Hey, James here!
One of the things I get asked a ton, over in the Bass Lab PLUS, my private member's training program, is how to play faster on the bass guitar.
And there's one common mistake that I see players make: they do not focus enough on their fretting hand. They make the mistake of thinking that speed comes only from the plucking hand when, in reality, the actual power sits in this hand. To demonstrate these concepts, I'm going to teach you a super cool bass line, which I'll play for you in the video lesson.
Back in around 2010, I got what was my dream car at the time—a BMW 330d. This beautiful blue six-cylinder car was an absolute beast. Now, here's the thing I learned: it was pretty fast, going from 0 to 60 in about 6.8 seconds or something like that, which, for average road driving, is perfectly fast enough, in my opinion.
However, where this car was an absolute beast was in torque. This meant that when coming out of corners on country roads, it was so powerful and fast. The torque was more useful for day-to-day driving than the 0 to 60 speed.
Now, how this applies to bass players is, I see the 0 to 60 speed in a straight line as directly related to the plucking hand. But I view the torque as being in our fretting hand. Torque for bass players really comes down to finger independence. It's about being able to play runs, pull-offs, and slides really clearly, which is what I'm going to develop in the bass line I'm showing you today.
The bass line I'm demonstrating today is four bars long and includes a 6-beat fill, all in 16th notes. The critical thing here is that the plucking hand is only used once per string. The rest is all done with the fretting hand.
How did you find the bass line? Let me know in the comments below!
I'll see you next week!