Tag Archives: Bass Grooves

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Six Eight Bass Grooves With Bass TAB – Bass Practice Diary 161

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Six Eight Bass Grooves – Learn Four Bass Lines in 6/8 Time Signature – Bass Practice Diary – 8 June 2021

I did a video in 2018 about playing bass in 6/8 time signature. It turned out to be a much more popular video than I was expecting. It currently has nearly 25,000 views on YouTube and I wasn’t expecting more than a few hundred. As I mentioned in that video, I love to groove in 6/8. It’s amazing how much music you can make with just six 1/8th notes in a bar. And I felt it was time to add to the content of that video by featuring some of my own, previously unreleased bass lines in six eight.

Bass Groove Number 1

Six Eight Bass Groove #1
Six Eight Bass Groove #1

As I mentioned in the video, if you want to unlock the full potential of six eight, then try not to think of it as a shuffle feel. If you think of the six 1/8th notes as two ta-ki-ta’s, then the shuffle feel is what you get if you only play on the ta syllables and ignore the other syllable, ki. If you treat the ki subdivisions as being just as important as the ta syllables then it unlocks a whole world of new bass lines and rhythms.

This bass line, written above, is an example of a groove that is starting to explore the ki syllable. Bars 1 &3 are a straight forward shuffle rhythm using only the ta’s. However, bars 2 & 4 both emphasise one of the ki syllables. Just that alone immediately takes this groove somewhere else and prevents it from sounding like a basic shuffle.

Bass Groove Number 2

Six Eight Bass Groove #2
Six Eight Bass Groove #2

This is a bass line that I have featured in a previous video. The other three are previously unreleased. I like this one because it demonstrates the idea of superimposing a straight 3/4 feel onto 6/8. Bars 1 & 3 look like a bar of 3/4 played on the beat. And bar two looks like you’re hitting all the off-beats in a bar of 3/4. But because the drums are playing 6/8, the feel is entirely different to 3/4. The final bar is a more conventional 6/8 feel, but I’m still hitting the ki syllable. I really like this bass groove, which is why I’m featuring it for a second time.

Bass Grooves Number 3 & 4

Six Eight Bass Groove #3
Six Eight Bass Groove #3

The grooves in this video get gradually more complex as we go along. Examples 3 & 4 are both quite hard to play. Both involve string skipping. You can use any technique you want when you play them, but I find it much easier to play the string skipping if I use my right hand thumb to play the notes on the E and A strings and my fingers to play the notes on the D and G strings.

Six Eight Bass Groove #4
Six Eight Bass Groove #4
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Can you Play The Blues with an Odd Meter? – Bass Practice Diary 75

Blues in A with a 10/8 Time Signature – Bass Practice Diary – 24th September 2019

Blues is at the root of so much of what I play. I started out by playing blues as a child. And the blues is also at the root of so much modern music, including jazz, rock, funk, soul… the list goes on. It’s actually incredible when you think about it, how the musical vocabulary of the blues has permeated so much music in the last 100 years or more. But, can you play a blues in an odd meter? That’s what I found myself wondering this week.

Where does blues end and modern jazz start?

Blues has its own rhythmic feels and distinctive harmony. Which have proved very adaptable to other genres of music. And it could be argued that once you break out of these structures, you’re no longer playing the blues. My own musical journey through my teen years took me from blues to modern jazz, simply by a process of trying to expand my harmonic language. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part to leave the blues behind. I simply started to become interested in upper chord structures and alterations, and expanding my role as a bass player, and modern jazz is where I found myself.

So I’ve no doubt that some people could argue that an odd meter blues isn’t blues, it’s (blues influenced) modern jazz. But I would argue that if you can stay true to the rhythmic feeling, structure and harmony of the blues, while playing an odd meter. Then you can play an odd meter blues. And that’s what I’ve tried to do in this video.

The influence of John McLaughlin

It’s not a completely original idea, although I’ve never heard anyone try to do exactly what I’ve done here. However, I was partly inspired by the jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. There’s a tune called New Blues, Old Bruise on his album Industrial Zen. It’s in 15/8 and I think it’s a brilliantly original approach to playing blues harmonic language. That tune would undoubtedly be classed by most people as jazz fusion, but nevertheless, the blues influence is undoubtedly present.

