hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com i hope you're
doing well i've got a lesson for you here today where we are looking at a beginner's bass pattern
that gets you used to playing in first position it's a bit of a cheesy kind of lazy
uh bass uh melody but you'll hear it we play it four times and on the third time there's a little
bit of a variation but the reason why i want you to learn this is to give you something to play
whilst you're working on your hand shape and then also playing in the in first position
and there's a little bit at the neck block for those more experienced bass players so let me
play this bass line for you and you can see if you want to learn this okay remember it happens
four times and there's a variation on the third one so try and listen out for that okay
so it's a really it's a really cheesy uh kind of bluesy i don't know melody it's
uh just something fun to practice uh whilst you're working on this half position so let's
remind ourselves sorry first position let's remind ourselves how we get to first position
well we've know half position is just by the nut there and then we're just one note higher and if
we on the g string we've got g and then and then we should have a and b so a under the first finger
b under the little finger so you can check this note a against the open a to see if you're in tune
and then in between we have the note b flat so it's open g a b flat b now the pattern starts
d g so it's d g and then we play the open d at the end and i want you to
play this open d against the b so you can hear if your tuning is correct so
and then the same pattern repeats down a string so that's a d e f natural f sharp and again we let
the open a ring and then same thing happens down one more string and there you've got the c sharp
under the little finger and the e natural ringing out underneath and the last bit of the last bar is
which is a and then f sharp f natural e down to the d then yeah so
and then it starts again so the pattern on at the end is
a sorry d a then d and then back to the open g so if i play the last bit again
this is the descending line
so this pattern here d a d and then g again when you play the a string you need to mute the d
with your left hand otherwise it'll sound like this really messy so you need to
and that is you know that's a lesson in itself you can spend a lot of time just d
a and as soon as i hit the a my left hand is muting the d
d and when you play the d your first finger or your finger on your right hand will mute the
next string and then the g so let's listen to that pattern all the way through all four bars
and really try and let those notes ring out so you can hear to the open string
if it's in tune now we're going to have a fill at the end of this variation this is the third one
here it comes back into the fourth one
so before we look at the fill just be really careful
that your fingers aren't scrunching up because for most people what will happen is
when they're new to the bass they'll establish the hand shape
but quite quickly as they play the they kind of relax a little bit and the fingers come together
and it becomes a little bit less in tune so be really careful to kind of maintain that hand shape
let your weight fall back into the bass try not to squeeze with your left
with your thumb and let those notes ring out because if you're out of tune
you know it'll sound sound pretty horrible and then there's this fill
so this is you go to the neck heel and your first finger on the note d d e with your little finger d
b with your little finger a with your first finger
so the rhythm is one
one and then back into the so if i play that from the third time through the pattern and with fill
and we're on the last time
and that's it so you want to get used to going into this uh into the well the neck heel position
you can call it you know it's labeled different things by different people but if we just think
about the first position of the neck heel so your first finger on the note d you may have
a bass which has an e flat neck where your first finger will actually land on the note e flat so
you'll have to scoot back a little bit to get the d but the point is you get those four notes and
yeah just try and put that together maintaining the hand shape looking out for the hands kind of
naturally squeezing together letting the notes ring so you've got that nice tuning anchor
and then you know working through your positions maybe saying the notes out loud really getting
comfortable with a b c c sharp you know whatever the notes are that you're playing you want to
find a way to really work a position of the double bass and i think learning these simple
melodies and scales of course will help you you could practice your
i know your a major scale shifting back into half position shifting back into first position
you could practice you know whatever you like um but adding in little patterns and bass riffs like
this can really help you and i have a beginner's course over at discover double bass where i have
lots of these kind of shorter patterns not all of them was quite as cheesy as this one
and you can kind of use them to help you on your journey so we present a technique
we probably look at a scale in arpeggio and then we play the bass line and then off you
go do your work move on to the next lesson so something there for you to get stuck into and
yeah best of luck with your practice if you want to learn more about what we do
please go and visit discoverdoublebass.com we have several courses for beginners
who i know could help you on your journey thanks for watching and we'll see you next time