Essential Bass Vocabulary, a brief guide
The bass’s role in a band or ensemble is made up of two important things: as part of the rhythm section it needs to make the groove happen along with the drummer and it also needs to help establish the melodic and harmonic foundations of a song. These things, taken together, give rise to some fairly specific repeated elements that are the “content” you have to learn to hear and execute when you play the bass. The bass guitar’s relatively recent emergence on the scene also makes some of these elements — which here I will collectively refer to as “the vocabulary of bass” — rather recent and timely and even directly attributable to specific people in the present or the recent past. That’s not as much true with other instruments like the violin that have been around for thousands of years!
In this entry I’m going to start to build a short guide to the essential vocabulary of bass. These elements are not specific to bass guitar or upright/string bass necessarily, though some of them may be more prevalent on one than the other. Neither are these vocabulary bits specific to one style or genre. They might be more associated with one, but I’m going to try to stick to things that are more universal across genres.
When I say “vocabulary” I mean small elements that can be used to build larger structures like phrases, bass lines, and whole tunes. They are bigger than notes but not whole phrases in their own right. They can be really, really important for both hearing and communicating what the bass is supposed to do in a given song and often, if you know the vocabulary, you can use that to explain to someone how to play a whole tune.
For example, if someone who knows essential bass vocabulary asked me how to play Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash I could say: “12 bar blues in E. The bass plays root and five with walkups on the changes.” And that would do it. Really!
The first part of that — 12 bar blues in E — is not specific to the bass or any instrument. It’s about song form and the key that the song is played in. The second part has the bass vocabulary and there are two important concepts. Root and five is one. And walkup is the other. We’ll get to both in our list! But before I start that, let me just add one other comment about what I’m calling vocabulary and what I’m not.
Vocabulary includes melodic and rhythmic content and it also may include other specific important musical elements like a particular articulation, etc. But vocabulary is NOT technique alone. So you won’t see, for instance, “slap” or “thump and pluck” on this list. But you will see some vocabulary that is often used WITH slap technique, together, to get a particular sound and feel.
For each one ask yourself. Do I know this term? Can I recognize it when I hear it? Can I do it in the context of a song? Ok…ready? Let’s make a list!
Pedal tones
What are they: static (unchanging) note played in the bass as the rest of the band plays a moving line. Usually played on the tonic (root) or the dominant (fifth) of the key.
Example of how you would use it: “Before the bridge, just pedal on the Bb instead of playing the changes.”
Outlining
What is it: A bass line composed of (primarily) the root, third, fifth and seventh tones in each chord of the progression. Especially important to hit chord tones on beat 1 when outlining as this can help to establish the harmony.
Example of how you would use it: “The bass is outlining during the verse and then plays the unison riff on the chorus.”
Root and five (fifth)
What is it: a bass line that involves a rhythmic alternation between the root and the fifth of the chord. This bit of vocabulary is not specific to bass as an instrument but is also found in low brass (e.g. tuba) in genres like polka and marches. When you hear polka or a New Orleans second line or even a blues grass tune, you’ll often hear root and five.
Example of how you would use it: “To play Folsom Prison Blues, play root and five with walkups on the changes.”
Walking (including walkups and walkdowns)
What is it: A walking bass line moves stepwise from one chord tone to the next in a progression, often using the chromatic scale, with a signature sound being the interval of a half-step (semitone) from one note to the next. A “walkup” or “walkdown” is a short section that features this chromatic movement between the chord changes without necessarily continuing the walking motion on each chord.
Example of how you would use it: “To play Folsom Prison Blues, play root and five with walkups on the changes.”
Octaves (a.k.a. Disco or funk octaves)
What is it: A bass line that doubles each note one octave apart, often while moving up or down chromatically. Octave lines in funk songs might be played with a slap on the low note and a pop/pluck on the higher octave for a more percussive attack.
Example of how you would use it: “Make it funky in the chorus and use those octaves like in Car Wash.”
Pentatonic shuffle(s)
What is it: A bass line that outlines a major or minor pentatonic scale pattern, moving up or down or both, with a shuffle rhythm like we often hear in a blues or a boogie woogie (the latter usually major) song.
Example of how you would use it: “Give me a minor shuffle in G for this blues.”
Stacked fourths
What is it: This is something we can properly attribute to the one and only James Jamerson. It is a bass line that includes rhythmic fills using fourth intervals “stacked” on top of each other. This is possible and convenient because the bass is tuned in fourths so to play these you just pop up (only up! If you go down it’s a fifth!) one or two frets.
Example of how you would use it: “I need a Motown feel here, so stack up the fourths on the turnaround!”
ii V’s
What is it: A common way to imply movement, which is often most strongly carried in the bass line, the ii V is a type of common motion or “cadence” in many styles of Western music including classical, jazz, folk, country, R&B, and others. The ii V can be used to move towards resolution (back to the tonic or the I chord). In functional harmony terms, this works well because the ii is the Supertonic and the V is the dominant, each of which leads back toward “home” on the I chord. A ii V can also be used in a bass line to make passing tones as chords are changing as well, which makes the overall shift from just about any one key to any other sound good.
Example of how you would use it: “Throw a ii V in there in the bass before we go to D minor.”
Triplet raking or triplet “drops”
What is it: Most commonly in swing music, but also in any music with a walking line, when the bass line is mostly quarter notes but the overall swing feel of a tune implies a triplet, the bass will often play a triplet figure on open strings on changes that descend from higher on the scale to lower. This helps to reinforce the rhythm and add some tonal variation to an otherwise relentless quarter note line. The technique used is called “raking” because it is most efficient to use the same finger twice as you descend. This move feels like you are raking your hand across the strings.
Example of how you would use it: “Did you hear how Mr. Carter puts that triplet rake in there coming off the four chord?”
Tritone sub chromatic descending lines
What is it: Tritone substitutions are not bass specific. This concept refers to the idea that wherever you have a dominant functioning note in a progression, you can swap out that tone for another note a tritone (three whole steps) away. This is often used in bass lines to create a smooth, chromatic (stepwise) alternative bass line that can add interest, especially after the normal progression has already been heard a few times.
For example, for a song in Bb with a ii V I (so C, F7, Bb) turnaround you can swap out the F7 (the V chord) for a B7 (a tritone of F) and the bass line becomes a chromatic descending line from C to B to Bb.
This one might seem like it’s only common in jazz, and it is often used in Latin jazz especially, but once you learn to hear this kind of motion it becomes a really cool, subtle way to introduce contrast to a bass line that is otherwise playing chord tones throughout the song.
Example of how you would use it: “The last time through, instead of outlining, do an ascending tritone sub from Ab to A to Bb.”
