Hey, I've been playing bass for a couple of years and right now I'm at a point where I'm not sure what to focus on to get to the point I want. When I first began I was interested in learning theory so I learned the basics (I think), (I know how to play minor, major, 7th and dominant 7th arpeggios) and learned where the ntoes are on the fretboard, but I always felt like I never implemented the basic knowledge of theory properly on my playing, (I always noodled randomly not being aware of what I am doing except for playing simple triads). This year I got really into motown and became a fan of James Jamersons playing. I sometimes open iRealPro and try to improvise on the chord changes, and basically what I want to be able to do is to be more aware of what I'm doing and to learn how/when to emphasise chords / chord changes on my bass. I want to understand chord progressions better and how they work. I feel a bit lost because I think I need to find a way to implement what I learned on my bass playing which I havent done for years. Do you guys have any suggestions? have you ever been in a similar situation? If so, what did you practice or do? Thanks!!
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What should I start learning or practicing to improve my bass playing?
- Thread starter Erenzkm
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If you don't hate ska music... ska can be a really fun way to practice and become intimately familiar with the notes in a scale. A lot of basslines are 'bassic' 
and pretty much only use the triad 1st 3rd and 5th for most of the song, with an occasional'outlier'... but not always in the same order or pattern, you can get quite creative on your bassline even with just 3 notes per chord.
and pretty much only use the triad 1st 3rd and 5th for most of the song, with an occasional'outlier'... but not always in the same order or pattern, you can get quite creative on your bassline even with just 3 notes per chord.
One thing that will really help with working thru chord progressions is inversions, both ascending and descending. After inversions start working on approach notes (both chromatic and diatonic) and enclosures to add some spice to your basslines. Also, remember that you don't have to use all of the chord tones to outline the chord.
To understand chord progressions better and how they work, look for books about jazz walking bass lines (the Ed Friedland books are very good for this) or jazz harmony in general. You can find free videos all over YouTube covering this stuff, ranging from totally useless to very helpful. I’m sure there will be plenty of replies to this thread with specific suggestions.
Why books on jazz? Because they cover both classical harmony as well as the blues. That applies to most rock, pop and country music as well as jazz.
Can you read music? If you can, try transcribing the bass parts of some of your favorite songs. That means working the parts out by ear and writing them down on paper. Once it’s on paper it becomes easier to figure out why the line works.
Why books on jazz? Because they cover both classical harmony as well as the blues. That applies to most rock, pop and country music as well as jazz.
Can you read music? If you can, try transcribing the bass parts of some of your favorite songs. That means working the parts out by ear and writing them down on paper. Once it’s on paper it becomes easier to figure out why the line works.
Thanks for the recommendations! I'll check it out and no, I can't read music, I guess its a good time to start learning.
If you don't hate ska music... ska can be a really fun way to practice and become intimately familiar with the notes in a scale. A lot of basslines are 'bassic'
Similiarly, listening to (Roots) Reggae is a great way to learn how theory can be applied to creating bass lines, especially the bass playing of Aston "Familyman" Barrett, the bass player of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Roots Reggae is relatively simple harmonically and the bass makes a lot of use of triads. Familyman was a master of creating melodic basslines, just like Jamerson, but his lines are made up of simpler building blocks and played with less variations, making it easier to understand what's going on (pun intended
). When you learn the songs, make sure to use transcriptions that show the chords and not just the notes, that way you can connect what you play to what is happening harmonically.
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This came up in a similiar thread (I want to be ready to start playing live with others within 6 months. What do I need to focus on?) recently:
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To become competent with this then you must study Jazz and Jazz Bass performance fundamentals.
Study Chord Tones. Any material by Damian Erskine, Jeff Berlin and / or Joe Hubbard. I have schooled in person privately with Jeff and now am working with Damian ( am a lifetime member of Bass Education ).
At the same time learning Chord Tones, learn walking bass using any of the 3 pros above material or Ed Freidlands walking bass books/courses.
Why? In the process of learning Chord Tones/walking bass in a Jazz context you will be also learning harmony, melody, phrasing and the structure of chord progressions in the real book. iRealpro is a great tool as you know. One day you will have an epiphany and see how Rock, Blues, R & B, Funk, Country and other genres are derivatives of Jazz (mostly simpler though).
As Bassists we successfully "improvise on the chord changes" by playing chord tones and their extensions/inversions/approaches... with Feel. The most effective way to be THIS competent is daily study and practice of the above IME.
Could you perhaps explain inversions to me and how to practice these? From my understsanding as a semi-beginner, it's by taking a note from a chord and playing it below the root, right?
When I saw the title of this thread, I was expecting to see mostly: "Get a teacher.", "Study with someone."
