This bass guitar lesson will teach you how to wow your audience with a creative bass solo. Even if it's just your cat watching, they'll be impressed.
It boils down to knowing:
- what notes to play
- how to craft those notes into musical phrases
Scroll down for the free backing track and PDF with the scale and chord shapes you can use to practise.
Bass solo backing track and scale shapes
The backing track is from a YouTube Short I created a while back. The chord progression is Em9 to F add9. If chords befuddle you, check this lesson out:
I mentioned that the chord progression is the same as this beautiful live version of Hejira by Joni Mitchell (with INCREDIBLE playing by Jaco Pastorius).
This is the backing track for you to download and play along to.
This is the PDF you can use to memorise the chord shapes and scales that you can use over each chord.
You can also try to play the chords as I do in the Short above (it's quite hard so if you feel any pain, give your hands a rest!).
If you'd like more bass solo lessons, check these tutorials out:
- The Anatomy Of A Great Bass Solo
- Tips & Tricks For An EPIC Bass Solo
- How To Nail A Melodic Bass Solo// How To Play Like Flea [Bass Guitar Q&A]
- How To Play A Brilliant Blues Bass Solo
- Try This! Beautiful Bass Solo Chord Progression
- Bass Solo Over Bass Chords – Learn How To Do It!
- How To Write Melodic Bass Lines (CHORDS + BASS SOLO)
Hey Dan. Great lesson.
What a wonderful haunting sound. Can you please tell me what effect you were using.
Thanks! Yes; it’s the Waves CLA guitar plugin.