Author: 1982toru0113@gmail.com

Posted on by — Leave a comment

High-Position Practice Patterns for Upright Bass (With Backing Tracks)

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares a few high-position practice patterns for upright bass, along with backing tracks you can practice against.

High-Position Pattern 1

High-position practice pattern 1 with fingering numbers

Here’s a backing track you can practice along with:

High-Position Pattern 3

Performance Demo (Upright Bass)

High-position practice pattern 3 with fingering numbers

Backing track:

C Major Scale

Performance Demo (Upright Bass)

C major scale across three octaves with string names and fingering

Backing track:

Working through high-position patterns like these is exactly the kind of practice where a teacher’s feedback on intonation makes the biggest difference — it’s hard to hear your own pitch issues up there.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Why Listening Closely Is the Real Key to Nailing High-Position Intonation

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares the one habit that matters most when practicing intonation in the high positions.

In the online community I run, “Bebop Practice Group,” we’re currently working through tunes that use the high positions a lot. It’s genuinely tough — upright bass especially makes you feel just how unforgiving intonation can be up there.

The higher up the neck you go, the narrower the spacing between notes gets, so even a tiny slip becomes much more audible as an intonation problem.

When it comes to copying a high-position line, I keep coming back to the same, almost too-obvious conclusion:

Listen to the phrase closely. Really closely.

That’s really what it comes down to.

When you’ve listened closely enough, you build a mental image of exactly what that phrase’s pitch should sound like. Then, the moment you play it even slightly off, you catch it yourself — “oh, that wasn’t quite right.”

On the flip side, if that mental pitch image stays vague, you’re much more likely to end up not even knowing what note you’re currently playing — especially up in the high positions.

Nailing a specific high-position note on the first try, especially on upright bass, is genuinely difficult. That’s exactly why training your ear to hear the correct pitch in your head — before your fingers even move — matters so much.

I’ve been getting back into high-position practice myself recently, and it’s been really rewarding. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of nailing a high-position note dead center.

Pitch in the high positions is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to self-diagnose — your ear adjusts to your own slight inaccuracies without you noticing, which is where a second pair of ears really helps.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

You Know Your Scales — Here’s How to Actually Use Them in a Solo

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he explains the one idea that turns “just running scales” into phrases that actually sound like jazz.

Take a ii–V–I progression. You’ve got scales available for each chord:

  • Dm7 → D Dorian
  • G7 → G Mixolydian
  • CΔ7 → C Ionian

But just running up and down those scales evenly won’t sound like jazz on its own.

What actually matters is where you land.

The move I’d recommend: land on a chord tone right on beat 1 of each chord.

Take this phrase, for example:

A ii-V-I phrase landing on the 3rd of G7 and CMaj7, with a chromatic approach note circled before the final landing

The landing notes — B (the 3rd of G7) and E (the 3rd of CΔ7) — are circled in red above, with a chromatic approach note circled in blue right before the final landing.

Landing the phrase on the 3rd of G7 (B) and the 3rd of CΔ7 (E) instantly gives it a much stronger sense of the chord changes than just running scales would. Adding a chromatic note right before that final landing pushes the jazz feel even further.

Text can only explain so much of this kind of note-choice thinking, so I also made a video breaking it down in detail: “6 Steps to Playing Phrases That Actually Sound Like Jazz.”

  • Step 1: Long-tone approach to the 3rd
  • Step 2: Chromatic approach
  • Step 3: Chord tones
  • Step 4: Eighth-note approach
  • Step 5: Off-beat placement
  • Step 6: Tensions

Working through these one at a time, understanding the sound and the scale degree of each note as you go, will get you playing genuine jazz phrases even if you’re entirely self-taught.

This kind of note-by-note decision-making is exactly where a second opinion helps most — a teacher can confirm in seconds whether a landing note is doing what you think it’s doing.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Stuck for Ideas in Your Solo? Try Motif Development

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares a simple approach for when you blank on what to play in a solo.

In a free one-on-one bass consultation, I got this question: “I just end up going back and forth across scales, and my solos never really lock in.” One approach I suggested as a fix was something called “motif development.”

Here’s roughly what that looks like:

  • ① C–E♭–C–B♭
  • ② C–E♭–F–E♭
  • ③ C–B♭–G–F–E♭–F–E♭

Three short motifs sharing a rhythmic shape, with the rests in each one circled

The rests in each motif are circled above — the rhythm stays consistent across all three, while the notes shift slightly each time.

