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Rock Bass

Author: Anthony Vitti
  • Overview
  • Syllabus
  • Requirements
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It's essential for any bass player interested in popular music to have a solid foundation in rock music. From its roots in traditional blues, rock bass is a launching point into many varied music styles: progressive rock, fusion, country, jam band styles, and more. Rock Bass provides the foundation and vocabulary necessary to construct and improvise bass lines in a variety of rock and blues music styles. You'll start by learning the 12-bar blues form and the major and minor pentatonic scales. You'll learn how to affect and contribute to a song rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically through practice lessons covering phrasing, feel and improvisation.

Throughout the course you'll study Berklee's bass method to Rock, Blues Rock, Delta, Chicago, and Texas blues, as well as more advanced techniques such as playing with odd time signatures, modal bass lines, and the open "jam style." Weekly lessons cover scale exercises, listening, performing transcriptions, and studying the work of legendary players like Geddy Lee, Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney, and Chris Squire. Each week culminates in the creation and recording of your own performance. At the completion of this course, you'll possess the skills to create and improvise your own rock and blues-based bass lines, and have the knowledge and ability to perform with a consistently solid sound, technique and timing.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • recognize different blues forms
  • incorporate many different scales into your bass lines
  • understand modal bass lines
  • have command over different meters/time signatures
  • understand syncopation
  • incorporate rhythmic depth in your bass lines
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Online Summer Term Starts June 25th

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Course Info

For-credit tuition: $1,400
Non-credit tuition: $1,200
Add 6 CEUs: $25.00
Credits: 3
Duration: 12 weeks
Catalog #: BMP-131
 

Course Faculty Down arrow

Anthony Vitti
Anthony Vitti Professor in the Bass Department at Berklee College of Music.
Anthony Vitti
Anthony Vitti Professor in the Bass Department at Berklee College of Music.
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