11/21/2013

Weekly Basslines #131: Freight Train (Chris Paulson)

And the requests keep coming in.....
Again from my former student Marina, I've been asked to show her the bassline that I'd been playing to the song "Freight Train" when performing with Chris Paulson. Chris is a great singer/songwriter from the San Francisco Bay area with which I had the honour and the pleasure to play with for a few years. I even appear on one of his records "Streets Of Frankfurt", which was recorded in Germany. The song "Freight Train" however is a cover-song that Chris had added to his setlist back then. Originally written by Fred Eaglesmith it has a nice "Train-groove" and I applied a very special picking hand technique to support this rhythm. I call this technique the "Three Stroke Deadnote Pattern" and the following video demonstrates how it works:


The figure shows how I notate this technique:


Here's Chris Paulson version of Freight Train with me playing the bass to it:




I recently found a video on YouTube that was recorded during a benefit performance we did in a church in Frankfurt, collecting money for the homeless. Here you can hear two of Chris' own compositions: "Streets of Frankfurt" and the wonderful "Night Rain":


If you like the music of Chris Paulson, please visit his homepage: 

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