Bass Lines to the 9th Power
By Shawn Bradshaw

In this lesson I’m going to show you a few cool shapes you can use to spruce up your bass lines. The reason why I call this lesson “bass lines to the 9th power” is that these shapes involve the interval of a 9th above the root of the chord.

Music Theory About the 9th

Let’s take a look at a little bit of music theory in order to help you understand these bass lines a little better. A C major scale is just the natural notes from C to C. Under the note names in the scale I have assigned a number to each degree. There are only 7 different notes in a major scale before it starts over again with the same note name an octave higher. Oct is Greek for 8. When I reach that C again in a C major scale I number it as 1, but I could also number it as 8 for the octave.

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1(8)

If I was to number that 2nd C as an 8, and then continue up one more note to D, I could number that as 9. 9 is the same note as 2, just an octave higher.

C D E F G A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Bass Lines to the 9th Power
Video Bass Lesson

9th Bass Line Pattern #1

Here is the first shape that we are going to look at on the neck of the bass that involves the 9th interval. I am going to play the root (C), the 5th (G) the octave (C), then the 9th (D). You can use this shape over all kinds of different chords, including but not limited to Major, Minor, sus2, Dominant 7th, Major 7th, and Minor 7th.

9th Bass Line Pattern #1 Groove

Now let’s play a little groove going between a Cm and a Bb chord. You are just going to play the exact same shape for both chords. For the Cm start at the 8th fret of the 4th string (C), and for the Bb start at the 6th fret on the 4th string (Bb). At the end of the lesson you will find a jam track without me playing the bass line that you can practice with.

Page 2 - 9th Bass Line Patterns #2, 3, and Jam Track