Help to build a better site
Playbassnow is growing – more users , guestteachers and content, that means more organizing is needed and i plan to get the site redesigned soon.
And i want your opinions too – so make a comment with any input you migth have on : Site structure, design, lessons, things that needs improvement, things that needs to go…
And if any of you are webdesigners, graphic artists, programmers, etc and would like to contribute with your knowledge in making this the best free hi-quality bass tutorial site, please ad a comment or write me on info@playbassnow.com
cheers
MarloweDK
Did you like this?
If so, please bookmark it,Joeglow said,
July 26, 2010 @ 7:47 pm
Not so much a comment or a request on bass lessons but more of a request of the Sunburst J bass you play. The fading on it looks incredible and I was wondering what year it is and if you have any real good close up pics of it. I’d love to see the original weathering up close.
MarloweDK said,
July 18, 2010 @ 7:47 am
Is coming soon
GOSPELFUNK said,
July 18, 2010 @ 1:27 am
Hi Marlowedk,
I wish you would do a tutorial on how to become great on octave Thumping and Plucking as Graham puts it. I know octaves are every 8th but I need help with this one.
Thanks
MarloweDK said,
July 9, 2010 @ 9:37 pm
There is no order, look at it as tips, tricks and inspirational entities;-)
whoadang said,
July 9, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
hey marlowe!
love the site! is there a way i can view all the lessons from first to last? i’m trying to go through them in some kind of order. thanks!
MarloweDK said,
June 10, 2010 @ 7:06 am
Well my approach to playing blues , is mostly by imitating guitar players, hence the reference to your guitar chops. By the way there is a lot of bluesy licks among my “lick of the day video” videos
nice illusion said,
June 9, 2010 @ 9:13 pm
ok – yeah – but I guess I was hoping for something – well my Blues guitar playing is proficient – but seems like the bass might do something other than that sound – possibly a rhythmic twist………which DKMarlowe seems to have a skill for coming up with..
maybe you could post a couple new takes on G shuffles – making the gen. approach and turnarounds a bit fresh (?)
BB
MarloweDK said,
June 9, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
Im talking about notes chosen, not technique. You can always play licks based the G blues scale / Gm pentatonic
nice illusion said,
June 9, 2010 @ 7:58 pm
Thanks – yeah I can do something as I do on guitar – but that is a little difficult without a pick ! ha ha – really…I am not Jeff BecK!
I guess something that works in the 1-4-5 sound which could be G prog. OR just around G7 (as it IS a short solo, only…)
If I did the guitar-type thing (which is, essentially, what I have done)…it is OK – just trying to get a more comvincing “Bass signature”…could use a clever, doable couple licks which MATCH with the shuffle setting – does that make sense?
really appreciate yer time/effort
thanks again….BB
MarloweDK said,
June 9, 2010 @ 1:20 pm
You mean a 12 bar blues in G or just a static G7 chord?
One thing i dont understand:
You are a guitar player you say , why dont you play what you normally would play on guitar in a blues setting? Just on the 4 lowest strings on a guitar
nice illusion said,
June 9, 2010 @ 10:57 am
DK-
you are ma generous bomb man -
listen I am a guitar player now playing w/ Ron Thompson (a serious blues dude) sometimes…he often asks for a short solo – and I could use something that is say G-shuffle based – rather than the great funk stuff of yours I have been looking at (especially like that line w/ the “James Brown chord”)…can you demo a shuffle solo in G for us – something not tooo tough?
Thanks man -
“Generosity is intelligent self-centeredness”
H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama
Franbass said,
June 1, 2010 @ 2:46 am
hello MarloweDK
I am called Francisco, I am of Argentinean…. Excellent the page… very good exercises… pity that is nothing in Spanish… Not long ago that I touch the low one… I am enough amateur in this. Subi please does not exist any site/clinical in Spanish… some. Podrias to pass some routine to me of exercises to realise daily…? I do not speak English, realises it to the translation with the translator of yahoo jajaja
Me llamo francisco, soy de argentina….
Excelente la pagina…muy buenos ejercicios…lastima que no hay nada en Español…
No hace mucho que toco el bajo…soy bastante amateur en esto.
No existe ningun sitio/clinicas en español…por favor subi alguna.
Podrias pasarme alguna rutina de ejercicios para realizar diariamente…??
no hablo ingles, la traduccion la realice con el traductor de yahoo jajaja
MarloweDK said,
May 22, 2010 @ 6:29 am
First of all congratulations on starting out:)
If you ordered online you should have someone set the bass up for you – a bassplaying friend for instance.
