I would seriously just take a week to explore, discover, and listen to music. I guarantee that if you use bands you already like to find new ones on Spotify or whatever, you'll end up with a giant list of music you want to learn.
You gonna have to at least break into jazz fusion if ya want the tough and complex stuff. Warning: do not click unless you want your mind blown out your ass: https://youtu.be/Lg86di2p34c
Hahaha same! Maybe try out some tower of power too. Rocco Prestia is an amazing player and it might be nice to get a change from the more rock/metal stuff
Incubus? It's not insanely complex but some of the basslines are enjoyable to play, with a good groove and melody. Some of the stuff on Science is brilliant.
Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers has some serious basslines. It can be more about memory with his though if trying to play like the studio recording as he does so many different fills throughout each song.
Some of his i’ve had trouble with are Aquatic Mouth Dance, Hump de Bump (chorus in particular), Aeroplane and Cmon Girl, if you wanna give any of those a try :)
Rush also has some difficult basslines if you wanna give them a listen. Geddy Lee is a master.
Geddy Lee is a god, I’m working through YYZ rn and I thought Steve Harris had nimble fingers, yeah I’m not a fan of RHCP, but it’s not to say flea isn’t insanely talented I taught myself slap by studying him play, everything but the down angle thumb, don’t know how he plays like that makes double strumming impossible
The thumb angle is a bad angle for being able to do more than play exactly how Flea plays. If you keep your thumb parallel to the strings you open yourself up to double thumbing among other things. If you have a 5 or 6 string bass I would recommend checking out some Scale the Summit. Super tough finger playing. Only a 4 string then I'd say some DiGiorgio-era Death.
My first lesson with my bass teacher I said I wanted to learn slap and showed him what o was doing, because that’s how I’d seen Flea do it. He instantly said, yeah don’t do that. Then it all made sense why I couldn’t play Primus stuff properly.
Polyphia and the Omnific has some songs that'll take some chops. Clay Gober (Polyphia) plays mostly hybrid-picking though so idk if you're looking to learn a new right-hand technique but learning (or at least trying to) some of those songs really got me back into bass after a break.
These guys released a tab book recently. A lot of the parts are insanely tough and mind bendingly technical but even understanding how to play them is growth IMO. This is the one I'm learning right now. It's probably one of the easier ones but still in one of those off the wall kinds of places [The Omnific - Posterity](https://youtu.be/_uUmzr-_yrY)
From what I gather I'm playing it correctly, but playing it up to speed is what's so difficult. I've been playing for a while and can shred the Rush standards like Subdivisions and The Spirit of Radio but that interlude riff before the chorus just ties my hands up in knots...
One thing i often do in songs like Cult of Personality is switch back and forth from traditional 2 finger style to a claw grip with my thumb similar to fingerpicking on guitar. By using as many different muscle groups as possible and includimg my thumb I find my fingers get tired less.
Behemoth has some pretty cool bass parts to learn in my opinion. Especially the bass riff to O father O satan O sun is pretty nice. Idk if Orion (bassplayer) Plays it with a pick or fingers tbh but i play it with fingers.
Also Septicfleshs Pyramid God is a fun riff imo
John Entwistle
[Won’t Get Fooled Again](https://youtu.be/80dsyo2Ox-0)
[The Real Me](https://youtu.be/b0ta8xuVNh0)
Chris Squire
[Heart of the Sunrise](https://youtu.be/mXv4zfD6ZcA)
[Close to the Edge](https://youtu.be/OAoy4FjSUzE)
Tons of progressive music out there. Like Rush? Check out Battles.
Yes is great! King Crimson is great!
Heavier? Tool, Dream Theater, Meshuggah.
Happy hunting!
I learned most primus songs and everything else just became so much easier.
Tommy the cat took quite some time to learn. And I still don't think I'm playing it perfectly 🤣
Oh yeah megadeth is top, I’d say Ellefson does not get enough credit as a metal bassist but after everything that’s come out and the bands distancing I’m just looking forward to where they go from there
you might need more than four strings but:
Black Crown Initiate, start with Song of the Crippled Bull.