There's so much online for free that offers incredible value. Anthony Wellington's "MILLPAD" video has been a game changer for me. I got as much out of that free video as I've gotten from any lesson I've had. He's been giving Skype lessons for decades as have several others I've seen mentioned here.
There's so much online for free that offers incredible value. Anthony Wellington's "MILLPAD" video has been a game changer for me. I got as much out of that free video as I've gotten from any lesson I've had. He's been giving Skype lessons for decades as have several others I've seen mentioned here.
Yes. Google (or in this case, Bing) can be your friend on something like this:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=what are chord inversions
"Chord inversions are variations of a chord where the notes are rearranged so that a note other than the root is the lowest note, adding richness and variety to music."
You can just practice arpeggios going up from the third, fifth, etc.
When I took bass lessons way, way, way back in 1983, my instructor had a masters degree in music and was a bass player. Both stand-up and electric bass.
Anyway, during one lesson, he told me that around 70% of songs are in the I-IV-V chord progression. WOW! That simplified things for me!
If you've been playing bass for 2 years, you probably already know how dominate the 1 4 5 chord progression is in music. Yeah, 3 chords.
Learn to play bass to songs that you like and enjoy and understand your ability and be happy with what you can play and not be discouraged with what you can't play.
Anyway, during one lesson, he told me that around 70% of songs are in the I-IV-V chord progression. WOW! That simplified things for me!
What should I start learning or practicing to improve my bass playing?
If you've been playing bass for 2 years, you probably already know how dominate the 1 4 5 chord progression is in music. Yeah, 3 chords.
Learn to play bass to songs that you like and enjoy and understand your ability and be happy with what you can play and not be discouraged with what you can't play.
An inversion is when you take the bottom note of a chord and move it to the top. For example . . .
C Maj7
Root position: C - E - G - B
1st inversion: E - G - B - C
2nd inversion: G - B - C - E
3rd inversion: B - C - E - G
How to practice them . . .
As with scales and arpeggios, inversions can be fretted several ways. In the beginning, I recommend learning them 2 different ways - across 2 strings and across 3 strings.
C Maj7, 1st inversion across 2 strings
|-----------------|
|----------9--10--|
|--7--10----------|
|-----------------|
C Maj7, 1st inversion across 3 strings
|--------4--5--|
|-----5--------|
|--7-----------|
|--------------|
For the best results, practice them both ascending and descending. And just don't ascend and descend together. Practice them independently.
Hope this helps . . .
Again, Google can be your friend. Try searching: "chord inversion exercises electric bass".
I am amazed at how often people don't use the internet to their full advantage, even in 2025.
When I began in IT in the early oughts, I had so many clients say to me: "How did you figure that out so quickly?" to which my response was almost always: "I Googled it." The reality of course is that they could have just as easily done that themselves, but they didn't. So, in addition to saving me a lot of money (literally thousands over the years, mostly on car repairs), internet searches have also made me a lot of money by facilitating my ability to fix other people's computer problems.
That can hold true for just about anything. It's always quite likely that someone somewhere has already asked that question or had that problem, and much, if not most of the time the answer and/or solution can quickly be found online. I see more and more people asking questions here that have already been addressed and/or answered here on Talkbass (let alone the rest of the internet) hundreds of times. As others have pointed out, Google searching for issues specific to bass will often point right back here, to a specific thread or threads.
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I think the best way might be to get a job with a band, record your playing, review and fix what you don’t like.
I can understand the frustration with a lack of progress, but how can you measure your progress when it’s a virtual impossibility to remember every note you just played and how well or how bad you played it? Odds are you’re going play a lot more notes well than bad. A recording will show you areas where you need to focus which will shorten the learning curve.
Secondly, playing the bass without the ensemble is a lonely enterprise. The whole point of the art of playing bass is to provide the musical logic (see J.S. Bach) of the other parts of the piece. Trying to create the mental environment of playing in an ensemble is not the same as playing with other musicians. By recording your work with an actual ensemble you can judge your work in context which is a much more accurate feedback than your memory which tends to dwell on just mistakes
I’ve been fortunate to have been working in ensembles most of the last 60+ years and have been recording my work since the 70’s. I have going on 50 years worth of examples of my work. Most of them have periods of what the heck was he thinking, but there is a lot more of really cool stuff in between. And that’s is what you should be striving for, consistency, playing within your talent and serving the music and or the ensemble as best as your can.
I hope this helps. Best wishes.
It might look a bit like this, which is the first two lines from something I devised for my own practice purposes some time ago. To make them more apparent, I've just annotated for you the first inversion (3rd on the bottom) in red and the second inversion (5th on the bottom) in green. The fact that 1st inversion goes down and 2nd inversion goes up is irrelevant - try playing each section (between the double-bar lines) forwards then backwards:
