The approach designed to make you a better bass player in so many ways
By Jon Liebman
May 15, 2025
If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I’m all about making everything groove.
EVERYTHING.
Including scales.
I had an “AHA” moment this week.
Thinking back to my university days, I remembered the technique I used to use in order to learn my scales on the bass.
The more I thought about it, the more I remembered how enormously helpful my approach turned out to be when it came to grooving, soloing, and just becoming a better bass player.
So this week I started developing a new course to help YOU master your scales on the bass by taking the approach that helped me so much.
It’s called TOTAL SCALES MASTERY ON THE BASS (I didn’t want to leave any doubt about what it’s about!).
This new course is designed to help you in 3 ways:
- Becoming totally proficient with your scales, all over the instrument;
- Increasing your knowledge of basic music theory concepts;
- Building awesome chops as a bass player!
But most importantly, with TSM (that’s what I’m calling it for short), you’ll be ‘awesomely armed’ to tackle all the grooving, soloing, and other forms of creativity and musicality I’m always talking about.
Check out this week’s video where I provide a video description of TSM, including the lessons I’m making available to you, totally free.
See you there.
Let’s play bass!
Jon
HI Jon
Longtime bass player, I’m 64 ,played a lot of events ,concerts ,churches, etc through the years. Done playing out now, but recently picked up bass again for my own enjoyment. Today with youtube, etc I realize what I don’t know. So approaching bass fresh, I have evaluated my style and knowledge. So I have decent music theory , basically have always built lines from chord tones. Now trying to expand and playing with a drum track only I am challenged to come up with much in an imaginative way. I liken this to coming up with what I call a ” Guitar Center ” riff. You know, what you play in a store with people around trying out an instrument. If I pick up a bass, even with a pretty good deal of knowledge, my mind is blank , I need to hear an existing riff to work on. Maybe a youtuber or something. Looking for suggestions or thoughts you may have on that. Also, realize I need to really sharpen my fretboard knowledge to move around more freely , using like the 5 pent scale positions . Is there a course that addresses that? The way i practice them isn’t very connective. Trying to self teach can be challenging. Most of what I see is too simple, things I already know or just a bunch of scales and modes without any direction. Thanks for reading , I know this is pretty long , but interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks Steve
Hi, Steve! Thanks for sharing your story. I’m glad you picked up the bass again (I particularly like the “for my own enjoyment” part). I understand where you’re coming from. There are several ways you could approach this. One, just start by playing the roots, then expand to the chord tones. You’ll come up with a riff or a groove before you know it. Keep it simple. You’ll know when you’re ready to expand and embellish. Another thing that’s great for coming up with ideas is to keep the notes confined to, say, an octave, or an even smaller interval. That’ll force you to come up with ideas you never knew you had. Try those two things and hit me back and let me know how you make out. Also, you could check out my 3-video series, Bass Groove Basics, totally free. Here’s the link: https://forbassplayersonly.com/bass-groove-basics/. And if you’re ready to go all in, I think you’ll get a lot out of my Bottom Line Club membership. It has all the things you seem to be looking for. You can sign up here: https://forbassplayersonly.com/bottom-line-club/. Let me know if you have more questions or need anything else. I’m here to help! Thanks again for weighing in. – Jon