Sometimes you or someone else might have a
great idea for a melody, but how are you supposed
to make a bass line for it if that’s all
there is?
Well that’s exactly what you’ll learn
in this lesson.
Hi, I’m Luke from becomeabassist.com and
if you want to learn 3 ways to do this exact
thing, plus how you can use ideas from existing
songs to create brand new original bass lines,
then stick around.
[Video Intro]
If you’re just given a melody and you’re
asked to make a bass line for it, it’s really
easy to just be hit with blank-page syndrome.
For someone with experience though, they’ll
listen to a melody and hear all the possibilities
to make amazing music with it, and that’s
what you’re going to tap into in this lesson.
To do that though, we’ll need a melody,
right?
So I’ve made a really simple 4-bar melody
with a super simple drum beat.
It sounds like this.
[plays track] So where should you start with
something like this?
Well a lot of time, the quickest, easiest
and dirtiest way to start would be to ask
yourself, can you simply double the melody
- so play the same thing as the melody on
the bass.
This is the first method of making a bass
line.
I talk about this being a ‘Type 3’ bass
line in my video the 4 Types of Bass Lines,
but let’s give that a crack.
Let’s try playing the same thing as the
melody.
[plays bass line] Sometimes this will work
really well, other times it will either be
OK or fall completely flat.
This is alright, but I think we can definitely
make something a bit better.
These Type 3 bass lines are great options
if you want the song to feel big and powerful,
although you probably don’t want to do this
for an entire song - it’ll become too much.
But keep it in your back pocket anyway.
Method #2 you can use to create really cool
bass lines is to create a chord progression
and pair it with a proven rhythmic formula
that you know is going to work.
There are tons of common chord progressions
you can find basically everywhere, but let’s
try one of the most common ones - a 6-4-1-5
progression.
If we’re thinking in terms G minor - which
is what this melody is in - that will give
us Gm, Eb, Bb and F. [plays progression] So
if that’s our chord progression, what can
we play for the rhythm?
I go through 6 of these in my other video
Six Proven Rhythmic Formulas for Killer Bass
Lines, but we just need one, so let’s keep
it simple and just use constant 8th notes.
So if we have a bar each of our chords, we’ll
end up with this kind of bass line.
[plays bass line] Easy enough, right?
Let’s try it with the melody and see how
it feels.
[plays bass line] I like everything in there
except the last chord.
The last chord is an F chord, but the melody
is a G there.
It doesn’t NOT work, but I want to try something
else and see if we can find a better fit.
Let’s experiment.
[experiments] Oh OK - that one there - that
C. I like that the best of anything so far,
so let’s keep that.
[keeps playing] OK, great!
G - Eb -Bb - C. I’m into it.
We started with something that didn’t work
100%, so we just tried some other stuff until
it did.
This is totally OK when you’re creating
bass lines, plus it’s a ton of fun.
It’s part of the process.
Let’s also talk about pulling creative inspiration
from other places though.
This is something that tons of professional
songwriters do and if you do it right, it’s
totally invisible.
You know that saying that good artists borrow,
great artists steal?
It’s definitely a thing and I want to show
you how to do it.
Obviously, you don’t ever want to steal
a bass line note for note and claim it as
your own, but you can take the feel or the
vibe of a bass line or song and put it in
your own music.
Let’s creatively borrow from Paul Simon’s
Call Me Al.
If you know the original bass line, you’ll
know it sounds something like this.
[plays bass line] Now we’re not going to
copy this actual bass line, but we can borrow
parts of it and remix it into our own kind
of thing.
Let’s take that rhythm and use it as the
basis for our own bass line.
Ba-ga-dah-buh-dah.
Ba-ga-dah-buh-dah.
If that’s our rhythm, the next question
then becomes what notes should you use with
it?
Well, you can creatively borrow those as well
and use chord progressions from other songs.
Let’s say you wanted to use the chord progression
from the last part of Thriller.
It’s in C# m and goes C#m, A, then F#sus
going to F#.
Sounds like this [plays chords] Now we’re
in G minor, so if we transpose it, we’ll
get [plays chords] Gm, Eb, Csus and C.
Now, let’s combine the two ideas - the rhythm
of Call Me All with the chord progression
of Thriller and see how it sounds.
We could just play the roots of the chords
with the rhythm like this [plays bass line]
but instead we’ll go like this over the
first chord [plays bass line] then this, then
this.
[plays examples] It brings out the qualities
of the chords a bit better.
If you wanted to get really fancy, you could
play all the inversions of these chords
and
if you wanted to mask the rhythm of the bass
line a little bit, you could do that too.
[plays example]
Alright, so that sounds OK by itself, but
let’s see how it works with that melody.
[plays bass line] OK, awesome.
The notes all work great although if you were
dead set on using that rhythm in the bass
line, you’d probably want to modify the
drum groove just so it sits better and there’s
a bit more connection there.
