Building Basslines- Lesson 1

OK in Lesson 1 of the Building Basslines series I'm going to show you how to build a simple bassline to an 8 bar chord progression.

Here's the Lesson video:

 

In this lesson we're going to build a simple bassline to a chord progression known as a I-IV chord progression in the key of C. (In a later lesson we'll have a quick look at the theoretical background and why this progression is called a I-IV. For now, just go along and it will all get clear for you further down the line).

This bassline is going to be deliberatly simple - the rhythm we're going to use is a constant 8th note rhythm, which I'm sure you'll be familiar with from your own CD collection. It's a rhythm that's been used thousands of times down the years in rock (and pop) music.

For notes, we're simply going to use the Root Notes of the chord progression.

Now when you see chords written out you'll see something like the following examples:

Cmin7

F7

Eb7

Now there's two pieces of information that any musician can take from a notated chord - the kind of chord that is being played - eg. a 7th chord, or a maj7th chord, or a min 7th chord (or any of the other chord types) AND there's also the note that this chord is to start from. In examples above those notes are C, F and Eb. The note that a chord starts from is called THE ROOT NOTE.

So the example that I play in the video is an 8 bar chord progression, and simply consists of repeating bars of C (the 'I' chord) and F (the 'IV' chord).

Here's what the progression looks like (where each box represents a bar

C

F

C

F

C

F

C

F

So if you've got Band in A Box, type in the chord progression above select a style (in the video I used a style called 'ZZHeavyRock') and press play. And don't forget to mute the bass on band in a box! So now you've got a ready made backing track to practice with!

Although Band in a Box allows you to transpose the whole progression easily, here's a table with I:4 progressions in every key:

I Chord	IV Chord
C	F
C#/Db	F#/Gb
D	G
D#/Eb	G#/Ab
E	A
F	Bb
F#/Gb	A#/Bb
G	C
G#/Ab	C#/Db
A	D
A#/Bb	D#/Eb
B	E

I can't emphasise enough that you should practice this exercise in every key, it will solidify your understanding and knowledge of the fingerboard, and it will help train your ear to hear the I:IV chord movement which is common in every form of popular music from jazz and blues, to rock and pop.

Don't forget when you're playing through these progressions in 8th notes, to check that your 8th notes are even and consistant.

 

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