How To Play Bass

Learn songs not scales

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Sight Reading Etude #1

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For those bass players who want to work on their sight reading but who are ‘meat and potatoes’ bass players (i.e. 95% plus of us!) there’s a dearth of sight reading materials that are:

(i) based on the kind of lines actually played in the real world

(ii) based on real world type chord structures and song structures.

Sight Reading Etude #1 is a 72 bar sight reading etude in the style of Tommy Shannon.  It’s a blues in G7 – because that’s not a commonly used key for the blues (hence it’s good sight reading practice).  I took a pass at sight reading it with a backing track and that looks and sounds like this:

 

 

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Comments

  2. Hey Paul, Thanks for this. i think the sight reading etude is a great idea. Did you record a backing track that we can download without your bass line and put into something like anytune (an mp3 or mp4, e.g).

    And the new sign-in routine works smooth like buttah!

    Be well.

    • Thanks Richard – the site has not had much TLC in the last few years and it’s going to get a massive makeover in 2020!

  6. Thanks Paul you have a great way of making it clear and easy to follow , if you have a video or tab for thinking of you by sister sledge could you email it to me ,Bernard Edwards is my favourite bass player and in my view one of the funkiest bass players ever, just recovering from mental health
    issues and having played in a band as a teenager have not picked up a bass for 30 years, been slowly learning again my aim is to play the Bernard edwards basslines to thinking of you, it’s a challenge but what a funky one it is ,kind regards keep up the good work ,Peter cragg

    • Hey Peter Cragg

      I may have a lesson for this one in my archive – will have to check. It’s a hard bass line though so you know.

      Paul