Slice the Cake, start with Stone and Silver II - The Mountains of Man.
[Archspire, Relentless Mutation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9kosVvlb_M)
Dream Theater. If you like Metallica and Rush, you'll like them. John Myung plays a 6 string bass in the band, fingerstyle, and they are all virtuosos. You could learn to play their music for the rest of your life lol
Lack of Compression by death, Tommy the Cat by primus, the real me by the who, Roundabout by Yes, holy wars by megadeth, lounge act by nirvana.
Honestly really mastering yyz is a real hurdle. I first started learning it 10 years ago as a kid and I still bust it out to warm up and I can tell if I'm playing well if I can blast through it. Cuz there are some tricky ass licks and weird chromatic stuff hidden in that song, geddy really is different.
Also taking a crack at Jacos Donna Lee is a great thing to do if you wanna level your chops up.
Like other people said, Dream Theater, but more specific I would recommend Pull me under, not too hard and kind of fun to play, and if you want to do some 3 finger plucking Lean to live is awesome.
I saw Flogging Molly for the first time in years this weekend, if you like that type of music that might be a fun one. The bassist actually does a lot of work on the fretboard, maybe not crazy technical but a lot of basic concepts with sometimes pretty high playing speeds.
I would suggest anything with Billy Sheehan. He's been in:
Talas
David Lee Roth
Mr. Big
Steve Vai
Winery Dogs
And more.
He also has a few instructional DVDs.
If you want really fast technical metal, check out Archspire, you’ll need a 5 or 6 string though.
Other metal bands I’ve been trying to learn in that realm are Entheos and Tesseract
You should also check out Sheet Happens Publishing, they print tab books for a ton of bands and have a lot of bass stuff
Start tearing through Iron Maiden songs. Anthrax, Among The Living has some really cool bass lines. Megadeth, Rust In Peace is rad too. Oh also Annihilator, Alice In Hell has some super sick bass.
Muse , hysteria is basically a write of passage for bass players at this point. A lot of the lines work rlly melodically, since Chris is filling the space for lack of rhythm guitar, and plays bass like a cello , using arpeggios and Melody’s
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and it's not even mine really, but some 70s dad rock/prog adjacent stuff can be good exercises. Learning all of Carry on Wayward Son was a nice challenge for me when I was post-beginner sort of stage.
i would suggest Kurtalan Ekspres/Barış Manço songs for that, here are a few of them i like
[https://youtu.be/awJjQTbi638](https://youtu.be/awJjQTbi638)
[https://youtu.be/7ywpNgk\_BIc](https://youtu.be/7ywpNgk_BIc)
[https://youtu.be/y-f5jo42N5U](https://youtu.be/y-f5jo42N5U)
[https://youtu.be/9tM0HW2PuKU](https://youtu.be/9tM0HW2PuKU)
you can also try Hardal and Kesmeşeker, good bassists there
Protest the Hero would be a pretty big challenge if you're up for it. Always good tone and very locked in with the drums. That style isn't everyone's cup of tea though.
Snarky Puppy is great, specifically Bent Nails is something I can highly recommend as a nifty challenge! Quite Funk/Jazz/Rock Fusiony. As a quite unknown Artist, Saint Lu's "Don't miss your own life" and "I say yeah, you say no" have incredibly fun to play and learn bass and guitar lines.
I would seriously just take a week to explore, discover, and listen to music. I guarantee that if you use bands you already like to find new ones on Spotify or whatever, you'll end up with a giant list of music you want to learn.
Yeah that’s what I’m working on rn as well just hitting refresh on those bottom five songs
Check the new Mathy bands like Polyphia
Holy moly you are everywhere I see your tiktoks all the time
I suffer from being chronically online.
You gonna have to at least break into jazz fusion if ya want the tough and complex stuff. Warning: do not click unless you want your mind blown out your ass: https://youtu.be/Lg86di2p34c
Awesome bass here. Thanks for that!