The other influence of John McLaughlin came from his brilliant DVD called Gateway to Rhythm. In which, he briefly demonstrates a kind of subverted blues shuffle feel in 10/8. The rhythmic phrase he uses is Ta-Ki-Ta Ta-Ki-Ta Ta-Ka Ta-Ka, which is 3+3+2+2. When I heard it I thought it was genius. Because it seemed to capture the feel of a blues shuffle, but it wasn’t a shuffle. I think the phrase originally came from one of his old Mahavishnu Orchestra albums.

Hearing that made me think, if you can capture the feeling of a shuffle in 10/8 then maybe you can play an entire 12 bar blues in 10/8. I haven’t used that particular rhythmic phrase in my blues, because I didn’t want to copy John McLaughlin’s rhythmic phrase. But it did inspire me to come up with the blues in 10/8.

The bass line

The bass line was partly improvised and partly worked out in advance. It turns out that you have to concentrate really hard when you’re playing a 12 bar blues in 10/8. Especially when you don’t just stick to one rhythmic phrase. As I haven’t here, I’ve tried to mix up the rhythms as much as I could. But here is one chorus of transcribed blues bass line in 10/8.

Odd Meter Blues Bass Line in 10/8
Blues in A: Odd Meter Bass Line in 10/8

The fretless bass solo

The fretless solo on top was just a bit of messing around. I added it to add some context to the bass line. I found while I was doing it that I had to concentrated really hard on where to start my lines. To make sure they came out in the right place harmonically. I’ve transcribed the solo too and here it is.

Odd Meter Blues in A: Fretless 6 String Bass Solo
Odd Meter Blues in A: Fretless 6 String Bass Solo

If you’d like to learn some more about playing bass lines in odd meters, then check out this link.

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Rock Bass Groove in 7/4 – Bass Practice Diary 56

Video

Odd Meter Bass Groove – 7/4 Rock Bass Groove with Bass TAB – Bass Practice Diary – 14th May 2019

This week I’ve been working on writing play-along pieces for my upcoming book. It will be my second bass book released by Fundamental Changes. The video features a bassline that I wrote for an odd meter rock piece. It’s a rock bass groove in 7/4 time signature. You can find my video guide to playing bass in odd meters here.

7/4 Rock Bass Groove
7/4 Rock Bass Groove

What Are Odd Meters?

The term odd meter simply means any time signature that has an odd number of beats or subdivisions in a bar. Odd meters divide opinion amongst musicians. Some musicians (including me) love them and think they can flow and groove just as well as any groove in 4/4. Others hate playing them.

My approach to playing odd meters is not that different to my approach for playing in any meter. But I think that musicians who are not comfortable playing in odd meters often feel that they have to do something different. And that might be the root cause of why they struggle to play them.

7/4 is an unusual time signature in rock and pop music but there are famous examples of its use. All You Need is Love by The Beatles, Money by Pink Floyd and Times Like These by the Foo Fighters all contain sections in 7/4.

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Learn to Play Triplet Rhythms on Straight 16th Note Bass Grooves – Bass Practice Diary 33

Learn to Play Triplet Rhythms on Straight 16th Note Bass Grooves – Bass Practice Diary 4th December 2018

I’m currently putting the finishing touches to my second book, which is a follow up to Electric Bass: Improve Your Groove. In the new book, I have a section which is about feeling multiple subdivisions. Meaning, can you play bass grooves that use both straight 8th notes and 16th notes, as well as triplet rhythms?

It’s hard to switch between straight rhythms and triplet rhythms without dropping the groove. This video features a bass groove that I wrote for the book. It has a straight 16th note feel, but it also contains triplets.

Quarter Note Triplets (Crochet Triplets)

The video features two variations of the same groove. Here is the first, simpler variation.

Straight 16th Bass Groove with 16th note Triplets

Straight 16th Bass Groove with 16th note Triplets
Straight 16th Bass Groove with Quarter Note Triplets

This version of the groove features straight 8th and 16th notes, Ta-Ka and Ta-Ka-Di-Mi. But it also features quarter note or crochet triplets.

Quarter note triplets are a rhythm that many people struggle with. But they don’t need to be any more difficult that 8th note triplets. An 8th note triplet is simply a beat subdivided into three, Ta-Ki-Ta. A quarter note triplet is the length of two 8th note triplets. So, if you can feel 8th note triplets, you should be able to play quarter note triplets.

Think about it like this. Two beats contain six 8th note triplets. Ta-Ki-Ta, Ta-Ki-Ta. If you play on every other syllable, like this Ta-ki-Ta, ta-Ki-ta, then you are playing quarter note triplets.

16th Note Triplets

The second variation of the groove features all of the same subdivisions as the first, but it also contains 16th note triplets.

