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Bossa Bass help

#2
The most basic bossa rhythm is a dotted quarter followed by an eighth, repeat. Usually it's a root on the dotted quarter and a 5th on the 8th note for the first two beats and then a 5th on the dotted quarter for the 3+4 and back to the root on the and of 4...rinse and repeat. It's pretty hard to explain in words. That is the most generic bossa beat and the starting point from where it expands. If you do only that your lines will get boring fast, but as I said that's the starting point.

The best way to really learn is to copy from records. You can check out the Jobim stuff and the Stan Getz bossa stuff for a start. There are some good compilations of bossa from brasil out there too. Listening and emulating what you hear will be the best way to really get the style down.
 
#4
All the answers are in the recordings. It's hard to explain it in words. Sure, there are many, many subtelties you can pick up within the style. The root, 5/dotted quarter,8th note thing is the ground level. You can have many leading tones into other notes as well as rhythmic variations, all depending on the chord progression and what else is going on in the music. Listen, emulate, and play. That's the best way to learn as much about a style as possible. It's very hard to break down a style of music into a few paragraphs.
 

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