My first note of House of the Rising Sun was plucked in Jan 2025. By early May 2025 I was playing at an acceptable level. I recorded this version in July 2025. I am 2 ½ years a Bass Buzz student. Four months was required to learn the song and is the longest time I have needed.
This might be the most difficult song in the Easy group and an educational introduction to 8th notes .
I am not musically trained, below is an amateur observation.
House of the Rising Sun is structured : slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast. For January to March (3 months) I focused on the fast sections only.
Each image below probably required two weeks to learn the timing then incorporate into the flow of the notes on either side. I used a metronome website at a slower speed then increased to full speed. Repeated for each segment below.
Each week probably averaged 4 sessions of 30 minutes.
I believe I am off the beat occasionally and I messed up the ending. I didn’t practice the song for the few days before I recorded the video, that was all I needed to forget the final 9 notes . I retained the messed up ending in this video for educational purposes .
I am reading the sheet music. This is not a song I was willing to commit to memory for recording.
The video below is the same video with the ending edited with a better rendition, recorded a few minutes after the poor ending. The final part of the song needs more work, I am confident my timing is wrong, should be fixed in a few years.
Nice job.
You are rushing the beat a bit, playing a bit early.
If you lay back a bit on your plucking, it will sound and go much better with the original. This takes time to learn and hear naturally, keep at it.
The other truly off beat parts are simply nerves, which will also go away as you go along.
That’s what these songs are all about, working through learning songs, shaking nerves and feeling comfortable… Keep 'em coming!!!
From reviewing the thread here, a lot of people didn’t care for this one. For me, I kinda like the song, but playing it was definitely a challenge. By which I mean not a technical challenge, but a bit of a slog.
It feels like the bass line on the original recording was improvised, with the bass player picking rhythmic patterns almost arbitrarily. If I were learning this to actually perform in a band I would have done the same. But for the challenge I wanted to play it as-written, which sure made it a challenge. This is my first song in a while that I had to play while looking at the tab.
By the time I made the recording I was pretty tired of playing this song and just wanted to get it out, which resulted in a (by my standards) slightly sloppy recording. But I got it done, I learned some things from it, and now it’s time to move on.
So with the excuses out of the way, here is my rendition of House of the Rising Sun.
Thanks @John_E , I received similar feedback from others. I also thank everyone who submitted videos before me. Watching a few videos while I was learning, made me aware I had more time between notes than my ‘panic playing’ allowed. I made myself relax and that assisted my education significantly .
don’t make excuses, as you need none, we are here to learn. First rule of the 50 song challenge is do not point out what you think is wrong with your version.
You did GREAT! Timing was on point for the most part, a flub or two here and there but that will come with time. Overall good job!
I tend to leave myself a little constructive feedback when I post, because I use these recordings to reflect and find things I can work on. I don’t mean it as self-deprecation. In the case of this one, I was mostly adding to the discussion upthread which is full of gripes about this particular song.
I’ll take note of what you said, though.
Thank you very much! As a bit of a counter to my excuses, I’ll say I put a lot of effort into getting the fills and the ending down and I’m happy with the result of that.
was required to learn the song and is the longest time I have needed.
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. I retained the messed up ending in this video for educational purposes 
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