However, my band has decided they want this in the set list. It’s a tough one! I’ve taken every other song in the setlist well in my stride so far.
This one takes the biscuit! I can only seem to play it with ‘reverse alternate plucking’ where my middle finger hits the main notes and the index doing the ghost notes etc. Annoyingly, that is my sore finger that is still recovering a bit and definitely not able to move fast enough.
It’s exhausting to play and I currently top out at around 115-120bpm. The song is at 140!
Does anyone else play this one? I’m thinking I might have to throw in a few bars of a simplified version and hope that in a pub gig, nobody in the crowd will really notice!
Mark at Talking Bass really has the best tutorial on Rio. I made the most progress with him. Play it slow until you can play it at 140. It’s a wild ride.
Thanks for the tips, everyone! It’s good to know there is hope for me yet!
Just for extreme challenge, I eventually have to learn how to do the harmonies in the chorus too! I will report back in 2036! Hopefully that will be long enough to get it nailed!
Just listened to the song a few times. It could be possible to simplify it quite a lot. It would not sound like the original but close enough.
I would skip the ghost notes and focus on the notes that are most audible. You would not get the drive of the fast paced notes, but you might be able to get to a playable version pretty fast.
The JT video where he demos his own bassline is definitely fingers (and a few slap pops)
I did try it with a pick - I play 50-75% with a pick anyway to unload my Trigger Finger symptoms.
Rio is playable with a pick but there is a lot of work to be done with the muting - there is a lot of string skipping etc. I’ve decided to simplify the fingerstyle and build up to the full complexity as I level up my skills
In the meantime, a pub crowd will not be able to hear much difference and they wilL still sing along
He certainly used pick on “Planet Earth”, but “Rio” is fingers. He’s primarily a finger player, but the pick and a bit of slap / pop are deployed now and again, “Black Moonlight” is a great example of him slapping.
Equally, while mainly a fretted bass player, he has played fretless; “Lonely in Your Nightmare”, off the Rio album is beautiful. In fact, his playing across the whole of the Rio album is sublime!
He’s not a great one for effects. “Wild Boys” has a delay on the original baseline, but I’ve also seen him play it live without the delay, simply playing the repeated notes himself. I’ve actually read that if he does use a delay on the song, it’s his tech that turns it on and off, rather than JT himself.
Oh, and I’ve even see him play a bass line on a keyboard - this was around the time of the Big Thing album, but I can’t remember which song.
