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Basic Rock Bass

by Kerry Galloway

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4

OK, got that? I thought so. Well, here's something VERY important to remember: 95% of modern, western music breaks down into groupings of two or four bars, and their multiples (8 and 16, for example).

So to make your bass line sound more "pro", think about working in two and four bar "phrases" In this example, bar 1 is straight, and we finish bar 2 off with a little walk on three scale notes (actually from the A minor scale).

Then in bar 4, we vary the phrase a bit.

In bar 5, we return to the original pattern from bars 1 and 2. Then, to give a feeling of wrapping up an eight bar phrase with a nice ribbon,we add in another variation.

So in it's simplest form, we have three section, one of which repeats exactly (let's call it "A") and two phrases that vary (let's call them "B" and "C"). The form of our little eight-bar masterpiece is ABAC. Make sense to you? If not, read it again from the top while listening to the example.

Remember, on the first page I talked about THREE elements of music reflected in the bass line of a song...in addition to rhythm and harmony, this introduces the third element - the element of "line". The musical term for line is "melody". That's exactly what we're talking about here, in it's most basic form.