing the notes on the recording.

But you make totally valid points. I'd like it if there were both tab and musical notation - and the explanations of the two.

Not enough hours in a day. Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

 

[Methodis]

Dude I just love these. They're literally the only things so far that I can actually grasp and learn from :O

 

[nickonbass]

Thanks for the comment Methodis.

I am really glad to hear that.

I am really going to try to put up one each week - I've got all the tracks recorded so should be able to do it. Takes a bit of time the way I ramble on though!

Once I'm done with the walking bass line series - I dunno - I think I might transcribe some classic parts and really break them down a few bars at a time.

I get a lot out of it myself.

Cheers,
Nick.

 

[Methodis]

You thinking of going outside the box at all? Like to maybe see some on other genre's from you. Just something about your writing style clicks with me.

 

[Memitim]

Thanks, Nick. I decided it would probably be a good idea to start learning how to play blues since 35 year old family men aren't likely to be welcomed into amateur bands that play music that I actually listen to. I may not know anything about blues music, but it appears to be either this, country, or southern rock, and the other two would put me on the express lane to Quitsville faster than if my bass gave me the clap, so the blues it is. Jokes aside, you post some good stuff, so thanks again.

 

[lowdowndad]

Nick, first off, thanks for all of your time and effort on freejamtracks. Much appreciated.
Second, I remember on the 1st version of FJT you had some info about the "blues scale". I was just starting to work on that and it disappeared. Could you post that again?
Third, thanks again for your hard work.

lowdowndad

 

[backline112]

Thanks Nashrakh.

Yeah backline - I'm the same as you - I'd just listen and play it myself.

I don't write it in standard notation partly cause it would take me forever to write it out. But also cause I'd then go an explain how to read music and rhythm.

I want anyone to be able to read and play the notes, instantly - so the tab is there for those players. Plus tab is good cause it shows the positions that I'm playing in - not that I'm saying that's where to play it, it's just where I'm playing the notes on the recording.

But you make totally valid points. I'd like it if there were both tab and musical notation - and the explanations of the two.

Not enough hours in a day. Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

Yeah, I understand now. Plus, it's how to play blues for total beginners, and tabs are good to start. I believe tabs have their place in the early stages of learning, but if one chooses to become serious, one can simply choose not to look at them.
So yeah, that's a great web site. Thanks a lot Nick.
By the way, where do you host it? How did you create the site? Some software or online thing?

 

[nickonbass]

Thanks for taking the time to post the comments. I appreciate them all greatly.

Methodis - yeah - after the blues/walking bass lines I'll move onto jazz. I am not a rock bass player at all - Root to 5th. haha.

Memitim - Southern Rock - ROCKS I wear my skynyrd cap at every rehearsal! And I'm an ABB NUT.

Can't remember about what I wrote previously about the blues scale bit lowdowndad but I will put up some of that soon anyways.

backline112 - at some point I will put up music notation - it's just a matter of time for me. I'm all for it - when I buy bass books I look for ones that don't have the tab in them so I don't get lazy.

It's all good either way.

If someone has their hands on their bass then I ain't gonna complain.

I used to be a real purist - when that show Idol first came out I said I hated it - what a bunch or commercial crap! Now I say I love it - why - cause it's a show on tv that is about music, that's better than a kid watching the WWE*.

(* ok, so I don't have anything against the WWE - bring back George The Animal Steeeeeeeeel!!!!!!! )

 

[nickonbass]

backline 112 - forgot to comment:

By the way, where do you host it? How did you create the site? Some software or online thing?

Um - I host it through bluehost - they are cool cause they give me unlimited space and people can download as much as they want.

Over 1000 tracks get downloaded each day from the site!!!

Scary man - shouldn't I be in the charts. This week at billboard number 88 is blues jam in A no bass

How did I create the site? That's a big question.

Um - one day I learnt that you could register domain names. I put in 'jam tracks' cause I like jam tracks, and saw that the domain 'free jam tracks' was available. So I registered it.

I put up 2 jam tracks and after about a month I realised that they were getting downloaded - so I got 'serious' on it and made it into a site.

I am not an IT person. A friend of mine told me to get the program Dreamweaver - so I did and that assisted me in making the site. It's like using Word - ie not difficult.

The tracks got more and more downloaded and at the end of the day - this made/makes me feel good - so I kind of feel I have some kind of social responsibility to the music community to keep putting stuff up there.

Especially for bass players and ESPECIALLY because of TB.

When I first decided to try and get some publicity I went and posted about the site on about 10 web forums. Pretty much everyone thought it was good but y'all from TB were especially appreciative about it all so that made me do the tracks for bass players (plus bass is my main instrument).

At times I tried to be commercial about it - it didn't really work and that got me down a bit but then I come back on TB and everyone here says cool things and I get all these emails from bass players saying how much it's helped you/them and man, I can not tell you how good that makes me feel about doing it all.

So I'm back to how I started - totally not interested in thinking about it from a $ point of view - just for the GOOD of music for music's sake.

I have said it on here before and I say it on the site - if you can play music, it's a gift. It really is. If you can share that with others then you are giving them something that goes beyond money or anything like that. Music touches people.

And besides - when you teach someone - the teacher always ends up getting more out of it than the student. Even if it's in appreciation - that stuff can blow you away.

Life is precious.

None of us know how long we'll be here for.

Every now and then you have to stop and think about that.

I believe we can all take 2 things to 'the next world'.

One is the conversations and how we treat each other.

The second is music.

They are the only 2 truly intangible 'things' I know of which I believe in.

You can't take the Ferrari, but This conversation - and the music we play ...... I'll see you there!

(and everyone gets to jam with Jaco - hahahah)

 

[nickonbass]

Geeze - that last post I did started to get a bit philosophical.

yeah like whatever dude!

Anyways - as promised (and only 1 week after I promised it) - I've managed to steal some time to write out lesson 02:

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It's pretty simple - but hopefully useful for someone out there.