About Damian Erskine

Damian Erskine is a professional touring and recording bassist, educator, and author based in Portland, Oregon — and the person behind BassEducation.

I grew up in South Jersey, where my grandfather first put a bass in my hands when I was six. Music runs in the family — my uncle is the drummer Peter Erskine — and I spent my early years soaking up everything I could, eventually heading to Berklee College of Music.

Since then I've spent more than twenty years on the road and in the studio, playing bass across jazz, funk, and Latin music. I've had the privilege of working with Peter Erskine, Gino Vannelli, Vince Mendoza and the WDR Big Band, the Jaco Pastorius Big Band, Les McCann, Jeff Lorber, and the Buddy Rich Alumni All-Star Band, among many others. Alongside performing, teaching has always been half of what I do.

I'm an adjunct professor of electric bass at Portland State University, and I've taught internationally through Jazz Education Abroad in cities like Shanghai, Bangkok, Cyprus, and Beirut, as well as at Gerald Veasley's Bass Bootcamp and the National Guitar Workshop. For over a decade I wrote the weekly “Ask Damian Erskine” column at No Treble — more than 500 installments answering real questions from working and aspiring bassists — and I've contributed to Bass Player Magazine, Bass Musician Magazine, and Scott's Bass Lessons. I've also written two method books, Right Hand Drive and The Improvisor's Path, the latter of which Bass Player Magazine called “a future classic.”

Why I built BassEducation

After years of columns, clinics, and one-on-one lessons, I kept running into the same thing: there's a mountain of great information out there, but almost none of it is organized into a path you can actually follow, and the student is left adrift in a sea of ideas and terms they may or may not understand. BassEducation is my answer to that. I remain available to every member, and the site contains everything I teach — 130+ video lessons, structured modules on the fundamentals, walking bass, rhythm, chords, and slap, goal-based learning paths, play-along tracks, downloadable materials, and a set of practice tools I built myself — all in one place, taught the way I'd teach it in person.

My goal isn't to hand you licks to memorize. It's to help you understand why the music works, so you can make your own choices on the gig. Whether you're just starting out or you're a working player looking to go deeper into jazz and improvisation, there's a path here for you.

Come learn with me.