How To Play Jazz Bass

To learn how to play jazz bass you will need to learn some songs. They have bass lines you can learn and a melody you can play around with. They are your inspiration and your toolbox. You will have many “eureka” moments as you pull your collection of songs apart and reassemble them.

Beginning learning how to play jazz bass means becoming familiar with a new genre of music. You will be listening to some songs to absorb the music through your skin, although you don’t necessarily have to listen to the music naked. You also need to get hold of some jazz guitar books and some sheet music for some songs and get the feeling of playing jazz.

Here is a list of jazz songs that are recommended to beginner guitarists:
All Blues
All Of Me
All The Things You Are
Alone Together
Autumn Leaves
Beautiful Love
Black Orpheus
Blue Bossa
Bluesette
Body And Soul
Bye Bye Blackbird
Cherokee
Corcovado
Cottontail
Days Of Wine And Roses
Desafinado
Don’t Be That Way
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
Fly Me To The Moon
Footprints
Green Dolphin Street
My Funny Valentine
My Romance
Night And Day
Oleo
Our Love Is Here To Stay
Out Of Nowhere
Satin Doll
Scrapple From The Apple
Shiny Stockings
Softly As In A Morning Sunrise
Solar
Someday My Prince Will Come
Sometime Ago
St. Thomas
Stella By Starlight
Sweet Georgia Brown
Take The A Train
The Girl From Ipanema

Don’t settle for el cheapo recordings of the songs. If you are learning a song from written music you want to listen to a decent recorded version of it. It’s a good idea to learn the melody of the song. You may have your sights set on improvising bass solos but the melody is the essence of a song and a great basis for solos. Practice the melody until you can start to add your own embellishments.

You might suspect that learning how to play jazz bass is a lifetime study. When you first start learning is possibly the pointier end of the learning curve. You will spend most of your time listening to music and the rest of your time practicing how to play. Unless you have been listening to jazz guitar music all your life you really should do yourself a favor and get a teacher. If you’re broke, there’s not much you can do, but as soon as you ship comes in find a good jazz guitar player who will teach you some stuff.

Here’s a video lesson on jazz bass in Eb major . . .

How to Play Jazz Bass in Eb (E Flat) — powered by eHow.com