There are some beginner lessons to songs on the site (not by me)
I myself has the Korg, its great, but if youhave an iPhone, amplitube has made a gadget for that (no drums though)
Yorkfield said,
May 21, 2010 @ 11:14 pm
Hi Marlow,
I have just ordered my bass guitar online.
Looking very much forward to learn how to play and maybe getting really good one day.
I’m very happy to have found your website.
Haven’t discovered everything yet, but hope to find lessons for bloody beginners (like me) too 
)
I don’t know if that is possible (because of copyright reasons)at all, but it would be rather nice to have access to bass tabs of some nice songs .. to play along.
Another question I’m looking into right now is what bass effect gadget to get.
I like to have many different effect as well as a built in drum computer.
There are three types I’m thinking of:
1. Zoom B1 FX (approx. 89.- Euro)
2. Korg AX5B (approx. 85.- to 90.- Euro)
3. Korg PX4D (approx. 149.- Euro)
Can someone recommend one, or maybe even another type ?
Thank you very much !
Michael
MarloweDK said,
May 11, 2010 @ 8:42 am
Have thought about that, its just that most of my own lessons (the lick of the day videos) are intermediate /advanced for many. They are mostly on the spot compositions and werent made with any special level in mind. I actually dont have that much targeted beginner stuff, but recently ive started to do more theory type lessons for players on all levels (i wish someone had shown me when i was starting out).
But the next version of the site will have other ways to navigate the site, i promiss you:-)
pbmartin said,
May 11, 2010 @ 4:06 am
Thank you for building a great site, full of great tutorials! Just a suggestion: could you create a track or sequence of lessons and licks that are suitable for beginners, intermediates and advanced players? It would really make navigating all the incredible content on your site a lot easier.
MarloweDK said,
May 8, 2010 @ 7:13 am
Dont know, but in general african musicians have a strong cultural foundation in rhythm – and that is a “must have” for bassplayers:)
Phishind said,
May 8, 2010 @ 4:57 am
How is it that four of the top ten African bass players are from Cameroon? What is it about that area that creates great riddim players? Any ideas?
MarloweDK said,
April 30, 2010 @ 7:36 am
Thank you for your input:
1) Cannot find any lessons from your italian friend , he is just doing playalongs – as i also did in the start;-)
2) Yes, the repeat method is good, i need to remember that.
3)Much more coming:-)
jacek said,
April 29, 2010 @ 6:05 pm
hi !!!
thx for this tutorial website. it’s really good.
my suggestion:
1. if u could show us how to play certain songs, i mean well known songs, and make exercises to them.incorporate some little tricks that u do.
or show how other people play it.i’ll send link to one italian bass player whose playing is really tasty.wish he could be a member of your teaching team :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR5ltYDqM5A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2K-eAsXsx4
2.i just started playing bass n some exercises are boring. they dont really sound like music…i loved your exercise for beginners.u played 4 bars n than i repeated. it was gr8.
3.i think its a gr8 idea to teach music theory.carry on, please!!!
thank you:) take care 
)
MarloweDK said,
April 24, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
Good point, ill make it longer, thx:-)
Gigu Neutsch said,
April 24, 2010 @ 2:12 pm
Hi Thomas!
I would suggest to enlarge the “most recent posts” section
on the main side. You have so many new guest teachers
and there are a lot of new incoming posts (which is great).
But sometimes it´s nice to have a certain post, which you
might want to see more often, some days longer easy to reach.
Or you might miss some good post returning after a 2 weeks
holiday….
Cheers Gigu
elinfoot said,
April 20, 2010 @ 10:52 am
Hi ,
I’m new to bass but not to guitar.The things that are giving me the most difficulties (I thought it would be really easy,I was wrong) is the right hand technique (I’d love to see some more on that),arpeggios and linking them together in a progression and that confusing extra B string .
Ultimately ,I’d love to play funk,jazz fusion and world music (particularly latin and african) on the bass
Thanks a lot
Eric
hsullman said,
April 20, 2010 @ 1:25 am
Hi Thomas, Outstanding site you have. Since are moving towards the fusion side, “Beneath the Mask” by Chick Corea Electrik Band is one of my favs. Also Jean-Luc Ponty and Scott Ambush with Spyra-Gyro are great. All tips aside, you are right that playing on front of real people can be the best and worst critics. Hopefully your getting more beers than your buying!
thank you for all your efforts…Howard
MarloweDK said,
April 12, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
I use the Multi-level navigation plugin for wordpress and there is no way to turn off the links of the parent menu items.
