I found Online Bass Lessons at StudyBass.com and Ed's book "Building Walking Bass Lines" to be on track and both have great value. There is one more bass line book I would recommend, "Bass lines in minutes" by Kris Berg. "Bass Guitar for Dummies" is a good beginner book, as it has a little bit of everything you will be using. Your public library will probably have a copy.
My old standby chart of generic bass lines using the major scale box as a Rosetta stone may help:
Bass Patterns based upon the Major Scale box.
Major Scale Box.
Code:
G|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string
Want to play the C major scale. Place the box's R on a C note on your fretboard and the notes of the C major scale await you. Couple of places to find a C; 3rd string, 3rd fret, or 4th string, 8th fret. Then there will be at least one more above the 12th fret. Try the 4th string 8th fret first.
Want to play under a Cmaj7 chord. A bass line of R-3-5-7 will work. If the Dm7 chord is coming up a R-b3-5-b7 bass line will work great under that minor chord, etc. etc.
Basic Chords
• Major Triad = R-3-5
• Minor Triad = R-b3-5
• Diminished Chord = R-b3-b5
7th Chords
• Maj7 = R-3-5-7
• Minor 7 = R-b3-5-b7
• Dominant 7 = R-3-5-b7
• ½ diminished = R-b3-b5-b7
• Full diminished = R-b3-b5-bb7
See a chord and play it's chord tones. As every key will have three major, three minor and one diminished chord it's a good idea to get your major, minor and diminished bass line chord tones into muscle memory so when you see a chord your fingers just know what will work. Now the song may only give you enough room for the root, or root five - adapt and get as many chord tones into your bass line as needed. Root on 1 and a steady groove from the other chord tones plus something to call attention to the chord change is 85% of what we do.
Scales - let the major scale pattern be your home base.
• Major Scale = R-2-3-4-5-6-7 Home base
• Major Pentatonic = R-2-3-5-6 Leave out the 4 & 7
• Natural Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7 Major scale with the 3, 6 & 7 flatted.
• Minor Pentatonic = R-b3-4-5-b7 Leave out the 2 & 6.
• Blues = R-b3-4-b5-5-b7 Minor pentatonic with the blue note b5 added.
• Harmonic Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-b6-7 Natural minor with a natural 7.
• Melodic Minor Scale = R-2-b3-4-5-6-7 Major scale with a b3.
Let the major scale be your home base then change a few notes and you have something different. No need to memorize a zillion patterns. Let the major scale pattern be your go to pattern - then adapt/adjust from there. Got to do our scales. Why? To get our fingers doing the things they must do for us to play the bass and our ears need training so they know good notes from bad notes. Every instrument I know of starts you off doing your scales. Scales and chord tones is what we do. Scales for the melody and fill notes and chord tones for the harmony notes. Do a Google on harmony. Here is a start;
Generic Notes - for your bass line.
• The root, five and eight are generic and fit most any chord. Remember the diminished has a flatted 5.
• The 3 is generic to all major chords. So R-3-5-3 will fit under any major chord.
• The b3 is generic to all minor chords. And R-b3-5-8 will fit under any minor chord. Why the 8? Well the 8 is just another root in the next octave.
• The 7 is generic to all maj7 chords. Yep, R-3-5-7 fits nicely.
• The b7 is generic to all dominant seventh and minor seventh chords. G7 = R-3-5-b7 or Gm7 = R-b3-5-b7.
• The 6 is neutral and adds color, help yourself to 6’s. Love the sound of R-3-5-6 with a major chord. Why does it sound so good? Well insert a 2 and you have the major pentatonic scale. The 6 and major chords just go together.
• The 2 and 4 make good passing notes. Don’t linger on them or stop on them, keep them passing. We are talking about chord tones here. With few exceptions the only chords that have a 2 or 4 in them are the sus chords which are in fact passing or lead to chords. The 2 and 4 are for passing.
• In making your bass line help yourself to those notes, just use them correctly.
• Roots, fives, eights and the correct 3 & 7 will play a lot of bass.
Treat these generic patterns as you would your scales. Get them into muscle memory. See a Bm7 chord and your fingers just automatically know what to use in your bass line under that chord.
