This exercise is a fingerstyle funk bassline that reflects an F# dominant seventh chord. It also uses trills and double stops, both of which are common ingredients in funk lines. This line opens with an A# played on the ‘and’ of beat 4 of the count-in. After playing this note, slide upwards to E, then […]

This exercise is an uptempo slap line that uses the triplet popping technique that was pioneered by bassist Stuart Hamm. After playing the F# at the beginning of bar one, a semiquaver triplet is played on the second half of the beat. All of the notes here are ghost notes and are performed as follows: […]

This week’s exercise is a two handed tapping line that’s a lot easier to play than it might sound. In fact, if you’ve never tried the technique before, this is a perfect exercise to begin with. This line opens with two notes that are performed solely by hammering on with your fretting hand: use your […]

This exercise is a slow-tempo chordal lines that uses open string tenths and harmonics. This line begins with a hammer-on from D to E at the twelfth and fourteenth frets of the D-string. This is immediately followed by a pull-off from A to G# at the fourteenth and thirteenth frets of the G-string. With the […]

This exercise is another funk groove that’s played with the plectrum. The approach used here is very similar to that used in Bass Lick of the Week #1, so if you have successfully worked through that exercise, you should find that this one comes together quite easily. Like Bass Lick #1, this line is based […]

This exercise is a fingerstyle funk groove written in the style of legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. This line is based on an Eb7 sound and uses chord tones heavily – as all good basslines do. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to be familiar with the notes in this chord before working on […]

This week’s exercise is a slap and pop groove. Although the first three bars of this exercise are relatively simple, there is a complex fill in the fourth bar, based on Victor Wooten’s ‘open-hammer-pluck’ technique. For the first three bars of this exercise you will be playing basic slap and pop octave figures, using conventional […]

This exercise is a rock bassline played over a 5-4 time signature. It’s played with a pick and sounds great when played with some distortion. This bassline is in the key of F# minor and is built on the F# blues scale, which is essentially just the minor pentatonic scale with an added note, a […]

This exercise is a fingerstyle funk groove that works over a G dominant seventh chord. The first three bars of this line are fairly simple, but in the fourth bar we have a more complex fill that uses the half step-whole step diminished scale. In bar 1, the bass enters with a low G on […]

This exercise is a challenging slap bass groove that uses techniques popularised by French-Canadian bassist Alain Caron. This style of playing is similar to the grooves Caron played on tunes such as ‘D-Code’ and ‘Slam the Clown’, both of which would be great pieces to look at in detail if you enjoy this exercise. This […]