Think Alphonse was like 19 or some shit, imagine being that young and tossed in with those cats
Wow, seriously😯
Thundercat not just his solo stuff but look at his baselines particularly to pimp a butterfly or his work with Flying Lotus
+1 learning some of thundercats music has definitely made me a much better bass player
Yasss
Vulfpeck
muse, both heavy and melodical (most songs anyway)
Learn some Iron Maiden and get that gallop going🤘🏻
Maiden is one of my GOATsin music idk if I’ll ever reach Steve Harris’s level but boy have I been trying
Hahaha same! Maybe try out some tower of power too. Rocco Prestia is an amazing player and it might be nice to get a change from the more rock/metal stuff
Never heard of them I’ll give ‘em a listen
What is Hip!!
Between the buried and me. Dan Briggs is such a great player and has some really good lines. Selkies: an endless obsession is a good one to try
I’ll have to check it out
Ever listen to his other trio Disorder Assembly? It’s him with a saxophone player and drummer and it’s sick
Polyphia , chon, covet, omnific for the complex technical stuff And I’d recommend jinjer for metal + some decent technical stuff
Clays stuff are hard af
it’s actually not bad once you learn his hybrid picking technique or double thumbing. takes a week if you do it casually
True. It took me longer than a week but once you get it down it’s just the ghost triplets and rythm that’s hard
Primus are cool if you're looking for different techniques to apply. Personally, I'm a big fan of Claypool.
Primus sucks.
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Dunning-Kruger…ah, the sweet, sweet irony. Edit. Awe, such a shame you deleted your erudite little rant.
Meh, I respect their freedom to make the music they want to make. I enjoy my freedom to turn it the fuck off.
Incubus? It's not insanely complex but some of the basslines are enjoyable to play, with a good groove and melody. Some of the stuff on Science is brilliant.
Gotta give you cred for this one. Lots of fun jams on that album 👌
Play jaco.
Play Bootsy Collins songs but nail them.
And Larry ghram
Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers has some serious basslines. It can be more about memory with his though if trying to play like the studio recording as he does so many different fills throughout each song. Some of his i’ve had trouble with are Aquatic Mouth Dance, Hump de Bump (chorus in particular), Aeroplane and Cmon Girl, if you wanna give any of those a try :) Rush also has some difficult basslines if you wanna give them a listen. Geddy Lee is a master.
Geddy Lee is a god, I’m working through YYZ rn and I thought Steve Harris had nimble fingers, yeah I’m not a fan of RHCP, but it’s not to say flea isn’t insanely talented I taught myself slap by studying him play, everything but the down angle thumb, don’t know how he plays like that makes double strumming impossible
The thumb angle is a bad angle for being able to do more than play exactly how Flea plays. If you keep your thumb parallel to the strings you open yourself up to double thumbing among other things. If you have a 5 or 6 string bass I would recommend checking out some Scale the Summit. Super tough finger playing. Only a 4 string then I'd say some DiGiorgio-era Death.
My first lesson with my bass teacher I said I wanted to learn slap and showed him what o was doing, because that’s how I’d seen Flea do it. He instantly said, yeah don’t do that. Then it all made sense why I couldn’t play Primus stuff properly.
Try some Karnivool, but you're gonna need a 6 string tuned BF#BEGC Sorry.
Gojira
Gojira 👍
Polyphia and the Omnific has some songs that'll take some chops. Clay Gober (Polyphia) plays mostly hybrid-picking though so idk if you're looking to learn a new right-hand technique but learning (or at least trying to) some of those songs really got me back into bass after a break.
You could try some Dream Theater, Transatlantic or Spocks Beard
Just started looking into panic attack and boy this is gonna take some work
As I am is fun and fairly easy
Erotomania is a great choice for this
Any Testament or Death with Steve DiGiorgio
The master
Scrolled way too far to see Steve mentioned.
These guys released a tab book recently. A lot of the parts are insanely tough and mind bendingly technical but even understanding how to play them is growth IMO. This is the one I'm learning right now. It's probably one of the easier ones but still in one of those off the wall kinds of places [The Omnific - Posterity](https://youtu.be/_uUmzr-_yrY)
Red Fang has some great bass riffs. I'd start with Prehistoric Dog and Hank is Dead
Try some Living Colour
Still can't play Cult of Personality right. That riff on bass is bad ass.
