How to Play Straight Bass Lines

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Part of the video series: How to Play Bass Guitar Scales

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Summary: Here are some tips on how to play straight lines on the bass guitar that will help you be a better bass player in this free video clip.

Views: 641 | Tags: bass, guitar, strings, theory, instruments, sheet, notes, musical, songs

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About the Expert

Michael Torres Michael Torres has a BA with Berklee College of Music w/ scholarships. Has being playing bass professionally for 8 years and won several awards. He is a membe... read more

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Video Transcript

How to Play Straight Bass Lines

Now that we have all these tools, these arpeggios, these scales, these chords, I'm going to show you how to apply it to an actual song. Now we are going to be looking at the song "Straight, No Chaser" by Thelonious Monk who's a famous, famous jazz artist. Who is now deceased. His song is based upon the more advanced Blues, it has all these turn-a-rounds and everything. What I'm going to show you now is how we go about playing a Jazz tune. What I'm going to do is I'm going to play the melody, then I'm going play a walking Bass line and then I'm going to play the melody again. Usually, when we're playing the melody, the way that Jazz tunes go is you play the melody to state the song, then in the middle you'll play a walking Bass line to support a soloist, and then at the end the melody will be played again in order to state the song again before we go out. For this example I'm going to play the melody, since I don't have a horn or anything with me, and then I'm going to walk Bass over this again for one chorus, and then I'm going to play the melody one more. Here is "Straight, No Chaser" by Thelonious Monk. (audio demo) That was Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser." And that was me showing you how to go about playing a Jazz tune correctly, and then also, how to do a walking Bass showing the form of a Jazz tune with the melody, soloist over walking Bass, and the melody out.