Tag: bass player

This installment of Groove Of The Week features possibly the shortest, most repetitive and least varied to date – it’s also one of the most important. One bar. Over and…

This installment of Groove Of The Week features possibly the shortest, most repetitive and least varied to date – it’s also one of the most important.

One bar. Over and over. Minimal variations. No fills. No frills.

Boring, right?

Wrong.

Consistency is the number one trait that will get you hired time and time again (punctuality and above-average personal hygiene should also be high up in your ‘skill set’). What do I mean by consistency?

Playing a line in time at the same volume and with the same articulation for 4-5 minutes without ceasing (extend this to 25 minutes if you’re playing ‘Chameleon’ at a jam night).

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do well. Put down your slap licks and your string crossing exercises and challenge yourself to play James Jamerson’s sublime D major groove without deviating in any way whatsoever from the original line.

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Time for some #Jamerson! Groove Of The Week #26: Jackie Wilson – …'Higher & Higher' #bassgrooveoftheweek #bass #bajo #basse #baixo #weplaybass #motown #soul #bassguitar #bassist #bassplayer #15secondgroove #15secondcover #instabass #instamusic #riffwarsbass #fender

A post shared by Tom Kenrick (@tommykrizzle) on Jul 24, 2015 at 2:06pm PDT

Ok, there’s ONE variation in the video. Sue me.

Here are the dots. The sharp-eyed (and keen-eared) among you will recognise this as THE staple ‘Motown/soul major chord’ 1-5-6 lick heard on just about every soul tune ever; ‘Keep On Running’, ‘Respect’,’Love Really Hurts Without You’, ‘Faith’, ‘What’s Going On’ (octave displacement), ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘Rescue Me’ are just a few off the top of my head.

This is one of Jamerson’s most famous lines that doesn’t feature any of his much lauded chromaticism. In fact, it sounds like he’s on his best behaviour. If you don’t already, rush out this instant and get a copy of the ‘Standing In The Shadows Of Motown’ book which features note-for-note transcriptions of lots of JJ’s parts and interviews with lots of amazing players on how his playing influenced them.

As a geeky aside, ‘Higher and Higher’ was recorded in Chicago by Jamerson and the other Funk Brothers while they were moonlighting from Motown – they would often drive over from Detroit and do ‘undercover’ sessions to augment their pay from Berry Gordy’s label. Not bad for something knocked up on your day off.

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Groove of the Week

GOTW #25: Downtime, Forthcoming attractions and the return of the ‘Half-Slap Groove’

Tom Kenrick

November 25, 2015 10:01 pm November 25, 2015

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The site has overgone a major (and long overdue) facelift over the past few weeks – thank you for being patient during the downtime. The goal is to roll out…

The site has overgone a major (and long overdue) facelift over the past few weeks – thank you for being patient during the downtime. The goal is to roll out lots of new content over the coming months including video lessons, instructional books and plenty of new bass transcriptions.

All of the original transcriptions and blog posts from the previous version of the site should still be intact – if you find that anything is missing, broken or just looks plain wrong then please shout at me.

I’m acutely aware that the Groove Of The Week series is woefully behind schedule, so let’s get back to it.

Groove Of The Week #25: Jocelyn Brown – ‘Somebody Else’s Guy’

A while ago we examined the groove on Bruno Mars’ ‘Treasure’, which featured frequent alternation between fingerstyle playing and popping. This ‘half-slap’ style of playing can be troublesome initially as it requires you to quickly change between two techniques that require your right hand to be at completely different angles.

Personally, I feel that it’s worth persevering with the ‘half-slap’ as it offers a (marginally) more subtle alternative to conventional slap bass playing and requires less EQ-twiddling to get it to work in a live environment.

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Groove of The Week #25: Jocelyn Brown – 'Somebody Else's Guy' #bassgrooveoftheweek #bass #bajo #basse #baixo #baixonatural #weplaybass #instabass #instamusic #fender #bassgram #bassporn #bassguitar #aguilar #4string #4strings #slap #funk #15secondcover #15secondgroove #riffwarsbass

A post shared by Tom Kenrick (@tommykrizzle) on Jul 17, 2015 at 10:06am PDT

In spite of lots of googling, I couldn’t find accurate credits for who actually played bass on the original. If anyone knows for sure then leave a comment below and I’ll do you a FREE TRANSCRIPTION of your choice*

*Within reason. No Rush, please (not because their stuff is difficult, I just can’t STAND Geddy Lee). Ditto for Dream Theater.

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Lessons

Updated ‘Graceland’ Transcription + Play Along

Tom Kenrick

August 26, 2015 11:13 am August 26, 2015

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Bakithi Kumalo’s propulsive part on Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ is one of the most popular transcriptions in the archive. I did the original transcription some years ago, and as I was…

Bakithi Kumalo’s propulsive part on Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ is one of the most popular transcriptions in the archive. I did the original transcription some years ago, and as I was recording the play along video I noticed a few areas that could be improved upon to help convey some of the nuances that are vitally important to making the groove sit correctly.

The improved transcription can be found here:

UPDATED GRACELAND TRANSCRIPTION

One of the main changes concerns the ghost notes that feature through out the verse sections – I feel that they work best using the open E string throughout, using horizontal position shifting when the harmony changes. The staccato markings (indicated by a dot above the note head) are achieved by left hand muting – again, this is a small detail that helps to give Bakithi’s line its signature ‘bounce’. The play along video shows how I’m using my fretting hand to regulate the note lengths throughout the track:

And yes, I’m aware that I really should have played a fretless on this. Regular readers might have already seen this post on my fretless history and my reasons for not owning one…

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Lessons

Late To The Party… Youtube Play Alongs and Lessons

Tom Kenrick

August 18, 2015 9:25 am August 18, 2015

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As promised some years ago, I’m FINALLY getting round to going back through the transcription archive on the site and making corrections – thanks to those sharp-eared subscribers who’ve been…

As promised some years ago, I’m FINALLY getting round to going back through the transcription archive on the site and making corrections – thanks to those sharp-eared subscribers who’ve been kind enough to point out some glaring errors in some of my charts!

I’m also in the process of finishing off a backlog of half-finished transcriptions (my Sibelius folder has around 600 unfinished files in it, so be patient!) which will be posted over the coming months.

Last but not least I’ve finally hit the red button on my camera and started making Youtube videos – these will include lessons, play alongs of transcriptions and footage from gigs and studio work. If there’s anything specific that you’d like to see included in these videos then let me know by commenting on this post.

I’ll be adding play alongs of the 10 most popular transcriptions on the site to help clarify fingerings and position shifts. First up is Jerry Jemmott’s part on Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Say A Little Prayer’: