Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher

Category: Film & Animation

Tags: bass linesoctavefunk bass guitarbass lines for bluesbluesguitaroctavesbassbasslinesfunk bassblues bass linesbass guitarfunkslapslap bassslap technique for beginners

Description: Another sample video from the Secret Guitar Teacher site. secretguitarteacher.com Nick demonstrates some easy to play blues bassline ideas based around octaves and takes a brief look at simple Funk and slap technique. Abridged transcript: A lot of basslines that probably originated in Blues have since found their way into R&B, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Soul, Gospel and Funk music. Many of these are arpeggio-based, as demonstrated in our previous lesson. But there is a kind of subset of blues basslines that are framed using the octave. Here’s a common example of this. So that uses the 1st, 8th flat 7th and 5th notes from the major scale of the root note of the chord. And just using these notes alone – starting with the octave and then filling in with the flat 7th and 5th produces a variety of ideas. But as well as starting with the ascending octave, you can also create lines that end with the descending octave. A good place to start these is on the 5th like this. A good way to develop from this point is to learn the blues scale relative to the root note of each chord. Rooted off the E string this looks like this. But I find that accessing the flat 3rd note is quite awkward for easy fingering, so tend to add that in only in the top octave like this For chords rooted on the A string I slide up to this note from the root note octave like this Again, we can frame our lines using the octave at the start like this …or descending at the end of the line like this. With the extra notes from the blues scale I might choose to start a line on the 4th or the flat 5th note. These simple ideas have loads of mileage and you can have a lot of fun working out your own variations on these basic themes. As you explore these ideas it is likely you will begin to introduce an element of funk into your rhythms, as funk riffs love using octaves . And this may lead you to start experimenting with slap bass technique maybe something like this. Let’s take a closer look at exactly what my hands are doing here. I start with a very loose relaxed right hand and slap the side of my thumb into the open E string like this – hitting the string hard against the frets to get that percussive slapping sound. I immediately follow this with a hammer-on using my left hand at fret 5 in this case (playing under an A chord) . Then I hit the open D string against the frets using my fingers like this . To get a nice metallic muted sound …but notice that I position my index finger under the string so I can then firmly pluck the octave note hard enough to get a slight bounce off the fret metal. That’s the fundamental action you need to develop to get that slap sound. That may take a fair amount of practice to smooth out. Then you can start building on it using the notes of the blues scale much as we did earlier in this lesson. Again we can start with the octave Or lead up to it. I hope that gives you a few ideas to explore and come up with your own grooves. Remember you can develop these ideas playing over 12 bar blues sequences, but the techniques and chord-based ideas you work out can easily be adapted to work over major, minor and dominant chord types in a wide variety of musical situations. In the next lesson in this series we’ll explore how scales can be used to link root notes across chord changes. See you then!