Need some funky bass inspiration? Take a juicy bite of these bass riffs, from Stevie Wonder to RHCP to Vulfpeck. It’s business time.
If you’re doing the Beginner to Badass course, these riffs will be a real jumble of easy to play, and WTF JOSH I TRIED THIS RIFF AND NOW I’M CRYING. Enjoy at your own risk.
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST:
Want to play along? Here’s sheet music and bass tabs for every iconic bass riff, in order:
Hope this video pumps some funky bass inspiration into your tank! And thanks to everyone here for your contributions, many of which made it into the video.
What should I catch for next time? And what other genres/subgenres would you like to see me do these kind of videos for?
Sitting next to my fiancé on the couch I said, “I’m setting a personal goal to learn all of these riffs”. That was at the start of the video. By the time we got to Larry Graham I was like “Umm…maybe one day”.
Very cool video and great extra material with the noteflight riffs
It took me a while to learn it and get something resembling the groove, but I got the ain’t no stopping us now riff going, it was very fun…not at ‘level 5’ yet but I will definitely be practicing this one and a few more
I was talking about Josh’s BassBuzz videos earlier today. One of the things that sets Josh apart from most other YouTubers (no matter the topic) is that every second of every video, I find interesting. There’s no padding, fluff, or time filing, it’s all useful information.
I’m looking forward to putting together a 30 Most Iconic Bass Riffs section in the YouTube video guide.
Haha, you can thank my editor for that. During the first round of feedback I was like “dude can you cut that it’s so awkward” and he sent me a 3 paragraph essay on why we should keep it, lol.
Haha yup, that and the Stomp riff were beastly to pull off!
Ha, yep, otherwise known as the “thumb plucking technique Josh tells B2B students not to do” technique.
I could do a whole boring video on thumb plucking! Nice way to get a really mellow fleshy tone for slower/quieter stuff… good way to pluck two notes simultaneously spread across the strings (like the octaves in Billie Jean)… works well for thumb n fingers arpeggiating like guitar players do.
And the great thing about the ‘technique’ is there’s really nothing to it, just pluck with your thumb and mess around. Much easier than slapping.
Would love to! Part of my secret agenda with the If you could only listen to 3 genres? thread was to gauge what people might be most interested in for future Riffs vids.
Still no takers! I’ll give it a couple weeks though lol.
Lol! ACtuaLly Soft Rock/R&B is ONE category, with the operative word being “Soft.” Think “Dreams” by FM and “Sweetest Taboo” by Sade. Everyone expects funk and grunge and rock videos. Something soft would be unexpected and slightly confusing, but the bass lines are undeniably good.
If I’m gonna fess up to something, it’s mariachi music.
I’m glad Bootsy made the cut, but a little sad that Groove Is in the Heart did not. Sure, he sampled Herbie Hancock but he Bootsy-fied it, making that riff his own. Ain’t no one gonna mistake Groove for Bring Down the Birds.
The look on your face for Wild Cherry is the same look I get whenever YouTube Music tries to pull that sh*t on me. “I told you no, YT!”
Personally, I would swap out Wild Cherry with Bill Wither’s Use Me or L.T.D.’s Back In Love Again.
This was a fabulous video! The format is great, the video is well shot and edited and the comments/expressions were awesome. My absolutely favorite information/instruction/entertainment video from you in a while. I also love the fact that you provided a tab (as played) to the whole video and included a spotify playlist as well. High quality work and extras.
This video checked all the elements that attracted me to your channel and to this course from the beginning. I would love to see more of these with different genres!