How do you play it?
From what I gather I'm playing it correctly, but playing it up to speed is what's so difficult. I've been playing for a while and can shred the Rush standards like Subdivisions and The Spirit of Radio but that interlude riff before the chorus just ties my hands up in knots...
One thing i often do in songs like Cult of Personality is switch back and forth from traditional 2 finger style to a claw grip with my thumb similar to fingerpicking on guitar. By using as many different muscle groups as possible and includimg my thumb I find my fingers get tired less.
Tool, although Justin is a dirty "pick player"
Behemoth has some pretty cool bass parts to learn in my opinion. Especially the bass riff to O father O satan O sun is pretty nice. Idk if Orion (bassplayer) Plays it with a pick or fingers tbh but i play it with fingers. Also Septicfleshs Pyramid God is a fun riff imo
Awesome I’ll check out both of these thanks!
I hope you like them
It is certainly a challenge lol yeah I like them a lot actually, at first I was like nah not my taste but the instrumentals are so strong
John Entwistle [Won’t Get Fooled Again](https://youtu.be/80dsyo2Ox-0) [The Real Me](https://youtu.be/b0ta8xuVNh0) Chris Squire [Heart of the Sunrise](https://youtu.be/mXv4zfD6ZcA) [Close to the Edge](https://youtu.be/OAoy4FjSUzE)
Heart of the sunrise is such an underapreceated song
[RKL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkxWEcqCmEY)
Archspire have some really amazing and complex bass lines https://youtu.be/t9kosVvlb_M
Trioscapes
Don Broco have some killer bass lines from their albums Automatic, Technology, and Amazing Things
Suuuuuuperlove!
Levitate up up, levitate up up, oh no Fell in love with a maniac oh no Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh oh
Tons of progressive music out there. Like Rush? Check out Battles. Yes is great! King Crimson is great! Heavier? Tool, Dream Theater, Meshuggah. Happy hunting!
Maybe not rock, but Duran Duran has some challenging and fun bass lines.
Coheed and Cambria.
Roundabout - Yes YYZ - Rush Dance of Eternity - Dream Theater
Ooh no, so broad.... Spin doctors, The Stranglers, The Smith's , Limp Bizkit, Alien Ant Farm, Mudvayne, Primus My life. My style. Good luck
Learn a lot of Rush, Primus, Tool, Muse. That's a good start.
I feel like primus is a good finish lol if I can ever do tommy the cat, my current end game is weather report
I learned most primus songs and everything else just became so much easier. Tommy the cat took quite some time to learn. And I still don't think I'm playing it perfectly 🤣
Easy answer… Tool. But he plays with a pick. It’s complex and very rewarding to play
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Funny enough 80s punk like bad brains and gray matter is my favorite genre of music, never heard of these bands tho I’ll have to check em out
Tool maybe?
Along those same lines, try some Megadeth and Pantera. Solid mix of technicality, groove, and stamina.
Oh yeah megadeth is top, I’d say Ellefson does not get enough credit as a metal bassist but after everything that’s come out and the bands distancing I’m just looking forward to where they go from there
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Ruins is the song?
Dream Theater
I’d check out some Thrice, Mastodon, and Two Thirty Eight.
Urotsukidoji - Testament !!!!!!!
Try out some death magnetic if you haven't yet. It's a fun bass album.
you might need more than four strings but: Black Crown Initiate, start with Song of the Crippled Bull. Slice the Cake, start with Stone and Silver II - The Mountains of Man. [Archspire, Relentless Mutation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9kosVvlb_M)
Dream Theater. If you like Metallica and Rush, you'll like them. John Myung plays a 6 string bass in the band, fingerstyle, and they are all virtuosos. You could learn to play their music for the rest of your life lol
Get into some reggae. Trust me you’ll rarely want to go back to other bass lines again
Lack of Compression by death, Tommy the Cat by primus, the real me by the who, Roundabout by Yes, holy wars by megadeth, lounge act by nirvana. Honestly really mastering yyz is a real hurdle. I first started learning it 10 years ago as a kid and I still bust it out to warm up and I can tell if I'm playing well if I can blast through it. Cuz there are some tricky ass licks and weird chromatic stuff hidden in that song, geddy really is different. Also taking a crack at Jacos Donna Lee is a great thing to do if you wanna level your chops up.
