2 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | July 2015 | how-to-play-bass.com

THE HOW TO PLAY BASS MONTHLY EZINE - JULY 2015

Introduction

Welcome to the June 2015 monthly ezine. In this month’s issue we’re go-ing to look at the main parts of the bass line to Funk #49 by The James Gang.

This was suggested to my by one of the subscribers to my weekly maga-zine First Bass And Beyond. And it was a song that I was only marginally aware of. The bass line is pretty cool though.

As a bonus this track has been used in the ‘Guitar Hero’ series of games and the ‘stems’ can be found online, allowing isolation of the bass line to really have a close listen to it. The backing track that I’m playing along to in the tutorial is also generated from those Guitar Hero stems..

Teaching Approach To Funk #49

In the last six to nine months I’ve been experimenting with teaching styles and am moving towards a ‘teaching style’ where there’s no talking. Instead each section of the song is ‘chunked out’ and presented with the notation/tab first and then a video of just that section so that you can isolate and work on that section.

The video has two changes from previous videos of mine that you may have seen. Firstly it’s edited with ‘picture in picture’ technology so that you can see both fretting hands and playing hands clearly. Here’s a screen grab of this combination from a recent lesson:

3 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | July 2015 | how-to-play-bass.com

Secondly you are presented with the notation and tab adjacent to a shorter video that relates just to that section.So you can hear (and see with close ups!) the song section played in two ways:

1. At ‘performance’ tempo with a sound a like backing track2. Slowed down with a metronome.

The metronomic playalong is done with a new feature from Band In A Box which I call a ‘chordal metronome.’ And I’ve edited the rhythmic element of that so we’ve got a 16th note chordal metronome. I’ll post a tutorial on the main How To Play Bass Website on how to do this

I’ll see you next month.

4 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | July 2015 | how-to-play-bass.com

Paul Wolfewww.how-to-play-bass.comLondon

5 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | www.how-to-play-bass.com

FUNK #49 by THE JAMES GANG, bass by Dale Peters

This month’s ezine looks at the main parts to Funk #49 by The James Gang.

Now I don’t know whether to call this a rock tune, or a funk tune, or a funk-rock tune or what. I guess it’s essentially a rock tune, but the bass line is pretty funky.

This tune was suggested by one of the members of my weekly magazine First Bass

And Beyond - and I didn’t really know the tune. But a few of the gigging players in FB&B let me know that either they already played it in their bands - or were planning to play it.

So it got put into my queue for transcription.

I’ve transcribed the main parts... for the verses there’s a little bit of varia-tion in the original. So you know you’ve got some scope for a bit of im-provisation in that section if you want.

The tune startrs out with guitar, and here’s what the bass plays when it comes in and in the two bars prior to the verse:

Here’s what the verse looks like:

6 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | www.how-to-play-bass.com

The verse gives way to a unison style riff. There’s some nice, percussive notes hidden away in the mix though!

7 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | www.how-to-play-bass.com

The only other section I’ll transcribe is when the bass brings the verse back in after the percussion solo and the guitar break:

Here’s the format of the song:

Guitar IntroIntro - 2 barsVerse 1 Unison Riff2 bars prior to verse 2 (use the 2 bars on this page!)Verse 2Riff2 bars prior to percussion solo (again use the 2 bars on this page)Percussion SoloGuitar Break2 bars prior to verse 3 - use the complete section on this page to bring the verse back inVerse 3 RiffOutro - vamp and fade on the verse format

Now normally I’d show you how to program some tracks in Band In A Box that you can use to help practice the sections. But what I did in the video was use just a rhythmic, 16th note pulse pattern because there are two things that Band In A Box doesn’t deal with very well: unison riffs and modal (one chord) sections.

To deal with the unison riffs, if it’s something you find really tricky you can program that riff in Band In a Box and then use the woodshed fea-ture to learn it slowly and gradually ramp up the tempo.

8 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | www.how-to-play-bass.com

For modal sections you can enter the one chord - and Band In A Box will generate something that you can use, but it won’t have any of the variety that you’ll normally find other musicians using when they play on modal sections.