Weekly Basslines #147: Cold As Ice (Foreigner)

The view from my window this morning:

Ice and snow...
This inspired me to do another transcription of a bassline from a bassplayer, who passed away in 2014.

Ed Gagliardi died at the age of only 62 on May 11th after losing his eight year battle against cancer.
He only played on two albums with Foreigner: the 1977 debut "Foreigner" and the second album "Double Vision" (1978).
"Cold As Ice" from the debut album became one of the group's best know songs and was in fact also the first song I ever heard from Foreigner. 

I already transcribed "Feels Like The First Time" last year as part of a basslesson about slash chords and chord inversions. Take a look!

Weekly Basslines #146: I feel free (Cream)

Looking back at 2014 sadly reveals that the list of musicians who died in the past 12 month contains a notably number of my personal heroes. I grew up with the music of Jack Bruce and Cream, Johnny Winter or Joe Cocker and now they're gone forever. I had the privilege to open up for Johnny Winter in 1999 and for Joe Cocker in 2003. I unfortunately never met Jack Bruce, but as a young musician I always felt a kind of "connection" because my birthday (May 14th) was the same as his. And so he became a role model for me when I started playing bass. When Jack Bruce died on October 25th I was to busy too pay hommage to him here on my blog, but now during the X-mas holidays I sat down and transcribed the bassline to the first Cream song I heard in my youth. And here it is:

R.I.P. Jack Bruce

Most popular posts of 2014

At the end of the year it's time to look back.
Here's the Top Ten of the most viewed posts of the year 2014:

1. (1228 views) Lesson To Go #1 - Sightreading für E-Bass (Teil 1) (german version)

Im April habe ich die "Lessons To Go"-Reihe gestartet und gleich die erste Lektion beschäftigt sich mit Notenlesen, weil ich der Überzeugung bin, dass Notenlesen für jeden Musiker eine ganz wichtige Fähigkeit ist. Es fördert das allgemeines Verständnis für Musik und macht einen "bässeren" Musiker aus dir. Wie sich gezeigt hat, habt ihr dieses Angebot sehr gut angenommen, was mich riesig freut. Platz 1 für diesen Post hätte ich nie erwartet. Es ist eines meiner großen Ziele für 2015 hier noch viel mehr Material zum Notenlesen lernen anzubieten, um noch mehr Bassisten zu zeigen, dass Notenlesen gar nicht so schwer ist, aber sich dadurch eine ganze neue Welt in der Musik eröffnet.


2. ( 833 views) Jazz bass for beginners: When Sunny Gets Blue (german + english)

Diese Lektion ist ganz spontan, während einer Unterrichtsstunde mit einem meiner Schüler entstanden. Ich wollte ihm zeigen, wie er ganz schnell eine Basslinie zu einem Jazzstandard erfinden kann und habe zu diesem Zweck einmal zu "When Sunny Gets Blue" improvisiert. Damit wir mein Spiel anschließend gemeinsam analysieren konnten, habe ich diese Improvisation auf Video aufgenommen.

This lesson was created very spontaneous during one of my regular basslessons. One of my students wanted to know how to improvise a bassline over the chords of a jazz standard tune. For this purpose I played a line over "When Sunny Gets Blue" and recorded myself on video to analyse it with him afterwards.

3. (805 views) Weekly Basslines #133: Free Me (Joss Stone)

A cool funky ostinato riff, requested by one of my followers from Switzerland!


4. (753 views) Weekly Basslines #137: Easy Songs for Sightreading (No Tabs!)

Ich wurde gefragt, ob ich nicht als Ergänzung zum Sightreading-Kurs ein paar einfache Songs ohne Tabulaturen posten könnte. Natürlich konnte ich! Und nächstes Jahr - versprochen - gibt es noch viel mehr!

I was asked, if I could post a few easy basslines without tabs in addition to the Sightreading lessons. Of course I did! And - promise - next year I'm going to post a lot more.
 

5. (734 views) Lesson To Go #2 - Blues Bass (Teil 1) (german version)

Das ich mal einen speziellen Workshop über Blues machen würde, war mir immer schon klar. Im Mai 2014 habe ich schließlich den Anfang gemacht, im August 2014 gab's Teil 2 und auch da dürft ihr Euch nächstes Jahr auf mehr freuen.

6. (700 views) Lesson To Go #1 - Sightreading for electric bass (part 1) (english version)

I started the "Lessons To Go" series in April 2014 and I started off with a lesson about reading music, because I think that it's a very important skill for any musician to develop. Being able to read will enhance your understanding of music and make you a better musician. It's one of my goals in 2015 to give you a lot more material to improve your reading skills.

7. (641 views) Weekly Basslines # 136: Season's Trees (Danger Mouse & Daniel Luppi) 

Another request from one of my students.

