ADVANCED COURSE

Congratulations on making it past the Basic and Intermediate levels of bass playing! You've put in the hours, the blood, sweat and tears, and now slapping the bass or grooving along to a band over an EWF number is as easy as pie for you. So what's next?

​

In this beast of a course, you'll get up close and personal with the magic behind improvisation and soloing. You will start to see the inner workings of complex chords and start hear the possibilities in your basslines without touching the bass.

​

MUSIC AS A LANGUAGE

When we speak, we don't stop to think about how we piece our sentences together. We pick up a language almost intuitively from the minute we are born. By hearing and mimicking adults who speak to us, we eventually find our "own voice" or ways of personal expression after years of practice.

​

Similarly, it can be highly beneficial in learning music the same way. By listening to and mimicking our heroes, internalising music theory, and seeing the bass as a tool of expression, we start to approach bass playing on a more visceral level. The instrument is no longer separate from the bassist, and music starts to flow from you in a lyrical and intuitive way.

​

By adopting a regular practice of ear training, music transcription and improvisation exercises, music will become as easy as speaking.

​

DIVE INTO JAZZ

Once seen as danceable popular music in the 1920s and 30s, it's now come to be described as challenging "musician's music". However the good news is, jazz bass can be studied quite easily with a good grasp of arpeggios, extended chord harmony, the swing feel, and a consistent build up of jazz standards repertoire.

​

Once you got a handle on the above, learning to improvise and solo along the chord changes would be easier since you have adopted the jazz vocabulary.

​

ESSENTIALS YOU'LL STUDY:

​​

• Ear training

• Transcribing bass lines

• Harmony & reharmonisation

• Advanced slap bass & fingerstyle funk

• Walking bass for jazz

• Improvisation & motivic development

• Advanced tapping

• Bass chords and comping

• Build jazz standards repertoire 

​

     ... and more!

​

FUN SONGS YOU'LL LEARN

The fastest way to learning the bass is to play along to songs you love, and why not build up a great repertoire of bread-and-butter songs every bassist should know while you're at it! Here's a sample list:

​