This week’s exercise is a rock bassline that sounds great when played with a pick. This line makes for a great workout for your plectrum technique as it features some string crossing, a continuous semiquaver feel, and some hammer-on figures. When playing this line, be sure to start every beat with a downstroke, and follow […]

This exercise is played with the slap and pop technique and features some challenging strumming figures. The line opens with a chordal part, strummed on the D and G-strings. To strum these chords, flick downwards with all of the fingers of your picking hand, allowing your fingernails to strike the strings – the sound of […]

This exercise features a lot of harmonics and uses an 11/8 time signature. In the first bar, the opening two notes – A and B – are played as normal notes. The B should be fretted with the first finger, and should be allowed to ring underneath the harmonics which follow. Use your fourth finger […]

This week’s exercise is a fingerstyle funk line that works over a D7 chord. This is a challenging, semiquaver-based line that is heavy on chord tones, but it’s great to play once you get it down. Like all good basslines, this one features chord tones extensively. In the first bar, the root note (D), is […]

This week’s exercise is a busy rock riff that should be played with a plectrum. This line was inspired by funk-metal band Extreme, who often use similar riffs as guitar/bass unison lines. This line is built on the E minor pentatonic scale. In the first bar, you’ll initially play a descending lick moving from E, […]

This week’s exercise is a slap groove that’s played over a shuffle feel. This line is in the key of E minor, but starts on a non-scale tone, the Bb. This note is the ‘blue note’ and works because it comes from the E blues scale. As you’ll hear, this is a very striking note […]

This week’s exercise is a two handed tapping line that is a great place to start if you’ve never used the technique before. If you’re new to the two handed tapping technique, the first thing you’ll need to work on is tapping notes with your picking hand. To do so, rest your thumb on the […]

This week’s exercise is a melodic line that uses tenths and chords to outline the harmony. In the first bar, a descending figure B – G# – E is played following an open E-string. These notes are the fifth, third and root of an E major chord, so the tonality is very well-defined here. At […]

This exercise is an uptempo funk groove that is played with the plectrum. Palm muting has also been used quite extensively here. The first bar opens with a four-note figure on the first beat. A D is played at the seventh fret of the G-string and is followed by a ghost note. These two notes […]

This final exercise in the Bass Lick of the Week series is a slap and pop groove that also makes use of some strummed chords. This line opens with a B power chord, which is strummed with the fingers of the picking hand. To strum this chord, flick downwards forcefully, allowing the fingernails to strike […]