8. (637 views)  Lesson To Go #3 - Basslines mit Dur-Arpeggien (Teil 1) (german)

9. (604 views) Weekly Basslines #134: My Oh My (Slade)

10. (546 views) Lesson To Go #5 - Groovekonzepte für E-Bass (Teil 1) (only german)

Weekly Basslines #145: With A Little Help From My Friends (Joe Cocker)

R.I.P. Joe Cocker

 

Weekly Basslines #144: A Million Miles Away (Rory Gallagher)

This one was requested by one of my students and she's a very special student as she took up playing the bass at the age of 63. She's an ardent blues lover and I'm very proud to be her teacher.

The song "A Million Miles Away" from Rorys fourth solo studio album "Tatoo" (1973) is a perfect addition to the pentatonic lessons of the last weeks, because the main riff is built on the d minor pentatonic scale.

I transcribed the studio version but here's the vibrant live performance from the 1974 film "Irish Tour":

Weekly Basslines #143: You're My Best Friend (Queen)

Continuing the series about my personal bass heroes.....

John Deacon, the bassplayer for Queen, is one of my bass heroes ever since I took up playing bass and even long before that. When I heard the song "You're my best friend" the first time, I was immediately caught by the bassline. His fluent runs on the higher register are one of the very outstanding features of his bass playing and I always had fun transcribing, learning and playing his basslines. His choice of notes reveales a great musical background knowledge - besides bass he also played the piano and the guitar and he had the technical skills to master his often virtuosic ideas. Later I realised that Deacon had also written the song and even played the electric piano on that tune and ever since I'm a big fan of his musical talent. In addition to "You're my best friend" he also wrote a few more big hits for Queen like "Spread Your Wings", "Another One Bites The Dust" or "I Want To Break Free".

Here's the excerpt of the video documentation "The Making of A Night At The Opera" concerning John Deacon and his hit song:

And here's the isolated bassline:

As I mentioned before I've transcribed a lot of John Deacon's basslines. You can find some here on my blog:

My absolute favorite one is "Millionaire Waltz".

But amongst others I also did "Spread Your Wings",  "Teo Torriatte", of course "Another One Bites The Dust", "I Want It All" and "Under Pressure".

Weekly Basslines #142: Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma (Steve Miller Band)

"I've Always Wanted To Do This......"

I've transcribed hundreds of basslines in the last few years, collected from the internet whatever I could get, even bought some comercial transcription books, so that I finally already have a BIG collection of basslines at my disposal. However there are still some left, which I always wanted to transcribe, but never got round to do and obviously noone else did, as there are no available transcriptions on the internet or comercially published. Sometimes I even started taking down a few lines, yet could never complete it. So I came to the decision, that I start a kind of "Work-In-Progress" series here. Some unfinished transcriptions off my personal "Still-To-Do" list.

Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma is on the list now for already more than ten years. I recently found my scribbled notes in the lowest drawer of my writing desk and rediscovered this cool funky bassline by Gerald Johnson, who recorded a few albums with Steve Miller, but is also know to work with Dave Mason (ex-Traffic), Les Dudeck or Stephen Stills.

The song with the weird title is from one of Steve Millers most famous albums "The Joker" (1973), featuring his Number #1 hit of the same name.

Here's the unfinished transcription, which at least contains the bass solo:

to be continued.... ;-)

 

Weekly Basslines #141: Geraldine and John (Joe Jackson)

Here's the second part of my series about my personal bass heroes.

This time it's Graham Maby.

Wikipedia says:

"Graham Maby (born 1952, Gosport, England), is a bass guitar player. He has recorded and toured with Joe Jackson since his first album, appearing on most of Jackson's albums and tours. He has continued to record and tour with Jackson even while working with other artists.

In the early '90s he toured with Graham Parker, Garland Jeffreys, the Silos, and Darden Smith, among others. In 1996, Maby joined They Might Be Giants recording and touring with them. From 1998 until 2002 he recorded and toured with Natalie Merchant's band. Maby has also appeared on recordings with Marshall Crenshaw, Joan Baez, Freedy Johnston, Ian Hunter, Regina Spektor and Dar Williams."

I'm really a big fan of Graham Mabys bass playing ever since the first time I saw the Joe Jackson Band in the early eighties. I love the way he's creating interesting and remarkable basslines that essentially support the song. To demonstrate what I mean I picked one of Grahams most remarkable basslines he recorded with Joe Jackson on his second album "I'm the Man" from 1979.

And there are lots of more extraordinary basslines Graham Maby provided on different Joe Jackson songs.

Here's a few of my favorites:

Sunday Papers from Joe Jackson's first album "Look Sharp":

Beat Crazy from Joe jackson's third album "Beat Crazy":

Got The Time from Joe Jackson's first album "Look Sharp":

On Your Radio from Joe Jackson's second album "I'm The Man":