‘Zender Jazz’ was written to represent Stuart Zender’s ground-breaking bass work on the first three Jamiroquai albums. The bassline features many common elements of his playing style, such as syncopated funk grooves, disco octave lines, and the use of both fingerstyle and slap techniques. Don’t forget to hit the Download Resources button above in order […]

This exercise is a funk bass groove that was written to be played with the plectrum. The percussive use of the pick in lines such as this was originally pioneered by legendary session bassist Anthony Jackson, who used the technique on the O’Jays hit ‘For the Love of Money’ back in 1973. This style of […]

This exercise is a fingerstyle line that uses major and minor tenth intervals to imply chordal parts alongside a bassline. This exercise makes extensive use of tenth intervals. A tenth is a compound major or minor third, that is, one that is over an octave above the root note. For example, the interval between A […]

This exercise is a slap bass groove that is a nod to the great Marcus Miller. This line requires you to bounce your thumb in between popped notes, a relatively simple but effective technique. As you’ll see in the first bar, after popping the F at the end of the first beat, you will pop […]

This exercise is a slow bass groove that combines harmonics with fretted bass notes to create chords. The inspiration for this piece was Jaco Pastorius’s renowned composition ‘Portrait of Tracy’, which is highly recommended as a study piece if you enjoy using harmonics, or playing solo pieces. This piece opens with a melodic motif of […]

This exercise is a rock bassline that is played with a plectrum. You’ll also hear that I used an octave pedal on the recording of the line. After opening the line with two crotchet notes, D and F, a semiquaver-based picking pattern begins. When playing this, it’s important that you adhere to the picking strokes […]

This exercise is a slow fingerstyle groove that’s played quite aggressively. I was listening to a lot of Vulfpeck when I came up with this, there’s definitely a Joe Dart influence here… This line opens with two notes, an F and a D. You can play a descending slide away from the D. These are […]

This exercise is a slap bass groove that will allow you to focus on fretting hand slaps and popping double stops. The opening phrase of this line is a continuous semiquaver rhythm which is to be performed by playing notes with each hand. After slapping the open E-string, the fretting hand will need to perform […]

This is a chordal plectrum part that makes good use of power chords, major pentatonic lines and open string tenths. When learning this line it’s important that you stick to the picking guide that’s been written between the staves. Remember that when playing semiquaver-based lines with a plectrum, you should adhere to the down-up-down-up picking […]

This exercise is a fast-paced fingerstyle line that was originally intended to be part of the Victor Wooten-style piece that I wrote for my book Giants of Bass. It might not have made it into the final track, but it’s still a great line that I wanted to share… After playing the E and octave […]