Grade 2

At Grade 2, you can learn how to play a boogie-woogie bass line, how to play a riff or how to play fills. You’ll perform three songs and build on your Grade 1 Session skills.

Choose your songs from our song list, including one of the Technical focus songs that develop particular skills. There’s an option for you to play your own cover version of a song or, if you’re a songwriter, one of your own songs.

You’ll find more information about how the exam works in the syllabus.

Grade 2 Bass song list

The Grade 2 Bass songbook includes everything you need for the exam – sheet music for six songs, performance tips, technical support and guidance on Session skills, together with a CD of demo and backing tracks. If you want to buy individual songs, choose them from the list below.

• Comfortably Numb Pink Floyd
• Mean Jumper Blues (Technical focus) Blind Lemon Jefferson
• Need You Tonight INXS
• Rock Around The Clock (Technical focus) Bill Haley & His Comets
• Spirit In The Sky Norman Greenbaum
• You Really Got Me The Kinks

Grade 2 Bass demo video

Session Skills

Players choose Playback or Improvising.

Playback

You’ll perform some music you haven’t seen or heard before – you can sight-read from a song chart or play by ear from an audio track, or both.

Improvising

You’ll be given a song chart with chord symbols and song style and will improvise over a backing track.

Songs: Comfortably Numb, Mean Jumper Blues, Need You Tonight, Rock Around The Clock, Spirit In The Sky, You Really Got Me

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