Octaves & Chromaticism

by Fred Pucci • 30 May 2023 — 1 minute read

Who would have thunk that just by using two main concepts, octaves and chromaticism, could open up so many fresh ideas… and they certainly can!

In this episode of notreble’s Talking Technique series, I tapped into my idea factory to show you several ways to use octaves and chromaticism – peppered with slides and hammer-ons (every good recipe needs a little spice, right?) – to make your groove creations come alive!

If you ever felt like your bass lines and grooves were sounding too “same-y same-y”, this short lesson provides a remedy that you can add to your toolbox and help reenergize your bass lines!

So grab your bass and let’s go through this together and let’s see what you can come up with.

Oh, be sure to download the free PDF first so you can follow along.

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Technique

Bassist, author, educator.

Groove enthusiast and learning nerd.

Joined by 15,000+ Bassists

Your Instructor

Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

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