| Bass
Lessons
I don't generally teach bluegrass bass on a permanent
basis, but rather will give lessons as needed to get beginners
started. We'll cover the proper technique and play a variety
of songs to develop the skill of hearing chord changes and
playing in all the common keys. Also, we'll look at how to
play waltzes, 4/4 and walking bass lines. I have prepared
some bass exercises and also have transcribed some of the
great bass players bass lines so we can see how professional
bass players actually play.
Don't forget the Group Lessons.
They can be an excellent place for beginning bass players
to bring their skills up in a short amount of time or learn
a new style. I have a number of bass transcriptions for both
bluegrass and Western Swing on this
page.
Here are some helpful resources for bass:
I have
some excersises for learning bass. They are in PDF
format.
Go to the
Transcriptions Page for a few other tunes
to learn.
My list
of practice suggestions has always included
playing with others. Band-in-a-Box or a similar program to play along
with can help you get there. It can also be a good "non-complaining"
accompianist for when you want to go through your fiddle tunes for hours
on end. It can also be your metronome as you try to play slow cleanly,
or get faster. It's also great for improvising over chord progressions.
If you have the Band-in-a-Box program but don't want to take the time
to enter the chords, I have done all the work. You can download a zip
file containing the chord progressions for 161
fiddle tunes.
|
