Hi, it is Paul Wolfe from how-to-play-bass.com here. This is lesson one of my series of video lessons on building bass lines. Before we get started, I want to recommend that you head over to my website and sign up for my listing. It is now weekly and it is always a bass line to a song and some other methodical stuff. Now today, we are going to look at three things. Firstly, I am going to explain what these eight notes are. This is the basic foundation rhythm we are going to be using for the next few lessons. Secondly, I am going to take some timeout to talk about root notes and what they are and then lastly, we are going to build a bass line on a chord progression note known as one four-chord progression. And we are going to use root notes as our note choice and we are going to use eight notes as our rhythmic choice.
Okay, let us get started, what are eight notes? In classical music, different note durations have their own names, minims, crockets, quavers etc. Technically, an eight note is a quaver. I prefer to use the term eight notes though because it gives immediate information, if you are playing eight notes in four-four time, there are eight of them to the bar. Have a quick listen to this loop. This is the one-fourth progressions at C that we are going to play along shortly. Listen closely to the drums. Normally, in rock music, you will hear the bass drum on beat one and three. The snares on beat two and four and you will hear the highs playing an eight-note pulse over the top.
Okay, now we are going to be looking at the interaction of bass and drums in later lessons but for now. All you need to know is that the eight note pulse created by the high is what we are going to be using as the foundation for building some bass lines. It is a really-really common rhythm in rock music. It is the one probably you are familiar with from your own CD collections and your own listening even if you did not know what to call it. So we have the rhythm that we are going to use for our first bass line which is an eight note rhythm. The next thing that we are going to look at is the note choice. Now today, we are just going to root notes. Now, root notes are a common musical term and it is very simple to explain and understand. Basically, if you are in a playing situation and someone hands you a chord chart to tell you the chords, you will come across different chords.
For example, C minor, D7, G, etcetera, each chord name has two pieces of information. It has the quality of the chord either a major chord or minor or seventh or minus, seven flat five. So on to the other piece of information, it has a note name. This tells the guitarist or the pianist where to play the type of chord being specified or what are the first notes and that first note is the root note. So if you have a C minor chord, the root note is C. If you have a D7 chord, the root is D. If you have E flat half-diminished chord, the root note would be flat. So if you are looking at a chord chart, finding the root note for each chord is simply the note that is given as part of the chord.
Okay, so now, we are going to apply root notes and the eight-note rhythm to a simple chord progression. The progression we are using is called a one four progression and it is going to be in the key of C. Now, do not worry about understanding what a one-fourth progression is. In the future lesson, I will cover a bit of basic theory at the keyboard and I will show you what is what. For now, all you need to know is that a one four and C uses the chord C and F. If you go to the lesson page on the website, you will find a chart with one chord written out in every key.
I cannot recommend strongly enough that you enter all the chords into the band in the box and practice playing along in every key. So in this eight bar progression, we are going to play a bar of C, a bar of F, a bar of C then a bar of F and continue alternating bars like that for eight bars and we are going to play along with just root notes in an eight root rhythm. So it is going to be eight notes for each bar. It sounds like this. Okay if you have band in the box and you repeat what I just did, then you just built your first bass line. Again, I have to emphasize the importance of playing through the progressions that I am going to show you today and in the following lessons in all keys. It will both improve your understanding of the bass in the fingerboard and as you get used to the sound of different chord movements.
Now in the next lesson, I am going to look at some variations of the one four progression, I am going to look at them in different cases as well. Not just C, so look out for that. Email me with any questions. I will see you next time.
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