THE HOW TO PLAY BASS MONTHLY EZINE - JUNE 2015 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | how-to-play-bass.com Secondly you are presented with the notation and tab adjacent

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

THE HOW TO PLAY BASS MONTHLY EZINE - JUNE 2015

Introduction

Welcome to the June 2015 monthly ezine. In this month’s issue we’re going to look at the main parts of Berry Oakley’s bass line on Statsboro Blues by The Allman Brothers.

In this month’s issue there’s also an announcement about an upcoming price rise for First Bass And Beyond, my weekly magazine. If you like what you see and read in this free monthly ezine...you’ll definitely like First Bass And Beyond.

One of the things that hasn’t made it to the ‘sales page’ yet is that we re-cently started a private members only Facebook Group for FB&B sub-scribers. People can ask questions directly - and get answers from me and other members - and we share bass goodies annd the like.

Here’s a screenshot of some answers I got when I asked what benefits the members got from being FB&B members (though I’ve blurred out pic-tures and names for privacy):



Berry Oakley

Berry Oakley (and the Allman Brothers) are relatively new additions to the list of bass players (and their groups) that I really admire. I’ve tran-scribed a whole load of Berry’s lines over the last 2 to 3 years and decided it was time to get some of these lines put down in the form of video tuto-rials. I often wonder how the face of modern music would be different if giants like Berry and Duane (Allman) hadn’t left the stage early. Such a great loss to the bass world that Berry passed on in his mid-twenties.

Teaching Approach To Statsboro Blues

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:


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 ele-ment of that so we’ve got a ‘swing 8th’ note chordal metronome. I’ll post a tutorial on the main How To Play Bass Website on how to do this.

Don’t forget to check out First Bass And Beyond because if you join be-fore the price rise you’ll be ‘grandfathered’ in at that level for as long as you wish to be a member.

I’ll see you next month - hopefully with the tutorial to Old Brown Shoe (that I’ve been threatening to do!)

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

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

STATESBORO BLUES by THE ALLMAN BROTHERS, bass by Berry Oakley

This month’s ezine looks at the main parts to Statsboro Blues as played by The Allman Brothers. Statesboro Blues is an old blues tune that The Allman Brothers really made their own. And it’s a great tune - if you play in any kind of blues-rock band then you’ll earn the undying respect of your guitarist(s) by suggesting this!

In this tutorial we’re not going to cover the whole song, but the major parts. The version that we’re looking at is taken from the ‘At Fillmore East” live recording - I highly recommend getting hold of the deluxe box set as this is one of the best live band recordings out there (IMO). If you’re a Berry Oakley and/or Allman Brothers completist (like me!) then you might want to look at the 6 CD Complete Fillmore Recordings box set.

Another interesting recording to check out is the version on the Macon City Auditorium CD which was taken from a gig after Duane Allman had passed on, but before Berry had his own motorcycle accident and the Allman Brothers were operating as a 5 Piece. We get tantalizing glimpses on this recording of where Berry’s playing might have gone if he had not passed on

Let’s look at the tutorial itself - there are 5 sections that we’re going to look at: the intro; the first solo; the verse groove; a solo section and the ‘stop’ verse.


1. Intro

The intro is an 8 bar section and features stops on alternate downbeats and pick ups to these stops. It looks like this:

2. First Solo

After the intro we’re immediately into a solo where Berry establishes the kind of groove he’s going to play through the song. It looks like this in notation and tab:


3. Verse

After the first solo there are a couple of verses. Here is the kind of line that Berry plays under the first verse - notice how it follows on from the groove that he set up in the first solo:


4. Solo

After a couple of verses there are solos - and we’re going to look at what Berry plays in the second solo:


5. Stop Verse

The second solo leads straight into a ‘stop’ verse which picks up the stops from the intro:


These are the main sections of the song that we’re going to look at. The main variations in the bass line are covered in these sections - don’t be afraid though to try out some of your own variations!

How To Program The Sections In Band In A Box

I’ve never included this section in the free monthly ezine, but it’s a staple of the tutorials in First Bass And Beyond. And if you’ve got the Band In A Box software you can isolate sections to learn them - and these instruc-tions will guide you how to do that.

