Creative Bass Technique Exercises

This is my first book with Fundamental Changes; a wonderful publishing company specialising in music tuition books on many instruments. Growing up playing a few different instruments, I was always more likely to play anything that sounded musical to my ears. Many of the exercises I played bored me. I wanted to write a bass guitar exercise book using examples that sounded good. This is that book!

The book is aimed at intermediate to advanced players and focuses on many of the fundamental techniques and skills every bass player should possess, including:

• Coordination
• Accuracy
• Fluency
• Speed
• Muting
• Control over the instrument
• Fingerstyle
• Plectrum
• Playing chords
• Slap
• Tap
• Strumming

Each exercise focuses on a particular technique alongside a style of music. Where possible, the exercise sounds as much like a bass line as possible and there are plenty of examples of real-world examples from famous songs. There are audio examples for all seventy exercises and backing tracks for a few. Some exercises are fine for beginners and this would be a great book for someone new to bass to work up to.

The exercises are written around:

• Pop
• Rock
• Blues/RnB
• Funk
• Jazz
• Harmonised scale
• Drones

Here are a few examples from the book:

Harmonised Major Scale

​