Classic Ska Bass Lines

[greghagger]

I have been delving into Ska lately, especially the earlier classic Ska/reggae crossover style.

I have found inventive bass lines, often using walking lines or arpeggio patterns. Some are pretty fast and tricky to play. 

I have prepared this lesson of Five Classic Ska Bass Lines. These are some of my favourites and you are sure to have fun playing them. 

Follow the link below for the full video lesson.

Enjoy, and I’d love your feedback on the lesson, or suggestions of other Ska tunes to teach. 

https://youtu.be/KmdrGmk0FjU

[stewblack]

Of all the music I love to play this is my favourite. Thank you. 

[Reggaebass]

I play mainly reggae but I do like a bit of ska  , and I like riff number 5 , that’s a good finger workout 👍

Great thread  Greg 🙂

Edited September 13, 2019 by Reggaebass

[Reggaebass]

This is probably one of my favourite ska basslines , really good fun to play 🙂

 

[Woodinblack]

Always love the Ska songs in our set - we do monkey man, more specials than toots, and always much faster than that even if we try. A lot of our songs end up getting a bit ska'd from time to time. We do the reel big fish brown eyed girl and 'party like its' version of timber. We are generally a conflict of people who want to play different things.

I hadn't heard 5, sounds a good one to try.

My normal favourite is Impression I get from a bass playing point of view. I want to do madness stuff but apparently our sax player has the wrong type of sax!

 

[stewblack]

41 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

This is probably one of my favourite ska basslines , really good fun to play 🙂

 

Yep me too. Admittedly we used to do the Specials take on it but I would go nuts whenever we played it.

[greghagger]

4 hours ago, stewblack said:

Of all the music I love to play this is my favourite. Thank you. 

 

4 hours ago, stewblack said:

Of all the music I love to play this is my favourite. Thank you. 

No worries, this lesson is proving really popular. I had no idea so many love Ska. The bass lines are awesome!

[greghagger]

2 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

I play mainly reggae but I do like a bit of ska  , and I like riff number 5 , that’s a good finger workout 👍

Great thread  Greg 🙂

Yep that bass line is a great workout!! Glad you like the lesson. 

I’ll check the tune out. 

[greghagger]

2 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Always love the Ska songs in our set - we do monkey man, more specials than toots, and always much faster than that even if we try. A lot of our songs end up getting a bit ska'd from time to time. We do the reel big fish brown eyed girl and 'party like its' version of timber. We are generally a conflict of people who want to play different things.

I hadn't heard 5, sounds a good one to try.

My normal favourite is Impression I get from a bass playing point of view. I want to do madness stuff but apparently our sax player has the wrong type of sax!

 

You’ll have to tell your sax player to sort it out! I love a bit of Madness. 

Your band sounds interesting. 

[Reggaebass]

This is a  tune that I got from  @tthiggins  nice Bassline 🙂

 

[greghagger]

20 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

This is a  tune that I got from  @tthiggins  nice Bassline 🙂

 

Great bassline thanks. 

[nilebodgers]

55 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I don’t get to play with them very often, but when I do dep for a Ska band, this is one of my favourites.

 

Awesome song. There is a lesson on youtube from "Cambridge Bass Lessons" on it.

This is a cracking modern Ska/Punk track that is great fun to play:

 

[greghagger]

3 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I don’t get to play with them very often, but when I do dep for a Ska band, this is one of my favourites.

 

Thanks for this recommendation. What an inventive bass line. I like the sort of disco octave in it!

[greghagger]

2 hours ago, nilebodgers said:

Awesome song. There is a lesson on youtube from "Cambridge Bass Lessons" on it.

This is a cracking modern Ska/Punk track that is great fun to play:

 

That’s another cracking track, cheers! 

You guys are really adding to my Ska ‘vocabulary’!

[Hobbayne]

8 minutes ago, greghagger said:

Thanks for this recommendation. What an inventive bass line. I like the sort of disco octave in it!

Maybe you could do a video on it? I love the little bass solo.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Hobbayne

[greghagger]

8 hours ago, Hobbayne said:

Maybe you could do a video on it? I love the little bass solo.

Good idea. I’ll get transcribing!

[greghagger]

Hey Everyone,

As there is such interest in my Ska lesson, I have made a video lesson on Five Classic Reggae Bass Lines, that you might like. 

I’d love to know you get on with it. 

https://youtu.be/Stv9P0nugHI

[Reggaebass]

I came across this tune in my collection by , Justin hinds & the dominoes, it’s a good  fun ska/reggae Bassline 🙂

 

[munkyowen]

This one is a lot of fun to play 👍

As is this:

https://youtu.be/CeMeDihwyrg

 

[greghagger]

12 hours ago, munkyowen said:

This one is a lot of fun to play 👍

As is this:

https://youtu.be/CeMeDihwyrg

 

That looks great, I’ll check it out. 

[Reggaebass]

If you want an easy one to teach your students Greg ,  this is a good one ☝️

 

[Woodinblack]

Well, we are just looking into this one. Its not a classic by any means..

But it has a good bassline. Which I should go off and learn

[Reggaebass]

4 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Well, we are just looking into this one. Its not a classic by any means..

But it has a good bassline. Which I should go off and learn

Nice Bassline that , I like the change of tempo at 1.19.

[greghagger]

6 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

If you want an easy one to teach your students Greg ,  this is a good one ☝️

 

Nice, thanks

[greghagger]

I have now made another video lesson on Ska bass. 
 

There are three new Ska Bass Lines in the video and I talk about how to use techniques to create your own Ska bass line. 
 

Thanks for sharing all your knowledge in this thread. It’s kept me busy listening to a lot of new artists. 
 

If you have any questions once you  have watched the video, I am happy to help.