Want to transform your bass playing? Bassline Publishing have a huge selection of bass guitar books, as well as a popular series of video bass courses.
Bassline Publishing was set up in 2005 by Stuart Clayton, an experienced bassist and writer who had previously written seven instructional titles for Sanctuary Publishing, including 100 Tips For Bass You Should Have Been Told, Bass Styles, and Giants Of Bass. The aim of the company is to publish top quality instructional titles for bass guitarists. These include the successful Level 42 Bass Transc
ription series, which now runs to five volumes, and the acclaimed book Ultimate Slap Bass, a complete beginner to advanced tutorial book which has been praised by well-known bassists such as Stu Hamm and Ray Riendeau. Further additions to the range have included the new Stuart Hamm transcription book Outbound & Beyond (which included input from Stuart Hamm himself), and the most popular book to date, Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards: Funk & Disco Grooves for Bass & Guitar. Over the last year many new titles have been added to the range. These include The John Entwistle Bass Book, The Mark King Bass Book, Brand New Heavies: Brother Sister and all of the instructional titles that Stuart wrote for Sanctuary Publishing. Several new titles are planned for the coming year, all of which can be read about on the Coming Soon page. These include the long-awaited book Solo Arrangements for Electric Bass and The Player's Guide to Scales & Modes. The Bassline Publishing website has recently been revamped to include an exclusive area for customers. By logging in, customers will have access to extra content for all of the books, including transcriptions, videos, interviews, and lessons.
03/10/2025
Check out one of the sample exercises from the 100 Slap Bass Grooves course.
This exercise requires only basic slap and pop techniques and features some sliding figures.
The 100 exercises featured in this course are all included with our subscription.
For just £7.99 per month you get full access to over 2000 lessons covering all the main bass techniques for beginners through to advanced bassists.
Find full details of the 100 Slap Bass Grooves course from the link in the comments 👇
29/09/2025
This piece was written in the style of virtuoso bassist Stuart Hamm. It features many of the techniques that he has popularised, such as double popping, open string hammer-ons and the two-handed tapping technique.
🎸 Gear Used:
• Bass: Kubicki Ex Factor Bass
• Strings: Rotosound Stainless Steel (.040, .060, .080, .100)
• Recording: Tech21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI
🎸 Want to master this piece? A complete video tuition course (including transcription and backing track) is available for subscribers at Bassline Publishing. Check out the course from the link in the comments 👇
27/09/2025
• Bass Lick Of The Week #29 •
This exercise is a slap and pop groove written in the style of Marcus Miller. The main idea behind this lick is sliding root and octave figures around the fingerboard, which is something that Marcus often does during his basslines and solos.
All 52 licks are now available in one complete book.
Grab your copy from the link in the comments 👇
24/09/2025
This video is a performance of 'Zender Jazz', the Stuart Zender/Jamiroquai-style piece written for the book Giants of Bass. This track features Will Beavis on drums, Thomas O'Grady on keys and Steve Banks on guitar.
The bassline was performed on a GB Guitars Rumour 5-string.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial which is available to our video subscribers.
Check out more info on our great value video courses from the link in the comments 👇
17/09/2025
Learning The Modes: Dorian
This video is a performance of a study piece that was put together for working on the D Dorian mode. Once you have learnt the mode all over the fingerboard (which is covered in the Dorian mode video course), it's a great idea to apply it in a composition. This piece makes use of fingerstyle and slap techniques and is great fun to play!
This piece was recorded using a 1966 Fender Jazz bass.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial over at the Bassline Publishing website. This tutorial includes a PDF transcription, a full audio track and a backing track for you to play along with.
To view this course, you'll need to be a subscriber to our video lessons. Subscribing will give you access not just to this course, but to ALL of my courses, meaning that you'll have hours and hours of top quality bass guitar tuition to get your teeth into. Best of all, my subscription packages are some of the most affordable available today.
Explore the course from the link in the comments 👇
14/09/2025
• Bass Lick Of The Week #28 •
This week's exercise is a slow tempo groove in E minor with some harmonic chords sustained across the top.
All 52 licks are now available in one complete book.