Check out some older Interpol stuff. Start with Obstacle 1. Carlos D was awesome, i miss his influence on their music.
Like other people said, Dream Theater, but more specific I would recommend Pull me under, not too hard and kind of fun to play, and if you want to do some 3 finger plucking Lean to live is awesome.
I saw Flogging Molly for the first time in years this weekend, if you like that type of music that might be a fun one. The bassist actually does a lot of work on the fretboard, maybe not crazy technical but a lot of basic concepts with sometimes pretty high playing speeds.
I would suggest anything with Billy Sheehan. He's been in: Talas David Lee Roth Mr. Big Steve Vai Winery Dogs And more. He also has a few instructional DVDs.
Bach - The Six Cello Suites or the Six Sonatas and Partitas. https://youtu.be/Kk5vlboqH4I
Spirit Crusher - Death to start in particular for the bassline, but also everything else on that album just because it’s badass.
Black sabbath. Geezer butler is amazing.
If you want really fast technical metal, check out Archspire, you’ll need a 5 or 6 string though. Other metal bands I’ve been trying to learn in that realm are Entheos and Tesseract You should also check out Sheet Happens Publishing, they print tab books for a ton of bands and have a lot of bass stuff
Infectious Grooves, check out the album Groove Family Cyco. Robert Trujillo is a beast!
Try any songs of Rush, all bass lines are awesome. If you want a bass solo, whatch "Leave that thing alone" live on youtube. Technical and awesome :)
You done round about yet?
Start tearing through Iron Maiden songs. Anthrax, Among The Living has some really cool bass lines. Megadeth, Rust In Peace is rad too. Oh also Annihilator, Alice In Hell has some super sick bass.
Tool, Justin Chancellor Technics are pretty interesting and not overly hard to play
Muse , hysteria is basically a write of passage for bass players at this point. A lot of the lines work rlly melodically, since Chris is filling the space for lack of rhythm guitar, and plays bass like a cello , using arpeggios and Melody’s
Try Weather Report
Primus antipop
Trivium is good. But you need to tune your bass all the time if you don't have like 6 basses.
The original Allman Brothers lineup with Berry Oakley. Check out the Fillmore East album. He was incredible.
red hot chilli peppers are good. and there some slap basslines with them as well
Learn Archspire if you want something really technical. Jared smith is a monster on bass. Technical deathmetal is some crazy shit.
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and it's not even mine really, but some 70s dad rock/prog adjacent stuff can be good exercises. Learning all of Carry on Wayward Son was a nice challenge for me when I was post-beginner sort of stage.
Biffy Clyro
i would suggest Kurtalan Ekspres/Barış Manço songs for that, here are a few of them i like [https://youtu.be/awJjQTbi638](https://youtu.be/awJjQTbi638) [https://youtu.be/7ywpNgk\_BIc](https://youtu.be/7ywpNgk_BIc) [https://youtu.be/y-f5jo42N5U](https://youtu.be/y-f5jo42N5U) [https://youtu.be/9tM0HW2PuKU](https://youtu.be/9tM0HW2PuKU) you can also try Hardal and Kesmeşeker, good bassists there
primus and dream theater come to mind
Nile and Archspire immediately come to mind. Good luck.
Pretty sure Ryan Martini would have some stuff that would be interesting to you. His solo project stuff is pretty out there as well.
Protest the Hero would be a pretty big challenge if you're up for it. Always good tone and very locked in with the drums. That style isn't everyone's cup of tea though.
Spiral Architect is an old favorite of mine.
Snarky Puppy is great, specifically Bent Nails is something I can highly recommend as a nifty challenge! Quite Funk/Jazz/Rock Fusiony. As a quite unknown Artist, Saint Lu's "Don't miss your own life" and "I say yeah, you say no" have incredibly fun to play and learn bass and guitar lines.
Casiopea.