I dont think i can use the javascript trick unless i use a html generated version of the menu, and since i frequently change things i like to keep it dynamic
Otherwise im open to suggestions:-)
gwideman said,
April 12, 2010 @ 8:41 am
Hi again Marlowe:
I just took a quick look at the html for your generated menus. I’m guessing that somewhere you have to configure those menus with target URLs right? Assuming there’s not some obvious option to say “no link”, you can set the link to “javascript:void(0)” so the resulting output is href=”javascript:void(0)”, which essentially disables the link.
MarloweDK said,
April 12, 2010 @ 8:02 am
Yeah i know, but havent figured out how to disable topmenu links, its a dynamically created menu. Ill keep it mind for next update thx
gwideman said,
April 12, 2010 @ 12:34 am
Hi Marlowe,
Many thanks for all the time and energy you put into your YouTube vids, and now here.
Web-page-related suggestion: Your drop-down menus (Lessons, Pages, Links etc) activate on hover, but also have a hyperlink. This means that if user tries to click, they see menu appear, but soon the menu disappears because the page reloads. I think it might be better to have no link, and either have menu appear on click, or hover. Just a minor issue, but confused me until I saw what was happening in the browser status bar.
– Graham
ajcrm125 said,
April 10, 2010 @ 12:57 pm
Marlowe,
Thanks a ton for the recent lessons you’ve added on the major scale. It’s nice to have a change of pace where you explain the theoretical stuff in more details. I think this was the first series of lessons where I actually heard you speak.
Keep it up.. I’m an intermediate bass player and I need some more of the theory.
THANKS!
MarloweDK said,
April 5, 2010 @ 7:04 pm
youplayalong is a site for everybody. Ive only done a few “how to play” a certain song, and “use me” is not among them – its fairly easy so you should have no trouble figuring it out
Jim S said,
April 5, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
Am I correct that you do not offer transcriptions or slow versions of your work on the “play along” site? My band has asked me to learn “use me,” and it would be great to see a transcription (if you did one and I just have not found it). Thanks.
MarloweDK said,
April 2, 2010 @ 10:04 am
Im not that much a tone “fiddler”, use two settings on my bass – all full or favoring the bridge pickup and turning the tonecontrol down
MarloweDK said,
April 2, 2010 @ 10:02 am
Yes, its always good to take actual music that uses scales, rather than just run up and down them
JRandorff said,
April 2, 2010 @ 7:51 am
Hi there! I’m new to the site and have been enjoying your video lessons. I’ve been playing professionally for about 10 years now and I very much enjoy your wordless approach to getting your ideas across… it makes the universal language of music come across without verbal hinderances.
Anyway, I would love to see some ideas on setting tone. The idea that I had was to record a lick/groove into a looping unit and then run that through your various effects, changing their respective parameters and hearing the real-time tone shaping.
Regards,
~~James
slagheap said,
April 2, 2010 @ 6:04 am
hello, marloweDK. love the site so far, certainly a lot to try to digest. btw, i think the unison line from stevie wonder’s ” sir duke ” is a great use of pentatonic construction. by playing that in various keys i first began to learn about pentatonics.
MarloweDK said,
March 25, 2010 @ 8:23 pm
60 for 1 lesson, an hour with me on Skype.
Or via a video lesson from Ashbury music hall with written material and evaluation of your homework – you upload videos where yuo play the asssignment i gave you and i judge and correct if needed
derek trull said,
March 25, 2010 @ 5:56 pm
I mean how long before I got to pay the 60 dollars again??
