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There’s something very satisfying about a bass part that just locks in.

This is the final section from the Rockschool Grade 3 arrangement of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. By this point, most of the vocabulary is already familiar. Muted notes. Chromatic movement. Little slides. Loads of carefully placed space.

The final verse brings back material we’ve already heard, but that actually makes consistency more important. When the notes are familiar, there’s no excuse for the rests getting shorter, the mutes getting messy or the groove starting to wander. Then the last four bars really tie everything together.

The bass phrases closely with the guitar and drums, and suddenly a fairly straightforward line becomes part of this one big rhythmic statement that tells you the song is done.

That’s one of my favourite things about playing bass. You don’t always need to be the busiest instrument in the room. Sometimes you just need to put the right note in the right place and make everyone else sound better.

The mid-2000s really did love an octave riff.

This time it’s the chorus from Thnks fr th Mmrs by Fall Out Boy.

Just like I’m Not Okay, you’ve got a simple octave shape moving quickly around the neck, giving you a strong melodic hook without taking up all the space of a full chord.

There’s a reason this stuff was everywhere. Octaves sound massive, they’re easy to move around, and they leave plenty of room for the bass, vocals and the rest of the guitars to do their thing.

The actual challenge is the muting. You’re strumming across multiple strings while only wanting to hear two of them, so the fretting hand has to keep everything in between completely silent.

Simple shape. Lots of movement. Huge chorus. Mid-2000s emo/pop-punk guitar in a nutshell.

I could happily spend all day playing bass lines like this.

This is the B section from the Rockschool Grade 3 arrangement of Sloop John B by The Beach Boys.

And if you’re talking about bass on Pet Sounds, you’re also talking about the legendary Carol Kaye.

The original recording actually has Kaye on electric bass and Lyle Ritz on double bass playing the same part, which is a fairly good recipe for making a bass line sound absolutely enormous.

I’ve gone for flatwound strings and a pick here to get a little closer to that short, defined 60s bass sound.

The line itself is a great lesson in how much you can do with rhythm without needing loads of notes. Most of it revolves around repeating quarter- and eighth-note ideas as the harmony changes, with dotted quarter notes adding variation over the dominant chord.

The other challenge is simply knowing where you are.

It’s a long section, so listening to the vocal melody and thinking in four-bar chunks gives you landmarks rather than just counting bars and hoping for the best.

Great bass playing doesn’t always need to demand your attention.

Sometimes it just sits underneath everything, makes the whole arrangement feel better, and quietly refuses to move.

Lovely stuff.

There is something about a fast octave riff that just screams mid-2000s emo.

This is the main riff from I’m Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance, and it’s exactly the sort of guitar part that seemed to be everywhere for a while.

Quick alternate strumming, octave shapes moving around the neck, and enough muting to control the fire breathing dragon that is the distorted electric guitar.

Octaves are brilliant because they give you a really strong melodic line without sounding as full as a chord. You can move them around quickly, keep loads of energy in the part, and still leave space for everything else happening in the arrangement.

The tricky bit is making sure the strings between the two fretted notes stay completely silent while the picking hand keeps moving.

Absolutely textbook emo guitar.

I love how much difference one passing note can make to a bass line.

This is the B section from the Rockschool Grade 2 arrangement of If I Were a Boy by Beyoncé.

The chorus follows the same basic chord sequence as the verse, but the bass begins adding a little more movement.

On the & of beat 2, there’s a short passing note that pulls the line from E into the following C chord.

It’s only there for an eighth note.

The note isn’t part of either big chord statement, but it joins them together and makes the whole phrase feel as though it’s going somewhere rather than simply jumping from one root note to the next.

The other important ingredient is the kick drum.

A bass part like this doesn’t need loads of notes when the ones that are there line up properly with the groove. Locking the main attacks in with the kick gives the section its weight, while the passing notes create the movement between them.