Tempo

Move. Dance.

When you’re not playing bass, just listen to music and put that beat in your body. Bob your head. Tap your feet. I like to put that beat in my chest like the kick drum is hitting me right in the solar plexus. You can do this when you’re just sitting down listening to music - in a car, on the train, at your chair at work.

Then when you play bass - spend some time standing up and move with the music.

In dance we call it “pulse”.

If you want some simple primers - look up youtube videos of basic Hip Hop grooves, especially a basic “Hip Hop Down Groove”. Or videos on “Blues Dance Pulse”.

You can (and should) take this basic, natural body movement and do it while playing bass:

1 Like

Minor nit but repeatedly tapping the key is not how most synth players would play a synth bassline like that :slight_smile:

Various more common techniques would be to just sequence it, or use an arpegiator synced to the common timesource (in this case probably the drummer’s click track), or to make a patch with an LFO that is synced to the timesource.

The video has a bass player playing it but I think you’re right and it’s a synth bass.

The central point remains: It’s going to be a lot easier and less physically demanding to maintain that kind of even tempo than it will be to try to physically pluck that line on a bass guitar.

I know, but it’s a great picking workout. If I like to be fast enough for the bridge of AC/DCs “Back In Black”, this one shouldn’t be a problem.

1 Like