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Next Level Bass Lines
How to take dull, boring bass lines to the next level using a simple 2-step framework
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Upgrading Your Bass Lines
I don’t know about you, but I can get pretty obsessed with bass lines; how they’re put together, what makes the good ones sound good, why do the bad ones sound bad… The list is endless. Today though, I want to show you a simple 2-step process that lets you take functional, but dull bass lines, and turn them into real gems. A great bass line can actually be a hook in your song; something that pricks your audience’s ears up and makes them pay attention. So how do you do it? What are the 2 steps? #1 – Add some rhythms without breaking the groove #2 – Hang notes off those new rhythms It’s really that simple. If you’ve checked out the Instant Bass Line Formula video, check that out now https://becomeabassist.com/how-to-make-your-own-bass-lines-instantly/ The bass lines that we’ll be taking to the next level are the ones that get created in that video. First of all, let’s look at the bass lines that we’ll be working with. Bass Line #1
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F E‹ D‹ C
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Bass Line #2 There’s absolutely nothing wrong with these bass lines – they’re totally functional and work well with the songs, but you can probably tell that they’re a little boring. So let’s apply this 2-step process. Step #1 is adding some rhythms without breaking the groove. The simplest way to avoid breaking the groove is to keep the rhythms that are there and simply add on to them. One of the strongest places you can add rhythms is at the end of a bar. The start of a bar is usually fairly set, but the ends of bars are a little looser and much better suited to adding some rhythm. If we simply add a quarter note to the end of Bass Line #1, we’ll get this: Notice that we haven’t changed the existing rhythm or even the notes. We just used the roots of the chords. This is exactly what we’re going for – we can add in different notes a little later. What if next, we replaced the quarter note at the end of the bar with 2 8th notes? That would look like this:
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Again – just adding rhythms. This one is a little more active, a little more interesting. What if we added three 8th notes to the end of the bar? That’s when things start to get a bit busier. Check it out:
You probably wouldn’t want to go much further with this or you could end up playing too much and distracting from whatever else is going on in the song. So what about Bass Line #2? Where could we add in some extra notes there? Well, the end of the bar is still a great place to inject some extra personality into a line, so let’s start by adding an extra 8th note there. It’s a super subtle change, but it does give it more activity and makes it a bit more rhythmically interesting. What if we added another 8th note to the 2nd half of the bar? You’d get this:
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Again, I can’t stress this enough – at this first step, we’re just adding rhythms. Not notes! If you start by trying to add different notes, and then trying to fit them in rhythmically, you run the chance of the bass line (and the whole song) falling apart. Sort out the rhythm first, and the notes will almost take care of themselves. Of course, in step 2, we can start hanging notes off the rhythms that we settled on. So what notes should you use? Well, notes within the key are almost always a good start. Let’s using Bass Line #1 with the quarter note at the end of the bar, as our rhythm. For the notes – let’s target notes within the key that are directly below the roots that we’re aiming for. For example, our roots in the first bass line are A, F, C, and G. That means that right before the F, we’ll play an E. That’s the note directly underneath the root. Right before the C, we’ll play a B, right before the G we’ll play an F an before the A, we’ll play a G. That bass line would look like this:
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In the video, I actually made a mistake the first time around playing this bass line, but what’s written is what it should be. See how the addition of that one different note provides a little movement and makes the bass line just a little more melodic? It’s subtle, but it’s there. You can also do the same thing but treat the last quarter note of the bar as two 8th notes instead. That would look like this:
What would this look like on Bass Line #2? Well, let’s think about it. If we used the extra 8th note at the end of the bar and targeted the notes below the roots we were headed for, we’d get this:
Before we go down to the E, we approach it from the note below and that goes for all the other roots as well. Another option you have is targeting the notes above the roots you’re aiming for. If we go back to Bass Line #1 really quickly, that means starting on your A, and before getting to the F, play the note within the key above F, which is a G. You’d also play a D before the C, an A before the G and a B before the A. When you put that idea together with the quarter note variation, it looks like this:
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F E‹ D‹ C
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3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0
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2
Again, this injects some melody into the bass line. If you tried to use this idea in Bass Line #2 though, you run into a problem. The roots are falling already so if you tried to play only the notes above the roots you were aiming for, you’d just end up playing the same notes. The solution: go up further and come back down. So our first root is that F, but instead of just hitting that F twice before going down to the E, we’ll actually go up further to the G, then pass through the F before landing on the E. If we keep that sequence going for the rest of the chords, we’d end up with this: This bass line is getting more and more melodic and more interesting every step of the way! I love to see ideas like these develop! The final idea we’re going to try out is coming up with some kind of melodic idea that hangs on the rhythmic structures that we came up with in step 1. For Bass Line #1 let’s use the variation with the three 8th notes at the end of the bar. I came up with this:
™™
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F E‹ D‹ C
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3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0
3 3 3 3
2
How cool is this? It’s infinitely more interesting and fun than the ‘Instant’ bass line that we started with. This could easily be the hook of a song. For Bass Line #2, again I used the three 8th notes at the end of the bar and came up with this melodic idea. Do you see how both are quite repetitive? That’s not an accident. If you’re all over the place, chances are your audience will suffer from sensory overload and stop paying attention. You don’t need to play fast – you just need to play catchy! A bit of variation isn’t so bad though. In fact, in the last bass line, I heard a variation that could work very well. That little walk up at the end there breaks up that melodic line and could prevent it from getting too boring.
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When it comes time to play an actual song using these ideas, you don’t just have to stick with one. In fact, you can use the variations for different parts of the song. For a laid-back verse, you can use the core bass lines – keeping it simple and functional. When things start to get more intense, you can switch to one of the variations, and if you really want to break out, you can start using a more active, melodic line. When it comes time for you to do this for yourself though, make sure at every stage the groove remains intact. It’s so easy and sometimes incredibly tempting to overplay, and while a super busy bass line is sometimes exactly what the song needs, most of the time, it’s not. Keep that core rhythm in tact, add to it, and then sprinkle some different notes over your rhythmic additions and you’ll be good to go. Of course if you have any questions about anything in here or anything else bass related, feel free to send me an email. I’d be more than happy to help. Good luck creating your own next level bass lines and make sure you have some fun doing it! Cheers,
