Ever wanted to play a Flea bass solo? Well In this video Flea shares some fantastic ideas of how you can play and improvise your own bass solos.

It starts off with him jamming with Red Hot Chilli Peppers drummer Chad Smith using an effect on the bass to give a sort of underwater feel to the playing. Just by watching what he does you can pick up a lot of good ideas and licks you can use to play your own Flea bass solo.

Then he move onto explaining about droning notes and how you can use them to then play a melody over the top. After a few examples Flea then uses the droning idea to play some slap and pop style bass lines.

He then ends by playing something more jazz like. The important thing to watch here is the way he plays it by singing the notes he wants to play. This is a vital skill for any musician and is the key to being able to play amazing bass solos. You need to be able to take the notes in your head and play them on your instrument.

This skill off singing notes and then playing is something you develop by practise and by knowing what the different notes on your bass guitar sound like. You also need to have an understanding of what the other notes sound like in relation to the ones you just played.

Some musicians would call this interval training but many great bass players like Flea don’t have an in-depth knowledge of music theory and simple play by feel and experience.

I hope you enjoy watching this interesting video and that it helps you play your own Flea bass solo inspired piece.