Straight Triplets 1 Part 2

Straight Triplets 1 Part 1
Straight 16th Bass Groove with 16th note Triplets

16th note triplets are easy to understand. They are sometimes difficult to play because they can be very fast, even at moderate tempos.

The first thing to understand about 16th note triplets is that they are essentially the same subdivision as 8th note triplets, Ta-Ki-Ta.

In order to create 16th note triplets you must first feel the straight 8th notes Ta-Ka. Once you have the straight 8th note feel, you must divide each 8th note into triplets, Ta-Ki-Ta.

It’s actually easier to play 16th note triplets on straight grooves like this than it is to play them on triplet feels such as shuffles and swing. The reason is that they are derived from subdividing the straight 8th notes into triplets.

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Play Bass Grooves in Odd Meters and Time Signatures – Bass Practice Diary 18

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How to Approach Playing Bass in Odd Meters and Time Signatures – Bass Practice Diary – 21st August 2018

This week I’ve been practising playing in odd meters and I want to briefly share my system for playing any unusual time signature. My system revolves around learning and reciting rhythmic phrases rather than counting beats, and if you use it properly it should make playing odd meters no harder than playing in 4/4.

What Are Odd Meters?

The term odd meter simply means any time signature that has an odd number of beats or subdivisions in a bar. Odd meters divide opinion amongst musicians. Some musicians (including me) love them and think they can flow and groove just as well as any groove in 4/4. Others hate playing them.

I want to share an approach that I use to playing odd meters. It’s actually not that different to my approach for playing in any meter, but I think that musicians who are not comfortable playing in odd meters often feel that they have to do something different when playing odd meters. And that might be the root cause of why they struggle with them.

Think About Rhythmic Phrases

What do I mean by rhythmic phrases? Every meter or time signature has a fixed number of subdivisions per bar. Check out my book Electric Bass: Improve Your Groove if you’d like to learn more about subdivisions and rhythmic structure.

The rhythmic structure of a bass groove comes from how you organise these subdivisions. I’ll use the examples from the video to demonstrate. The first one is in a very unusual time signature 15/16. Which means there are fifteen 16th note subdivisions in every bar.

Odd Meter Bassline in 15/16
Odd Meter Bassline in 15/16

The Method

In this example I’ve arranged the fifteen subdivisions into three groups of four and one group of three.

4+4+4+3=15.

If you’ve read my book or followed some of my previous videos you’ll know that I like to use Indian Konnakol syllables to recite rhythms. The syllables for a group of four subdivisions are Ta-Ka-Di-Mi and the syllables for a group of three subdivisions are Ta-Ki-Ta.

So, the rhythmic phrase for the above example is as follows.

Ta-Ka-Di-Mi     Ta-Ka-Di-Mi     Ta-Ka-Di-Mi     Ta-Ki-Ta

It’s actually a very simple rhythmic phrase, even thought the time signature 15/16 might make you think of something very complex.

An even more simple arrangement of fifteen subdivisions would be five Ta-Ki-Ta’s. This creates the feel of a 5/4 shuffle.

Odd Meter 5/4 Shuffle
Odd Meter 5/4 Shuffle

How Can You Apply This System in Any Time Signature?

This idea can and should be applied to any groove in any time signature. Including the obvious ones like 4/4. It’s not always easy because there are much more complex rhythmic structures than the examples above. But the key is to understand firstly, what is the subdivision (8th notes, 16th notes, triplets etc.) and secondly how many are there in each bar.

Once you know the answer to those two questions you can work out rhythmic structures using basic maths and Konnakol.

Here are some more examples I’ve come up with for the purposes of demonstration. The first one is in 3/4.

Odd Meter 3/4 Example
Odd Meter 3/4 Example

3/4 is often not thought of as an odd meter because it’s been a fairly common time signature for hundreds of years. It crops up regularly in classical music and jazz as waltzes. But as you can see from my example. It doesn’t have to have a waltz feel. The addition of 16th note subdivisions changes the feel entirely.

Here’s another example in 5/4. This also has a 16th note feel and the rhythmic structure is slightly more complex than the previous examples.

Odd Meter 5/4 with a 16th note feel
Odd Meter 5/4 Bassline with a 16th Note Feel

The final example in the video features a more relaxed 8th note feel on a 7/4 time signature.

7/4 Bassline
7/4 Bassline

How to Practice Odd Meters

I would suggest practising this in three stages. You don’t need an instrument until the third stage.