MarloweDK said,
March 25, 2010 @ 8:26 am
A month? No, an hour;-) Sorry , I dont really understand the question
derek trull said,
March 25, 2010 @ 12:04 am
was just wondering if I started taking the 60 dollar lessons how long does it last like one month or what thanks
derek trull said,
March 24, 2010 @ 3:56 am
yes sir
jusk keep it in mind I think pino has a lot of great licks thanks
MarloweDK said,
March 23, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
Thx Derek and i like john mayer trio (with pino) a lot, but i think ill do some other cover tutorials first at least
derek trull said,
March 23, 2010 @ 10:49 pm
hey I would just like to say thank you for taking time out to do all this work I have been playing bass for about three years and you my friend are a pro man I love the blues and I have studied all your vids I cant quite play them as well as you but I live some one who can break it down so simple any way my ? was have you ever listin to the JOHN MAYER TRIO they play a lot of blues and pino is a great bass player I was wondering if you would cover some of there stuff if you had the time thanks and God bless
MarloweDK said,
March 17, 2010 @ 10:56 pm
Most my videos are hosted on blip.tv but some older ones are hosted at youtube. I think its you who have problems and im not moving 400 videos because of you;-) Try watching them on another computer just too see or update your Flash player
TobiasAddict said,
March 17, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
I always have problems to watch your videos: someone are OK but I can’t watch the other and I don’t know why. If you could host your videos on an other site, that may change it. I hope my English don’t trouble you
Thanx for your site and keep grooving
MarloweDK said,
March 17, 2010 @ 9:39 am
low action and fretnoise:-)
This is not the right forum for that question mind you;-)
clevey said,
March 17, 2010 @ 9:30 am
Thanks for all you do. Brief question…..
You make this look so effortless. Do you have your strings very low to the frets, even though it may cause some fret noise when plucking, or is the action normal height and your hands just do the work?
-Chris
MarloweDK said,
March 12, 2010 @ 1:49 am
Its about experience, studying others basslines and playing a lot, to make up good basslines oneself.
So its a good idea and there is allready backing tracks with some of the licks,
MarloweDK said,
March 12, 2010 @ 1:45 am
Sounds like a case for Gigu Neutsch
soporific said,
March 11, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
Just an idea..
Playing licks and songs is good for getting a wide musical vocabulaire on the bass, but in what way is it effecting your own style. As a more or less beginning bassplayer, I find it sometimes hard to come up with my own grooves. So maybe it’s an idea if you (mDK)make like a backing track, and the visitors can record and post their own bassline with that. I think it would be nice to see the diversity of ideas of different players.
Have a good one! Kors
Phishind said,
March 11, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
I am a big fan of Bakithi Kumalo, Sipho Gumede, and afro beat. It is not easy to find assitance in learning this type of music; mix meters, phrasing, lyrical/vocal bass melodies, etc. Could you do some lessons on this style of bass playing.
MarloweDK said,
March 10, 2010 @ 11:47 pm
Dont worry about speed, practice and make it sound good in the tempo you can manage, only when that is relaxed yuo may increase. This is not the olympics;-)
KhanguruMc said,
March 10, 2010 @ 9:53 pm
Hello, my name is marc and would like to say thank for your helps MarloweDk and guest Teacher’s.
The most difficult for me is my right hand ,I can’t go really fast picking with two or three fingers and most grooves in the site are relatively fast and when the grooves in the video is slow down sometimes I can follow but sometimes it’s still to fast for me.I know that I have to continued practicing and not be decouraged .In the past I have over practicing my right hand the wrong way , very crisp tobe more faster and develop a tendinite (dont know if is the wright name in English).
my question is :is it possible to integrate some
good exercises for right hand to improve my speed without sacrify a relax hand.
Sorry for my poor English language.
Thanks for your attention.
I love so much this instrument.
Marc.
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Shout box
: Just checked , the link works fine. When you copy/paste, always check that you copy the whole link
: Hey marlowe, i received my awesome donation gifts, thanks. But the link to the transcripts isn't working. The videos downloaded perfectly, however. Keep it funky.
: Yes, it was in the spam folder. Thanks!
: Adidvin: Mail sent yesterday close to midnight to adivin3@cox.net, check spam folders., mail did not bounce so you should have it.
: Just a heads up Thomas, I donated yesterday but have not received an email from you yet. Thanks.
: Hi, marlow. I just discover. The Site. and tried one lesson. you very good and clear.However, Watching video takes long tome. I'm interested in downloading the "300-$20). But I don't have credit card. Is it possible to use Money Transfer by Western Union? to download these videos?
: It's good to see such an awsome bassist teach so freely. Many people don't realize how rare that is. I'm Jake, and I've been playing for 7 months now and your videos have helped me alot. I do have one question, can you go over the modes and improvisation. I know the modes, I just don't know how to apply them. Thanx
: The strings are new on this one, thats helps a LOT
: To be specific, #4, the beginner slap bass lesson. I can't get that crisp, "chink", edge, especially on the plucked notes, no matter what I do.
: Name an example video of mine
MarloweDK said,
July 27, 2010 @ 8:11 am
Its a 1963 jazz bass, and you can see more details in some of the desktop pictures under downloads HERE