Grab your copy from the link in the comments 👇
11/09/2025
This piece was originally written to represent Mark King’s bass work with Level 42 in the Giants of Bass book and video series. It was written with a focus on the instrumental jazz-funk that Mark played with Level 42 in the early eighties. As a result, the bass part features many common elements of his playing style, such as continuous sixteenth note-based slap grooves, fingerstyle funk lines, and the use of tenths to imply harmony. This track also includes a bass solo, which is an excellent demonstration of the way that Mark is able to combine both hands to create rhythmically complex lines.
Gear Used:
Bass: JayDee Supernatural Bass
Strings: Rotosound stainless steel (.030, .050, .070, .090)
Recording: Tech21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI
Effects: Digital compression and chorus
🎸 Want to master this piece? A complete video tuition course (including transcription and backing track) is available for subscribers at Bassline Publishing. Check it out from the link in the comments 👇
07/09/2025
This video is a performance of 'Funkzilla', the Bootsy Collins-style piece written for the book Giants of Bass. This track features Thomas O'Grady on keys and Stuart Ryan on guitar.
The bassline was performed on a 1966 Fender Jazz bass.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial over at the Bassline Publishing website. This tutorial includes a PDF transcription, a full audio track and a backing track for you to play along with.
To view this course, you'll need to be a subscriber to our video lessons. Subscribing will give you access not just to this course, but to ALL of the courses, meaning that you'll have hours and hours of top quality bass guitar tuition to get your teeth into. Best of all, the subscription packages are some of the most affordable available today.
Check out details in the link in the comments 👇
05/09/2025
Out Now!
The brand new book by Marek Bero 👇
Bass Reels – Epic Bass Licks for the Social Media Era
In this book you will find thirty transcriptions of original compositions designed primarily for solo playing, with the aim of attracting attention on social media. However, there are no self-serving technical pieces or even circus stunts here. These compositions can be played solo, but all of the ideas and concepts are fully usable in wider musical contexts.
Available worldwide from your local Amazon store: https://geni.us/I0Evl
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The Bassline Story
Bassline Publishing was set up in 2005 by Stuart Clayton, with the aim of publishing transcription books for bass players that had been neglected by the larger publishing houses. The first books we released were a five-volume series covering legendary UK bassist Mark King’s work with jazz-funk group Level 42. These critically-acclaimed titles proved enormously popular with bassists all over the world and sold extremely well for several years. Today, many of the transcriptions from these original books can be found in four new titles: The Level 42 Bass Book (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Level 42 – A Physical Presence Bass Transcriptions, and The Mark King Bass Book.
The Level 42 series was followed by Stuart Hamm Bass Transcriptions: Outbound & Beyond. This book covered virtuoso bassist Stuart Hamm’s Outbound album, as well as his solo arrangements of well-known classical works, and pieces he had recorded with fusion trio GHS. All of the transcriptions were personally checked for accuracy by Hamm, who also contributed performance notes to the book. In 2016, we followed this title with Stu Hamm – The Book of Lies Bass Transcriptions, a transcription book for the album of the same name.
Our next releases included The Jamiroquai Bass Book and Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards: Funk and Disco Grooves for Bass and Guitar, both of which remain our two most popular titles. Over the past few years, these books have been joined by Marcus Miller – Highlights from Renaissance and The Incognito Bass Book, which included interviews and contributions from several of the bass players who have worked with the group.
Over the years we’ve also released a series of popular tuition books. The first of these was Ultimate Slap Bass, a complete beginner-to-advanced tutorial book which was released to critical acclaim in 2005. This huge volume has been consistently popular for us, and has gone on to become one of the world’s most highly-regarded books for studying the slap technique. The Bass Player’s Guide to Scales & Modes followed in 2011, then a three-book series The Bass Guitarist’s Guide to Reading Music in 2013. Since then we’ve added Ultimate Tapping for Bass Guitar and Plectrum Technique for the Bass Guitar to our list of publications.
In recent years we have also embraced digital publishing. All of our tuition titles have been developed as interactive books for the Apple iPad, and as conventional eBooks that can be purchased through all of the major online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Sony.
In recognition of changing learning preferences, the latest development at Bassline Publishing has been the addition of a series of subscription-based video courses. These are based on our popular book titles and are focused around author Stuart Clayton’s extensive experience as a lecturer at one of the UK’s top music colleges.
Our website includes an exclusive area for customers which is accessed through the Free Stuff link on the main menu. By logging in, customers will have access to extra content for all of the books, including transcriptions, videos, interviews and lessons.