The first stage is to work out your own rhythmic phrases. Pick a meter that you want to practice and work out rhythmic phrases that contain the correct number of subdivisions. An old fashioned pen and paper might be the best way of doing this.

Next, recite the rhythmic structures using Konnakol (or whatever system you prefer). My application of Konnakol involves using Da for one subdivision, Ta-Ka for two, Ta-Ki-Ta for three and Ta-Ka-Di-Mi for four. For more subdivisions you can just combine syllables. For example five could be Ta-Ki-Ta Ta-Ka. Six Could be two Ta-Ki-Ta’s and seven could be Ta-Ka-Di-Mi Ta-Ki-Ta etc.

The final stage is playing your rhythmic phrases on your bass!

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Practice Playing Rhythmic Variations – Bass Practice Diary 16

How to Vary the Rhythm of Your Bass Grooves – Bass Practice Diary – 7th August 2018

In this week’s video practice diary I’ve been thinking about how to practice rhythmic variations. As bass players we often find ourselves playing repetitive grooves with static harmony. You can make those static grooves more interesting by playing subtle rhythmic variations. Here is how I would practice that.

We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve played a bass groove for a period of time. And during that period of time we’ve started to feel that it’s getting boring, not just for us but for the audience listening to us. It’s a dilemma, because if you change the groove too much it can affect the band and the performance in ways that might not be appreciated. So the key in that situation is to come up with subtle variations. They may be so subtle that your audience doesn’t consciously notice them, but they will still add to a feeling of movement and flow in the music that will prevent it from becoming boring.

How Do You Come Up With Rhythmic Variations?

It’s easy to say that the answer is to come up with subtle variations, but it’s harder to achieve it without becoming repetitive. So I’ve come up with this system for coming up with as many potential rhythmic variations as you can.

You need to start with a groove. You can come up with one of your own or you can use one that you know. I’ve come up with my own in the video to avoid copyright complications. But I did think about doing the video with a famous bass line to help illustrate the idea.

Here is the bass line I’ve used in the video.

Bass Groove for Rhythmic Variations
Bass Groove for Rhythmic Variations

The next stage of my process was to come up with a rhythmic variation. I restricted myself to only changing the rhythm of two notes. Because I want my variations to be subtle. I’m not trying to change the whole groove. The variations should sound organic and fit in with the original feel.

The Variations

Here is my first variation.

First Rhythmic Variation
First Rhythmic Variation

The last note of the first bar has been moved one sixteenth note later. And the third note of the second bar has been moved one sixteenth note earlier.

If you’re not sure what I mean then check out my lessons on rhythmic subdivisions and eighth and sixteenth note bass grooves.

I then came up with two more variations, I allowed myself to add individual notes and move notes by a single subdivision. But not many because I’m still trying to keep the core elements of the groove.

Here are variations two and three.

Rhythmic Variation Example 3
Second Rhythmic Variation

hythmic Variation Example 4
Third Rhythmic Variation

Hopefully you can see that this system gives you the potential to come up with a lot of subtle variations for your bass grooves. It even gives you the potential to evolve your grooves into something rhythmically different without ever making an obvious change that an audience would notice.

If the music will allow it, you could keep changing the groove in two places each time you play it. Before long you can build a bass groove that is entirely different without having played an obvious change to the groove.

The Groove With Variations

At the bottom of the page I’ve put the bass groove plus the variations. I’ve demonstrated playing it all together in the video.

When I played it for my wife, who isn’t a musician, she said it sounded good but she couldn’t tell the difference between the variations. That is exactly what I was trying to achieve. Because the variations exist to make the music sound more interesting  without it sounding like I’m changing the groove. An audience will respond positively to rhythmic variation, if it’s done well, but they probably won’t consciously be aware of what it is that sounds good.

Bass Groove and Rhythmic Variations
Bass Groove and Rhythmic Variations

 

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Straight In Time – A Piece from Electric Bass: Improve Your Groove

Video

Straight In Time from Electric Bass: Improve Your Groove

This video post features a piece from my book Electric Bass – Improve Your Groove: The Essential Guide to Mastering Time and Feel on Bass Guitar.

Electric Bass - Improve Your Groove
Electric Bass – Improve Your Groove

The piece is called Straight In Time because it features a straight eighth note feel throughout. Having said that, it isn’t a straight forward groove to play. There are tricky eighth note syncopations to negotiate and a technically challenging section in which you must play on every subdivision.

Straight in Time comes with a full track and a backing track with the bass guitar track removed. In the video I’m playing along with the backing track, just like you can if you buy the book.

For more information about the book, use this link