Play one rhythmic idea, then repeat a similar rhythm with slightly different notes, then on the third pass, stretch it into a slightly longer phrase. Doing this gives your solo a sense of consistency while still keeping it moving forward — and you never run out of ideas. This is sometimes called a “motif development phrase.”

If you tend to run out of ideas mid-solo, this is well worth trying out in your own playing.

Running out of ideas mid-solo is exactly the kind of moment where a teacher’s input pays off — they can point you toward the next move in real time.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Still Nervous Every Time? That’s Just What Sessions Are Like

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares why session nerves never really go away — and why that’s completely normal.

I recently had a casual Zoom hangout with the regulars from my bebop practice group. It had been a while since I’d talked with that many bassists at once, and it was genuinely great.

Group video call with several bass students

During the call, one of the participants mentioned, “I want to try going to a session, but it feels like such a high bar — I get nervous just thinking about it.” One of the regulars, who plays sessions all the time, answered:

“Honestly, I still get nervous no matter how many years I’ve been doing this. But once you’ve gone about a hundred times, you start to feel like at least one of those times will go well — so at that point, it’s really just a numbers game.”

I nodded along hard to that one.

I’ve probably played somewhere around a thousand sessions myself at this point, and I still get genuinely nervous walking into one I haven’t been to before.

I’ll catch myself thinking things like, “I hope that guy over there isn’t scary… I hope he doesn’t get annoyed with me.”

So here’s the thing: no matter how much you practice, your first time at a session is always going to be nerve-wracking. At some point, you just have to work up the nerve and go.

If you’re hoping to make your session debut at some point, it helps to go in already expecting that.

Nerves like that get a lot easier once you’ve had someone walk you through what to actually expect — which is part of what a teacher is for.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Why Memorized Jazz Phrases Feel Robotic at First (And Why That’s Normal)

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares why newly learned jazz phrases always feel a little mechanical at first — and why that’s actually a sign you’re on the right track.

Why “Playing in Shapes” Is a Phase Everyone Goes Through

I was catching up with a jazz guitarist friend of mine who lives in New York, over Zoom. We’ve known each other since our days living in Japan, so the conversation wandered, and at some point it turned into a real discussion about music.

“Whenever I try to use a phrase I picked up at a session, it ends up coming out as just a ‘shape’ or a finger position — it doesn’t feel musical at all. How do I actually understand it on a theoretical level while still using it in real playing?”

That was the question on the table. We talked it through, and the conclusion we landed on was pretty simple.

“Yeah, there’s just no way around that at first.”

A phrase you just learned is always going to feel like you’re snapping a block into place — playing it “as a shape” is completely natural at that stage. But if you avoid using it because of that, it’ll never become part of your own musical language.

In the end, the only way through is to keep using the phrases you want to play. Even when it goes wrong, even when it feels off, you just keep trying — there’s no shortcut.

The ideal, of course, is for a phrase to come out naturally in the flow of the music rather than being forced in. But getting there means passing through a slightly unnatural-feeling stage first. That part isn’t optional — it’s part of the process.

Shape → feels off → trial and error → gradually more natural. That accumulation is what eventually turns into a genuinely musical phrase.

If you’re in that place right now — “I’ve learned the phrase, but it feels awkward and I don’t love using it” — that’s actually a sign you’re growing. Hang on to that discomfort, and keep trying it anyway.

This in-between stage is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to judge for yourself — a teacher can usually tell right away whether you’re on track or stuck.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Why Your Walking Bass Doesn’t Feel Right: You Might Be Anticipating the Next Root

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he breaks down a subtle mistake that can make an otherwise correct walking bass line feel slightly off — and how to fix it.

  • You’re teaching yourself walking bass, but it never quite feels right
  • You know your chord tones but aren’t sure how to apply them
  • You want smoother, more jazz-like connections between your bass lines

If that’s you, this one’s worth a read.

Starting From an F Blues Progression

This is based on something I actually pointed out in a lesson — a student’s bass line for bars 1–4 of an F blues. Grab your bass and check out how it moves.

A Student’s Version

Here’s the line in question. It’s built mostly around chord tones, and the note choices are solid overall.

A student's walking bass line over the first four bars of an F blues

It’s not technically wrong, but —

look at the 4th note of bar 2 (over B♭7). That note is an F.

Close-up showing the F note on beat 4 of bar 2

F itself is a chord tone of B♭7 (the 5th), so there’s nothing wrong with using it.

But the next bar (bar 3) is an F7 chord — so playing F on beat 4 of bar 2 can sound like you’re playing the root of the next chord, F7, one beat early.

