Haven’t learned a whole ton of complete basslines, but my current favorite that I’ve really enjoyed working on and playing is Le Freak from Chic. Huge range of pace, fretting, and timing that’s made it both challenging to learn and rewarding to play.
Lisa Never Wanted To Be Famous.
It’s a proper technical piece for such a slow song and the bass really shape the song structure. Bunch of 16th fills and transitions. So much fun to play.
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Bad Moon Rising is the only song I can reliably play in full with out thinking too much. It is kind of simple but since I don’t have to think about it too much it makes it fun to jam along with.
Year Zero by Ghost is my other one. Not very good at it yet but I find it’s a blast to play.
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I’m finishing up this one. Oddly enough, my biggest issue is going from the staccato open D to the staccato fifth fret G in the middle of the verses.
Wouldn’t it be easier to get that staccato D by using fifth fret A string?
Song is in D tuning, so that’s open on what is normally the E string.
For some reason my brain just short circuits a little bit going from pluck open string, mute open string, pluck fretted note on the next string over all in the space of two beats.
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Ah so it’s an octave down. I can see your problem I think that would tie my fingers (and mind) in knots!
Good Times by Chic.
SBL labeled it a Perfect Bassline and they aren’t wrong. Groovy as a groovy thing grooving heavily
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“All My Lovin’ in “A” (Beatles) as if the Count Basie Orch was playing it, just chromatic runs from chord to chord
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I heard Love Cats by the Cure today and went home and gave it a go. very clear and prominent bass line - as soon as you start you know what song it is and its a relatively easy and slow groove that you can play around with.
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I got through my list for today and had some fun afterwards by pulling up another one of The Cure’s happier songs. This one’s a blast to play. Love the slides and it’s fairly easy on the fretting hand. It’s mostly played in a box other than the slides. You do have to be on point with your muting and have to keep those slides tight to stay in time.
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I recently decided to try playing Rise Against - Prayer of the refugee!
And I discovered it’s an amazing song to practice!!!
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Silly loves songs by Paul McCartney, or animal spirits by vulfpeck! But of course, Won’t get fooled again.
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Something new I got from my kid yesterday. It’s a blast to play. It ain’t hard, it’s just a rip.
Street sweeper social club-promenade
I’ll do a run on it today and post it on the practice frags.
Sometimes the bassline I wrote for this…simple but very effective.
One of the few times someone came into the bass room at Guitar Center and said “That sounds great! What is it?”
(Headphones or earbuds, of course.)
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