I think the most important blues bass lesson that I ever learned is also the most subtle.  This lesson is also something that I’ve been able to apply to my jazz walking basslines and made a world of difference to my feel.  

I was playing with my high school jazz band at our annual national competition a couple of years after I had started to  learn to play bass.  After our performance, the adjudicator (I wish I could remember his name) had me play one of the basslines from our set, and then asked me to play it again, but to push on beats 2 and 4.  Everyone in the room could feel the difference immediately and I practiced this for months on end until it became second nature. 

Often times when I’m out at a club watching younger or less experienced players, I notice that in the quest to play better walking basslines, they almost always go for notes before they think about looking at how they approach the feel of the music.  I can tell you from experience that bass players that are sought after for gigs are the players that can make the groove and bassline feel great.  This puts the band at ease because they know the pocket isn’t going to disappear on them while the bass player searches for new notes. 

In this lesson, I’ll show you my tricks for practicing blues bass and walking bass lines that will have heads in the crowd and nodding.

For more lessons on feel and pocket, check out our Skills to Pay the Bills course, available as part of your Low End Nation Bass Lessons Membership.  This course teaches you how to develop a great pocket and sense of time, how to build a groove using articulation and the concept of “note placement” which is elusive to a lot of bass players.  

You can also check out our Blues Bass Lessons course for lots more great online bass lessons.

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