By the way, there’s an almost unlimited
number of rhythmic ideas and unlimited number
of chord progressions and if you combine the
two and do it in creative ways, then you’ll
always have some ideas for how to build a
bass line underneath a melody.
Now if you’re pretty good with chords and
theory and all that kind of stuff then this
next method is perfect for you, and that’s
to go through the melody, find all the most
important notes and experiment with building
chords around them in a very methodical way.
So in this melody, the most important notes
that stand out to me are the ones that land
on beat one of every bar.
So [plays melody] that one, that one, that
one and that one.
So the high G, the C here and two low Gs.
These are the notes that we’re going to
look at and build chords around.
There are a million ways you can do this.
You can treat each important note as the root
of a chord, a 3rd, a 5th, a 7th, even start
using the upper extensions of a chord.
If you really get into this method, you end
up with tons of options, but the downside
is that it can be a little overwhelming, so
let’s keep things simple to start.
We can try making each of the important notes
a major chord, so G major, C major and then
2 G majors.
[plays chords] Now this doesn’t work very
well - especially the G major chords at the
end.
Why not?
Because the chord G major has a B natural
in it while the melody is in G minor and has
a Bb - these notes are clashing.
So let’s make it a G minor chord and see
if that works better.
[plays chords] Yeah - this totally works better,
and having this C as a major chord almost
makes it feel like kind of a funk thing - like
a Gm7 to a C7 chord.
Actually, if we turn the last Gm chord into
a C7, I reckon that could be really cool too.
[plays chords] Yeah - I like that.
If you wanted a sadder kind of melancholy
flavor, you could make the C7 a Cm chord as
well.
That’d sound like this.
[plays example] All of these are options,
and we’ve only just treated the important
harmonic notes as roots so far.
Remember that you’re free to change the
groove underneath the melody if the bass line
needs it too.
If something sounds like a funk kind of progression,
you can morph the song in that direction.
If you end up creating something really sad,
you can change the song so it all fits.
If you end up going in a completely different
direction with the song, that can be fine!
Let’s go further, what if each important
note was the 3rd of a chord?
Let’s try it.
There are two kinds of thirds - your major
and your minor, so now you’ve got two options
for every note, so let’s try them all and
play around a little.
Our first important G can either sound like
this [plays melody with bass note] or like
this. [and again] The Eb or the E natural.
The Eb would give us a kind of Eb major chord
and is more within the key of G minor, but
the E underneath works well too.
If you use other notes from the key, you could
think of this E as being the root of a diminished
triad or a half-diminished 7 chord - or even
a C major or C7 chord with the E in the bass.
What about our next important melody note,
the C?
We can either put an A natural [plays] or
an Ab [plays].
Again, the A is within the key of G minor,
and that could be a part of an A diminshed
chord or even an F chord with the A in the
bass [plays] Oh - I really like that.
But the Ab has a really cool sound to it as
well - it could be an Ab major chord, so we
have these options to put under the C, and
of course under the 2 Gs at the end, we can
have Eb or E just like the first G.
From here, you can mix and match these options
to see how they feel and fit.
You might start with an Eb major chord for
the first G, then to the Ab for the C, then
back to the Eb for the next G, then the E
for the last one.
[plays] That’s kind of cool.
You could even use the idea of the C major
of C7 for the last G like this [plays] I really
like that - that’s pretty cool.
Do you see all the options this method gives
you?
We’ve only used the root and the 3rd to
harmonize these melody notes and we already
have a ton of harmony we can use to inspire
our bass lines.
From here you can use some of the rhythmic
formulas I mentioned before or you can get
inspired and borrow ideas from other places.
It’s a really cool way of doing things IF
you know how chords and keys are structured
and how they work.
Of course, if you come up with a bass line,
sometimes, you’re still not sure if it’s
any good, and if that’s the case, then you
should totally download my Bass Lines From
Scratch Checklist.
If you can go through the checklist and tick
most of the boxes, then chances are that your
bass line is a good one and ready!
Of course, you can always keep tweaking, but
the Bass Lines From Scratch checklist will
keep you on a good path.
To recap really quickly, you learned 3 methods
of making a bass line if you only have a melody
to go off.
You learned that the quickest, easiest and
dirtiest method is to just double the melody
on your bass.
Then you learned that you could create a chord
progression and simply plug in a rhythm that
you know is going to work, and you also applied
this to creatively borrowing ideas from other
songs.
Finally, you learned that you could treat
every important note of the melody as a note
to build chords around and how that will give
you a ton of options to work with for creating
a great bass line.
Thanks so much for watching - I really appreciate
having you with me.
Make sure to download the Bass Lines From
Scratch Checklist to make sure every bass
line you create from now on will be a bass
line you can be proud of.
I’m Luke from becomeabassist.com and I’ll
catch you soon.