1. Set key to D2. Aim for a performance tempo of around 125-130 BPM.3. Choose a style for practicing. For a full band style you can try the Tex-as Blues Rhythm Section or the Texas Blues Rhythm Section with Piano or the Fast Swing 8th Blues with Organ. (Or you can mix and match!) Or if you are working on the sections at a slower tempo you can use the ‘chordal metronome’ option. 4. Don’t forget to mute the bass!


The main chord progression looks like this:

And the stop verse looks like this:

The intro is an 8 bar section and is just stabs on the D& chord - if you needed to program this, it would be straightforward.


FIRST BASS AND BEYOND - THE ULTIMATE SONG RESOURCE FOR BEGINNER AND INTERMEDIATE BASS PLAYERS

If you’ve read this far it shows that you’re interested in detailed song tu-torials for bass. How would you like to get access to over 200 song tutori-als over the next year for around a dollar a tutorial? Well First Bass And Beyond gives you that....

IMPORTANT NOTICE - FIRST BASS AND BEYOND IS INCREASING IN PRICE SHORTLY BECAUSE SOON WE’RE PLANNING TO EXPAND THE SERVICE!!!! SO NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO ENROL TO TAKE ADVAN-TAGE OF THIS...

http://how-to-play-bass.com/first-bass-and-beyond

Here’s how it works.

First Bass And Beyond is based on a magazine model and I publish a PDF like this one every Friday at 5pm GMT. Each magazine includes two song tutorials in the PDF that are complemented with video tutori-als and MP3s as well.

I publish 50 issues a year - so that’s 100 song tutorials over the next year.

Additionally there is a section of the website called Quickguides - and new members will get a new song every week in that section of the web-site. (You can see the Quickguides on Youtube - but the First Bass And Beyond version has more content, downloadable backing tracks). That takes you up to 150 song tutorials in the next year.

When you join you get access to the archive of the free How To Play Bass monthly ezine - there are currently 35 videos in that archive. That’s 185 song tutorials. (These 35 tutorials are all immediately available - and to see what songs are available, see the list at the end of the PDF)

When you join you also get access to the Bass For Beginners course



which currently includes another 35 song tutorials - that makes 220 song tutorials. (And these 35 tutorials are available immediately).

Plus if you subscribe as an annual member you get 10 back issues of the magazine as a bonus - that could potentially add another 20 song tutori-als to your song tutorial library!

There’s more in the magazine too - a main transcription every week that is usually more advanced and doesn’t have video to go with. Other col-umns currently include Deconstructing Tommy Shannon, Learning To Count 16th Notes and Walking Bass Corner.


Examples Of Song Tutorials That Have Featured

To give you an idea of the kind of material that’s covered, here are the last thirty or so video tutorials that we’ve featured in First Bass And Be-yond:

I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down (Bruce Thomas)Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan)Black Velvet (Allanah Myles)Venus (Shocking Blue)Sloop John B (the Beach Boys)Boogie nights (Heatwave)Blue Sky (Allman Brothers) Funky Broadway (Wilson Pickett)Space Cowboy (Steve Miller)How You Remind Me (Nickleback)Take It Easy (The Eagles)The Best Of My Love (The Emotions)Not My Cross To Bear (Allman Brothes)One In Ten (UB 40)Whipping Post (Allman Brothers)Kingston Town (UB 40)Come As You Are (Nirvana)



Paranoid (Black Sabbath)In My Life (The Beatles)Baby You’re A Rich Man (The Beatles)See Saw (Aretha Franklin)Helter Skelter (the Beatles)Get Down on It (Kool And The Gang)My Best Friend’s Girl (The Cars)Uptown Funk (‘Working’ version)Parisienne Walkways (Gary Moore)Weather With you (Crowded House)Boogie Wonderland (Earth Wind And Fire)Ain’t Nobody (Chaka Khan)Fall At Your Feet (Crowded Hosue)

Contact

If you’ve got any other questions don’t hesitate to email me via the con-tact form on the website.

Have a great month, and enjoy.

Paul

Documents

THE HOW TO PLAY BASS MONTHLY EZINE - JUNE 2015 | Free How To Play Bass Monthly Ezine | June 2015 | how-to-play-bass.com Secondly you are presented with the notation and tab adjacent