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Dissecting a Bass Guitar Groove
Whether it's the blues, rock, reggae, jazz, or R&B, the bass guitar lays the musical foundation on which the rest of the band plays. A good bass guitar groove can make or break a song. But what is a bass [more…]
Understanding the Bass Player's Function in a Band
The bass player has the most crucial role in the band. Everyone in the group depends on the bassist's subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) lead. If the guitarist or saxophonist makes a mistake, hardly [more…]
Bass Guitar Common Groove Skeleton, Groove Apex, and Groove Tail Placements
Playing the bass guitar well means playing grooves. Everyone loves groovy bass rhythms. Using the following figures (and lots of practice), you can play a perfectly authentic groove in just about any of [more…]
Bass Guitar Music: Note Names and Values
Knowing how to read music really helps if you want to play bass guitar. The following figures present your main rhythms (with rest symbols included free of charge) and the note names on the fingerboard [more…]
Note Names in the U.S. and U.K.
In the world of music, you may encounter different names for the many notes used. The U.S. and U.K. standard terms differ, but the U.S. names — which were originally translated from the German names for [more…]
Extending Notes with Dots and Ties
All notes have a certain value, indicated by the size and shape of the note, that determines how long a pitch should be held by the voice or an instrument. Sometimes, however, you want to add to the value [more…]
Understanding Simple and Compound Time Signatures
Written music always contains a time signature, which looks like a fraction and is found at the beginning of a piece of music. In the time signature, the upper number represents the number of beats per [more…]
Measuring the Distance between Pitches with Intervals
The distance between two musical pitches is called an interval. Intervals are important to music because they build scales and chords. In other words, music gets its richness from intervals. Composers [more…]