To the other musicians comping behind you, a move like that can come across as:

“Wait, did the chord already change to F7?”

So in this case, I suggested swapping out that 4th note for something else.

Two Fixes

Option 1

Approach the upcoming root, F, from a half step below — E.

Approaching F7's root F from a half step below (E)

The half-step move from E up to F creates a natural pull into the next bar. This is a classic chromatic approach-note move you’ll use constantly in walking bass.

Option 2

Same idea, but approach F from a half step above instead — G♭.

Approaching F7's root F from a half step above (G flat)

Both of these options sound and flow better than the original.

The takeaway: in walking bass, it’s not just about whether each individual note is theoretically “correct” — what matters is how it sounds in the context of what comes before and after it.

If you’re self-taught, it’s easy to know your chord tones and scales but still miss this kind of “something feels off” issue in the flow of a line.

If a bass line you wrote doesn’t quite sit right, these examples are worth revisiting.

5 Things to Check When a Bass Line Doesn’t Feel Right

One more video to wrap up. If you’re using chord tones and scales correctly but your walking bass still doesn’t feel locked in — or you’re self-teaching and struggling to put lines together — I made a video covering 5 things worth checking when you build a bass line.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here for more videos like this.

Hopefully this helps with your daily practice.

This kind of “technically correct but something’s off” issue is exactly what’s hardest to catch in your own playing — and exactly what a teacher catches immediately.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

9 Steps to Playing Walking Bass Improvisationally (A Self-Study Roadmap)

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he lays out nine concrete steps for building walking bass lines on your own, even if you’ve never improvised before.

This is for anyone who wants to play walking bass but isn’t sure where to even start.

This comes up constantly in trial lessons: plenty of bassists can play anything written out in standard notation or tab, but freeze up the moment they’re asked to improvise over a chord chart.

The 9 steps below are what I recommend to exactly those students.

If you’re teaching yourself walking bass, working through these steps in order is far more effective than just grinding through scale practice at random.

Follow them in sequence, and you can build a solid feel for walking bass from the ground up — even entirely self-taught. Get through step 6 alone, and with just 20–30 minutes of daily practice, you’ll be able to put together a line that sounds “right” over pretty much any tune or progression.

Here are the 9 steps.

9 Steps to Playing Walking Bass Improvisationally

1. Map Out the Notes on the Fretboard

Start by making sure you can instantly name the notes on the fretboard, at least within the first 5 frets. If this part is shaky, no amount of theory will translate into actual notes. It’s worth nailing down first.

Fretboard note name chart

The chart above maps out the natural and sharp/flat note names across the strings within the first few frets.

2. Pick a Chord Progression to Practice With

Choose one chord progression to use for practice. Here, we’ll use a B♭ blues progression as our example.

B-flat blues chord progression used as the practice example

3. Play the Root on Quarter Notes

Start by playing just the root note in a steady quarter-note rhythm. Keeping every note’s length and volume even is the key skill here.

Root notes played in quarter notes over the B-flat blues progression

4. Add the Octave to the Root

Once the root alone feels comfortable, add the octave. This brings some up-and-down motion into the line and starts giving it a bit more shape.

Root and octave combined over the progression

5. Add the 5th Between the Root and Octave

Now bring in the 5th. Adding it between the root and the octave thickens up the sound and gives the line more bounce.

Root, 5th, and octave combined over the progression

6. Add Chromatic Passing Tones

Adding a chromatic passing tone smooths out the connections between notes and starts giving the line a more genuinely jazz-like flow. Once you can do this comfortably, it should already be starting to sound noticeably more like jazz.

A chromatic passing tone added leading into the next chord, highlighted in red

7. Add the 3rd

Adding the 3rd makes the chord quality much clearer and sharpens the overall outline of the harmony. It’s an essential note for actually expressing the chord.

The 3rd added into the walking bass line

8. Add the 7th

Adding the 7th on top instantly deepens the jazz flavor of the line — it’s the finishing touch for a more polished, sophisticated sound.

The 7th added into the walking bass line

Here’s what a full 12-bar bass line looks like once the 7th is incorporated:

A complete 12-bar walking bass line incorporating all the elements above

9. Practice With Real Tunes

Finally, try this out on actual songs.

Tenor Madness
Blue Monk
Blues By Five
Trane’s Blues

All of these are B♭ blues tunes. Try playing along with the recordings, or practice with backing tracks using an app like iReal Pro.

Wrapping Up

You don’t need to jump straight into advanced theory or complicated phrases to play walking bass.

