The Bass Fill Struggle

Have you ever been practicing bass fills, only to realize that what you practiced might have worked on that one song, but surely doesn't on the next one? Or maybe you've been shedding away on this cool basslick you saw on Youtube. But when you wanted to use it on stage, it just didn't sound right and killed the vibe of the song

The Secret Sauce

I'm not a big fan of learning licks and patterns. They are useful when you need inspiration or work on your technique. But music is, for the most part, too organic to just through in licks left and right without ruining the song. In other words, if we want to play in the vibe of the song, we need to be able to react to what and how everyone around us is playing. It's like a conversation. It gets boring if every word is scripted, but if you keep jumping from one topic to the next without any reason, it becomes really hard to follow you. So the secret is knowing the limits of your freedom and acting within them. Or consciously ignoring them. But that's just for special occasions

In "Bass Fill Hacks #1" I show you three approaches that will work in almost any musical context. The key is working with what is already there. Using the vocabulary of the song to come up with new ideas. 

Can You Play Quarter Notes With A Swing Feel? 

Although this might seem counterintuitive, there is a difference between swinging quarter notes and straight quarter notes. Generally speaking there is not much to playing a walking bassline, right? You learn your chord tones and then play them in a quarter note rhythm, connecting each chord to the next with diatonic or chromatic approaches. The funny thing is, even if that sounds like a lot to wrap your head around, it's not the essence of a good walking bassline. With a walking bass it's all about the feel. If you don't have a great swing feel, all these notes, substitutions, etc. won't sound right. 

The question is: How do we internalize swing feel even if we are only playing quarter notes?

The Secret Sauce

That's exactly what I'm going to show you in "Do Your Quarter Notes Swing?". I show you two exercises with your metronome that will get you playing swinging walking basslines without relying on a drummer to be your swing machine.

Why You Don't Follow Through

Did you ever listen to a piece of music that knocked your sox off? Something so inspiring that you were willing to do anything to learn how to do it yourself? 

But then once you started and realized how much work you'd have to put it, you gave up. 

The Secret Sauce

In "Why You Don't Follow Up" I'm going to show you three cool techniques that you can use to keep that initial motivation going. The reason for us not following through with a big goal is often the same. We don't break down the problem into manageable chunks and end up overwhelming ourselves. The automatic negative scripts in our heads start telling us that if we can't do it, something is wrong with us. The truth is, we all have the same voices in our heads. The hacks that I show you in this video will help you to silence them and keep going one step at a time, always focusing on the progress you are making rather than getting frustrated that you still don't sound like Victor Wooten (or whichever bass player inspires you most).

The Bass Chord Struggle

Have you ever been frustrated by the fact, that chords generally sound muddy as h*%& on bass? It's not easy creating a chord texture for a soloist or singer to jam over when playing more than two notes at the same time, right? 

The Secret Sauce

But fear not. There is a very easy trick we can use to the 3 String Shapes that we learnt in the "TRIAD HACK SERIES" to beautiful, open sounding chords.

I stole this trick from pianists. The do this thing called spread voicings. they take a normal triad (root, third, fifth) and transpose the middle note up an octave. For pianists this is just a starting point. For us bassists it's a great way to take over the role of the chordal instruments and offer a different texture in a solo, duo or trio setting.

In "Bass Chords That Work" I'll show you how to apply this concept to major, minor and diminished triads. In total that's 9 chord shapes that will enable you to play any chord progression without sounding muddy. You can use these shapes either to accompany a soloist in a trio setting, a singer in a duo setting or record a loop for yourself to solo over. Bass chords to the max!