This exercise is a slow tempo groove in E minor with some harmonic chords sustained across the top. To play the bass note and harmonics at the beginning of each bar, I recommend plucking the E-string with your thumb, and the D and G-strings with your first and second finger. After plucking these notes you’ll […]

This week’s exercise is a slap and pop groove written in the style of Marcus Miller. The main idea behind this lick is sliding root and octave figures around the fingerboard, which is something that Marcus often does during his basslines and solos. After slapping the E in the first bar, pop the octave and […]

This week’s exercise is a semiquaver-based groove that’s played with the plectrum. When playing lines with the plectrum – particularly if they are based on a semiquaver pulse – it’s crucial that you maintain a consistent down-up-down-up picking motion. This was covered in detail back in the notes for Bass Lick #1, so refer to […]

This week’s exercise is a heavily syncopated fingerstyle funk groove that works over a D7 chord. After playing the two D’s on the A-string at the beginning of the first bar, you’ll be descending the G-string using the octave, the minor seventh (C), the major sixth (B), the minor sixth (Bb) and the fifth (A). […]

This week’s exercise is a slap and pop groove that incorporates some strummed chords and is played over a shuffle feel. This track features strummed power chords in the first two bars. To play these, strum downwards with the fingers of your picking hand, allowing the nails to strike the strings. This will give your […]

This week’s exercise is a busy, semiquaver-based groove that makes use of the blues scale. It’s also played with the plectrum, and features some awkward string crossing. In the first and third bars you’ll be playing an ascending line using the C blues scale. Because this part is played using a syncopated semiquaver rhythm, you’ll […]

This week’s exercise is a chordal line that features a lot of harmonics. This line is built from chords that are played as a combination of harmonics and fretted bass notes. The opening chord is a B power chord (root-fifth-octave) and is played by fretting the B at the second fret of the A-string, and […]

This week’s line is a busy fingerstyle funk groove that makes use of many decorations such as hammer-ons, slides, and shakes. After sliding into the E at the seventh fret of the A-string from the D two frets below, a melodic phrase is played on the upper two strings. The first three notes of this […]

This week’s exercise is an up-tempo slap groove that makes extensive use of fretting hand slaps. The key to mastering the first bar of the exercise is in learning to play fretting hand slaps in between the pitched notes. To do this, you’ll need to make sure that you are fretting the notes with the […]

This week’s exercise is a semiquaver-based plectrum groove, which sounds great with some additional palm muting. In the first bar, after playing the root note F on the E-string, the majority of the line is played on the D-string. As this line is semiquaver-based, you’ll want to be playing using a consistent down-up-down-up picking motion […]