Sunday 21 March 2010

The art of improvising bass

is anticipation - planning for what's coming next.

The more bass I listen to, the more I realise that bass actually leads the chord progression, introducing the chord changes and anticipating where the melody is going to go. Obviously that's not true for all styles, but as a rule of thumb (pun not intended this time) it works.

It also seems that finger style playing is essential for some styles of music, with widely spaces jumps between notes requiring an agility between strings that doesn't suit a pick. I don't see this as transferring to guitar, and I'm not a fan of finger style there myself (though it can sound effective sometimes) but it is good to be learning new stuff.

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