How To Play Bass: Blues Progressions

Now, when we talked about playing the one, four, five progression in the key of C, the root is C and then the four. When I go to the four, that would be the fourth note of the scale so that would be the F. And then, the fifth would be G.

Okay. So when I talked about playing a one, four, five progression that we did before, we would be utilizing the root, the fourth and the fifth. So, I am going to actually switch keys and play something starting on G but use that same root and four and five… [demonstration] root, four, five, four one. I am going to play the same bass line. So, beginning bass line that we can have for beginning blues bass line. Now if you will notice, we are still using the same drum beat but we are playing the type of bass line that will make it so that it is really comfortable to play. Once again, if you are doing our beginning exercises, this is all within the realm of you playing. When we are playing on the root and we are using the second finger, the first finger and the fourth finger for all the bass lines. All right. Here we go.

[demonstration]

So first, we are playing on the root and then go on to the four, five and back to the root.

[demonstration]

Okay. So, one of the things that I did in this bass line was that I started on the root, I played the third of the chord and the fifth of the chord. So in a major scaled blues, that would be a major typed blues, one, four, five progression, I am basically holding my hand in that position that we started with with our hand in the middle. In the back of the neck, thumb in the middle.

And also, I am utilizing the second finger, first finger and the fourth finger. So, remember when we were going through our exercises, two, one, four is something that we have went through. We probably had the third, but it is still in the same position with the hand and this really easy to do.

Why is it easy to do? Because I keep my hand positioned when I am ready to play. I have done my exercises so that we are able to have good hand position, good note sound and also, so that our hand can enable us to play. And so, it enables us to sound good also. We want to accomplish learning how to play some major scale stuff that we want to accomplish getting those exercises done so that we can be of finger dexterity. Finger dexterity is the key, I cannot stress it enough. It is the thing that will make you a better player. I know that it sounds funny but the slower you practice, the better you play. The slower you practice, the better the note sound, the better you sound. You may not think that you are learning how to play fast but you are. The only thing that can teach you how to play is because everybody wants to be – you know, Johnny play fast. It is having the patience to do those exercises that we talked about, do the major scales that we have talked about at a speed where you thing everything. The thing that is really important, the reason why I get jobs is because of the tone of my bass and because people know that the bass lines that I play will have a lot of bottom. So, if you are going to be that type of player, you want to spend time and you would not be able to play fast unless you do these basic steps. It is not that playing fast is important. Let us leave that to the guitar players. Let us be the bass and be the root of the band and learn that once we built the foundation, everybody else has to follow us.