My personal example would be this one.
Change the world live at the Staple Center.
Start off with fills and double stops and sustain Open string and shifting double stops. Building up fills into intros.
Then one of the best space in the song as a bassist sustaining open string for almost the entire verse. That takes a lot of confidence writing this kind of bass lines. Nate still has the sense to throw in some tasteful low string note bend, which I find so awesome.
Move into the first chorus showing the simplified chromatic fills/ transitions and back to more engaging second verse. Learning even more subtleties of simple fills then onto the second Chorus.
Second chorus is more fun higher energy and introduce the decending 16th chromatic fills then build up the energy into the Solo.
Solo includes many fun techniques including the chromatic octave fills. Again building up to the last chorus which put everything together with 16th fills and filling up the space with notes and more energy getting ready for the outtro.
Outtro starts of with a little groove that offers places for your favorite note articulation., it then transition into a different pace altogether, walking bass pattern against the drum rhythm then the holding the last few bars on E.
Such a good song, it teaches you many of Nathan’s essential tool and how to build the song up from start to finish.
Here’s my cover of the song and just for anyone who’s interested I included my transcriptions on GP8. Have fun learning.
Great song. Now, the real challenge is try to sing the melody over that bass line. LOL Took me awhile to nail both well. Great lesson in syncopation and timing.
I’ve kind of explained that but as Josh’s video demonstrated the bassist uses melodic runs to tie chord changes together that propel the “feel” of the song. That requires some knowledge of both scales and timing which is precisely what practicing walking lines is intended to help with as a learning tool. If you simply learn to play the bass line to Livin’ on a Prayer what have you also learned that would help you to apply it to other songs? If you get that too and can carry it forward great but not everyone does.
In the process the player begins learning passing notes and phrases that tie chord changes together which is another primary function of the bass. The “money notes” are simply the tonic of the chord and those could be played almost like a walking 4/4 line using passing notes to tie it all together. But it’s the choice of passing notes in the scale that drive the bass line and “decorate it” just as the passing notes in a basic blues walking bass line tie those chord changes together. It creates motion.
It’s an exercise in fundamentals and technique but also the root of playing blues and blues based rock. What songs? Hundreds; Kansas City, Further on Down the Road, Sweet Home Chicago, T-Bone Shuffle. Listen to a few and hear how the walking bass line “propels” the song.
Let me just add that the question was what would I do not anyone else. What I chose was in line with how I teach bass using very basic patterns and how to expand on them first then use that knowledge and technique to move on. Others may approach it very differently and none of it is wrong. We all teach or learn in ways that we feel best about. That’s my way of doing it.
Thanks. I recognize that players of different ages and musical backgrounds have much different musical influences and learn in different ways. I grew up in Chicago when blues and blues based rock was in the forefront of everything we heard and played. So those are my roots and where my fundamental learning came from and I can only teach what I know.
But I also believe the blues and all of the “cradle of rock” music from that era is still the basis for most of what comes after it at least as far as fundamentals like technique, scales, timing, fretboard knowledge, and so on goes. I can teach all of that better using simple examples anyone should be able to understand and progress with than I can more complex stuff.
My belief is if a player isn’t able to master those fundamentals they will always struggle to advance on their own and that’s my eventual goal for anyone. No one takes lessons forever. At some point they have to be able to take what they’ve learned and use it to become more self taught. If we’re never taught how to learn on our own we never do. That’s my theory.
My second time around learning the bass has been focused on understanding.
I relied heavily on tabs last time, and although I could get decent tone out of my fingers, I can’t honestly say I knew what I was doing.
My priority now is to be able to create music - even if that means taking a cover and adding my own flavour to it, I want to at least know why what I’m doing, works.