Understanding the fretboard, knowing your chord tones, and adding notes one degree at a time — in that order — is enough for anyone to start building improvised lines.

Don’t just memorize the patterns. Once you understand what each note is actually doing, the music gets genuinely more enjoyable. I hope this gives you something useful for your daily practice.

Working through all nine of these steps on your own is absolutely possible — but it’s also exactly the kind of process where a second pair of ears can catch small issues early and save you a lot of trial and error.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

New to Jazz and Not Sure What to Listen To? Start Here

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he answers a question he hears constantly: where do you even start listening to jazz?

New to Jazz and Not Sure What to Listen To?

At Line on Bass, I run a monthly seminar for students.

This month, students brought in their own favorite jazz recordings, and we spent the time talking about what we loved about each one — “I love this part of the tune,” “this player’s playing here is incredible,” “this one means a lot to me.” It felt less like a seminar and more like a casual hangout, but it turned into genuinely valuable time.

On a related note, I get asked a lot: “I want to start listening to jazz, but I have no idea where to begin.” With search engines and AI giving you endless answers these days, it might honestly be making the problem worse, not better.

So here’s one piece of guidance on what to listen to. First, it helps to know that jazz has a huge number of “____ jazz” subgenres:

Modern Jazz / Bebop / Hard Bop
Cool Jazz / Swing Jazz / Free Jazz
Acid Jazz / Club Jazz / Smooth Jazz

And by region, you’ve also got things like:

New Orleans Jazz / Chicago Jazz / West Coast Jazz / European Jazz

Even Miles Davis, the so-called “king of jazz,” sounds completely different depending on which era of his career you’re listening to.

Some periods are straight-up 4/4 swing jazz; others are closer to free jazz, funk, electric, or rock fusion.

So if a more experienced player tells a beginner “just listen to Miles” and that beginner grabs a random album, they might end up with something totally different from what they pictured “jazz” sounding like. In other words, which jazz you happen to encounter first shapes your whole impression of the word “jazz.”

That said, the walking bass lines and ii–V–I-based phrases I teach in my lessons are mostly drawn from bebop, hard bop, and modern jazz from the 1940s through the 1960s. In fact, a huge number of my students specifically want to play jazz from that era.

If you’re not sure where to start, I’d recommend starting there. Of course, plenty of people end up loving club jazz or acid jazz instead — it really comes down to personal taste 🙂

A Recommended Track

Here’s one recording a student shared at this month’s seminar.

“Sam Sack” — Milt Jackson and Wes Montgomery
This is a track from the 1962 album “Bags Meets Wes!” Bassist Sam Jones’s phrasing and walking bass lines from the very first bar are fantastic — it’s a great example of that classic ’60s jazz feel. It’s genuinely cool — give it a listen.

Finding the right entry point into jazz is a lot like finding the right entry point into playing it — having someone point you in the right direction saves a lot of wasted time.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Is Jazz Improvisation Really About Natural Talent?

This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he answers a question he gets all the time: is improvising really just about natural talent?

Is Jazz Improvisation Really About Natural Talent?

Today I want to answer a question I get a lot: “Isn’t improvising really just about having natural talent?”

When you hit a wall with improvising or walking bass, it’s easy to think “I guess I just don’t have the talent for this.” I’ll say it flat out: talent has nothing to do with it. I don’t even use the word “talent” in my lessons.

What actually matters far more is the order you tackle things in.

Say someone with zero foundational knowledge jumps straight into copying a Jaco Pastorius phrase. Even if they manage to copy it, ask them to play over just the chords on their own, and they’re not going to sound anything like Jaco. But that’s not because they lack talent — it’s because they skipped way too many steps.

There’s nothing wrong with picking up the bass because “Jaco is so cool!” — but a lot of his vocabulary is genuinely advanced. Without the foundational knowledge, working on advanced phrases just leaves you thinking, “this sounds cool, but I have no idea why.”

It’s a bit like watching a foreign film without subtitles before you even know “I,” “you,” or “this is.”

But if you go through the right steps in the right order, you can absolutely reach the place most players want to be: reading a chord chart and playing off it, without leaning on tab.

I spent years playing nothing but punk rock myself. By working through things step by step, I’m now able to improvise at jam sessions around town.

It’s not about talent. Set that word aside, and when you feel stuck, ask instead: am I actually working through this in the right order? That’s the more useful question.

Figuring out which step you’re actually missing is hard to see from the inside — but it’s usually obvious to a teacher listening from the outside.

Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.

At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.

Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.

Check Out the Lesson Service →