One of the Most Important Bass Lessons You'll Ever Learn

hey y'all I've decided to set myself on A New Path in order to course correct some of the mistakes that I've made in the past with regard to learning this instrument so if you're a beginner or an intermediate player or a seasoned professional I think this might be one of the most important lessons that we need to learn when it comes to playing the bass huh hit it [Music] friends and neighbors welcome back to the Brownstone my name is Rich Brown thank you for joining me once again I hope you're all doing very well uh today you know I I over the last few weeks I've come to a serious realization and it has to do with something that I've been saying for years where when it comes to soloing or improvising I don't really pay a lot of attention to the notes that I'm playing I tend to use my ear to guide where my fingers go and I'm starting to wonder if that might be a bit of a lazy attitude maybe it is maybe it isn't I mean it has gotten me this far but I think I can push myself a little further if I just got a better understanding of all of the notes on this instrument I have some understanding of the notes but again I'm an ear player so I tend to use my ear to guide where my fingers are going but I feel like if I gain a better sense of each note on the fingerboard it will allow for me to gain some new vocabulary learn some new things about the instrument look at intervals in a different way just like change my whole approach to how I put Melodies and chords and Harmony together so um there are a few things that I'm doing and maybe there are some some tips here that will help you as well so let's go through them so what I've been doing is basically like learning all the notes on this instrument in chunks of three on this fingerboard and you can do this on a four string five string whatever nine string whatever um but the thing is the first chunk is going to involve the first five Frets and this is a very simple exercise but it's also a challenge because what I want you to do is just play chromatically from fret Zero from the open string to fret five on each string and name the notes as you go pretty remedial exercise but it's important now when you do this make sure you're looking at your left hand so that you see the note that you're playing and you can then associate that note to its name right so very simple exercise just go zero from the E string and play e f f sharp G G sharp a and then come back down with the flats so I have a a flat g g flat F to the E and you do that with all of the strings a a sharp b c c sharp D and then you go back d d flat C B B flat a you do that with all of the strings and you do that a lot and that repetition will allow for you to really learn everything that's happening within the first five Frets so that wherever you put your finger down that's an F sharp that's an a that's a c that's a C sharp d flat you just know where everything is kind of instinctively instinctively after a while now here's where the cool stuff comes in so once you've learned that and you move on to the next section of the base this area here seems to be like the sort of Twilight Zone of the instrument where it's like what's going on here well it's very simple if I start from that fifth fret and then move up to the sixth fret well the sixth fret is pretty easy because the sixth fret is everything from the fifth fret just sharp so if I have a here the sixth fret is a sharp if I have D here that's D sharp in the sixth fret very easy but then on the seventh fret you can think of this as fret zero on a B on a a five string bass right so you have B E A and D right first four strings of a five string bass and if you think of that as fret zero of a five string then you can do the same thing so from that B I can go b c c sharp D D sharp to e and look at that it takes me to the 12th fret so if I do that with all of the strings naming the notes from fret 7 to fret 12. I'm back to the 12th fret and everything starts over again and that's the whole base all the notes done so it's a it's a simple way to um break down what is going to be quite a lofty challenge to really get an understanding of all of the notes on the instrument it's very cool and then what you do with that knowledge is when you start to practice your scales your sequential patterns you can do so while naming the notes and also naming the intervals so I can start by just playing a C major scale so here I've got c d e d e f g a b c and if I'm looking at my hands then I can definitely see [Music] all these notes as they correspond to its name right so keep an eye on that left hand while you're saying the names of the notes out loud the other approach you can take is saying each degree of the scale as you play it right so I've got root second third fourth fifth sixth seventh Major Seventh and then back to the root and then when you come down the scale go down to the lowest possible note that you can play in that scale so if I'm playing C major and the root is on the third fret of the a string while I'm missing all the stuff on the E string so I want to include that as well so when I come down the scale c b a g f e d c b a g f e so that's the lowest possible note that I can play on a C major scale on a four string bass right and then you do the same thing come back up the scale from the e e f g a b c d e f g a b c and then the cool thing is you can you can go down to if you're playing in C major you can go down to the eighth fret of the E string and then do the same thing and play the scale foreign [Music] but then you want to name those notes as you play them so c d e f g a b c d e f and then you come back so this is also a great exercise and now you are learning the notes here as well as in this root position so it's a very cool idea to start with just the chromatic exercise on each string going from the open string fret zero to the fifth fret on each string and then you treat the seventh fret as fret zero of a five string and then you go through and play the notes chromatically from fret seven to fret 12. which is again the same as starting from the uh from fret zero over five string and that takes you to fret 12 where everything just starts over again so if that's e a d g then this is e a d g and I'm back to square one again so that is the way for me anyway to really get a sense of how to learn every note on the instrument and if you do that I think it'll help you in a huge way to really understand the base on a deeper level and make you a better player which of course is what we're all about here at the Brownstone listen um if you like this video If you like this lesson do me a huge favor and just click that like button um of course there are a number of ways that you can donate to the channel if you see some value in these lessons and are in a position to donate I will leave a link in the description box that will allow you to donate whatever uh amount you see fit there is also an option to join the channel for like five bucks a month and then there's also a little like thank you button with a little heart that will allow you to donate anywhere from one dollar to ten dollars maybe more I don't know whatever you want of course all of the above is greatly appreciated no donation is too small or too big uh have fun with this lesson I hope you dig it I hope it helps you out in a huge way and leave a comment in the comment section uh if you like it or if you don't like it I don't know but uh it's nice to see the comments the support the interaction among all of you all my dear friends and neighbors and uh hopefully I will not leave you too long until the next video it's been a very busy time but uh but I haven't forgotten about my friends and neighbors so thank you for watching thank you for visiting me here in The Brownstone and I will see you in the next video [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Rich Brown - The Brown'stone

Views: 444,300

Keywords: bass lesson, bass lessons for beginners, bass lessons for intermediate, bass lessons for advanced, bass lessons scales, bass lessons for intermediate players, bass lessons for beginners scales, bass guitar, online bass lessons, bass guitar lesson, bass lessons, bass guitar technique, bass guitar for beginners, bass guitar lessons for beginners, bass player, learn bass guitar, bass guitar lessons, how to play bass guitar, bass lessons for guitar players

Id: 1TGg03Ip5bw

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 19 2022