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.
17/07/2025
Beginner Level - Slap Bass Study #4
This study piece has a disco feel and as a result, the bass part is heavily based around root-octave figures. Early albums by Jamiroquai were a significant influence in the composition of the piece, and so there are many ideas here that are often found in Stuart Zender’s playing. These include sliding octave figures, and rapid switching between slap and fingerstyle techniques.
This piece was recorded using a GB Guitars Spitfire bass, through a Tech21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI.
Strings are Rotosound stainless steel, .040-.060-.080-.100.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial available to video course subscribers.
Subscribing will give you access not just to this course, but to ALL our courses, meaning that you'll have hours and hours of top quality bass guitar tuition to get your teeth into. Best of all, our subscription packages are some of the most affordable available today.
Check out details of our courses here: https://www.basslinepublishing.com/video-courses/
13/07/2025
• Bass Lick Of The Week #23 •
This exercise is a rock bassline that's played with a plectrum. This line makes good use of the blues scale and is a great workout for your picking technique.
All 52 licks are now available in one complete book.
👉 Grab your copy: https://geni.us/5L7F
11/07/2025
🎸 Learning The Modes - B Locrian Study
This funk-rock study piece explores the B Locrian mode, blending advanced techniques such as slapping and strumming to create a dynamic and expressive bassline.
Performed on a Mayones Guitars Basses bass, this track is part of a wider modes course designed to expand your musical vocabulary.
📚 Want to learn it?
A full, section-by-section video tutorial is available to subscribers at Bassline Publishing. Each lesson includes:
✅ PDF transcription
✅ Full performance audio
✅ Backing track for practice
A subscription gives you unlimited access to all courses – with hours of high-quality bass tuition at one of the most affordable rates available today.
This video is a performance of 'For the Benefit of Mr. McCartney', the Paul McCartney-style piece written for the book Giants of Bass. This piece was written to represent Paul McCartney’s bass work during the later part of his time with The Beatles. The line features many elements often found in McCartney’s basslines, such as a strong use of chord tones, the use of inversions, and the straight repetition of established parts. The line is also very melodic in places, reflecting McCartney’s tendency to have his basslines act as a sub-hook. This track also features some of the more unusual compositional elements that The Beatles began to experiment with on later albums, such as sudden time signature and tempo changes.
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 👇 https://www.basslinepublishing.com/video-courses/
02/07/2025
• Bass Lick Of The Week #22 •
This exercise is a fingerstyle funk groove that's challenging to play because of a relatively slow tempo, and some awkward string crossing.
All 52 licks are now available in one complete book.
👉 Grab your copy: https://geni.us/5L7F
27/06/2025
👉 Beginner Level - Harmonics Study
This study piece explores the ways in which harmonics can be used on the bass guitar. Although harmonics are often used in solo compositions, they can also be used as components of a bassline, as is the case here. This study piece will demonstrate how harmonics can be used to add melodic interest to your lines, as well as ways in which they can be used to reinforce the overall harmony.
This piece was recorded using a Mayones Guitars Basses Viking bass, through a Tech21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI.
Strings are Rotosound stainless steel, .040-.060-.080-.100.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial available to video course subscribers.
Subscribing will give you access not just to this course, but to ALL our courses, meaning that you'll have hours and hours of top quality bass guitar tuition to get your teeth into. Best of all, our subscription packages are some of the most affordable available today.
This exercise is a challenging slap and groove written in the style French-Canadian bassist Alain Caron.
All 52 licks are now available in one complete book.
👉 Grab your copy: https://geni.us/5L7F
18/06/2025
This video is a performance of a study piece written for working on the A 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 available to our video subscribers. This tutorial includes a PDF transcription, a full audio track and a backing track for you to play along with.
Check out more info on our great value video courses 👇 https://www.basslinepublishing.com/video-courses/
15/06/2025
This video is a performance of 'Who Dunnit?', the Duck Dunn-style piece written for the book Giants of Bass.
This piece was written to reflect Duck's simple but effective work at the Stax record label during the sixties and seventies, as well as his work with the Blues Brothers. The track features many stylistic elements that were common to Duck's basslines, such as a heavy use of chord tones, the use of additional scale tones such as the sixth, and the use of chromatic passing notes to ease the transition between chords. In keeping with Duck's playing style, there are only a few fills, which makes the line effective, but unobtrusive.
This track was performed on a Fender Precision bass.
If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial on our website. 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 our courses, meaning that you'll have hours and hours of top quality bass guitar tuition to get your teeth into. Best of all, our subscription packages are some of the most affordable available today.
Check out more info on our great value video courses 👇 https://www.basslinepublishing.com/video-courses/
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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.
