bass

Crosscut Saw is one of the common examples of the rumba in the blues. The rumba bass line is fun to play on the harmonica and one of the rare bass lines we commonly play along with the bass player verbatim. Here's the bass line as played on the harmonica...

Basic Version
I = 2 3 4
IV = 1+ 2+ 3+ or 4+ 5+ 6+
V = 1 2' 3"

Version that the bass player plays in this song
I = 2 3 4 5+ 4
IV = 1+ 2+ 3+ 3" 3+ or 4+ 5+ 6+ 6 6+
V = 1 2' 3" 3 3"

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Once you've dialed in your amp to sound great for performance, turn the treble and mid up half a number. The tone we prefer is often too bassy and lacks the cut needed to be heard in performance. By bringing your treble and mid up half a number it provides a boost in the frequencies that make our sound more intelligible without sacrificing too much of the bassy tone we dig.

Thanks to Charlie Musselwhite for sharing this...

BLUES STORY: A Documentary
The Story of the Blues told through the eyes of the artists who lived it.
http://youtu.be/5qq_qnLHf74?list=PLqCjLhOxHNnLzDFIHOc0F4E5oT-R-HR1c

I had a couple of students ask where on the site they can study bass lines. Here they are...

Solo Harmonica Study 1 - Section 2
http://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/solo_study_1

Solo Harmonica Study 2 - Section 2
http://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/solo_harmonica_study_2

Solo Harmonica Study 3 - Section 2
http://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/solo_harmonica_study_3

Accompaniment Study 7 - Bass Lines
http://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/accompaniment_study_7

Accompaniment Study 8 - Hooks (which are also commonly played by the bass) continue reading...

Like the harmonica, the bass is a single-note instrument. The benefit of studying bass lines are that they not only sound great when played on the harmonica, they're constructed of chord tones and the strongest scale tone choices to transition from chord to chord. It's difficult to come up with cool IV and V Chord ideas, and a player that studies bass lines has less trouble coming up with cool, unique likes due to their intuitive knowledge of the chords. Lastly, for those of you who don't like studying music theory, study bass lines... they are music theory in action. continue reading...

It was obvious to me that the players that had the coolest IV licks (bars 5 and 6), V-IV-I licks (bars 9 and 10) and Turnaround licks (bars 11 and 12) had spent a lot of time studying bass lines.