Neuer Workshop für Anfänger im April

Absolute Beginners Workshop : E-Bass

Als Anfänger hat man so viele Fragen und es ist meist schwierig kompetente Antworten zu finden. Im Internet findet man oft widersprüchliche Aussagen und manches versteht man auch überhaupt nicht.

Wenn du dir auch Fragen stellst wie..

…ist meine Greifhaltung richtig?, warum tut mir die Hand weh?, wie kann ich den kleinen Finger trainieren?, wie finde ich den richtigen Fingersatz?, muss ich Wechselschlag spielen?, was ist „thumb trailing“?, mit Fingern oder Pick spielen?, übe ich richtig und vor allen Dingen auch effektiv?, ist es sinnvoll beim Spielen mitzuzählen?, was muss ich über Musiktheorie wissen?, Noten oder Tabs?, wo finde ich gutes Übematerial usw. usw. usw…. 

dann bist du genau richtig bei meinem „Absolute Beginners“ Workshop. Ich möchte an diesem Wochenendworkshop all eure Fragen beantworten, euch wertvolle Tipps und Lösungsvorschläge für eure Probleme geben.
Bringt einfach eure Fragen, Problemfälle etc. mit und wir gehen gemeinsam alles durch. Ich gebe Euch Feedback über eure Stärken und Schwächen und werde am Ende jedem von Euch ein individuelles Übeprogramm mit auf den Weg geben.

Sa. d. 18.04.2015 von 14h – 18h
und So. d. 19.04.2015 von 11h – 15h

Ort: STAGE AHEAD Musicschool, Bismarckring 3, 65183 Wiesbaden

Maximaler Teilnehmerzahl: 8 

Die Teilnahmegebühr für diesen Kurs beträgt 95,- € pro Person
Anmeldung ab sofort an info@stage-ahead.de oder telefonisch unter 0611 – 30 86 196

Weekly Basslines #150: (Don't Fear) The Reaper (Blue Öyster Cult)

Currently I'm working on part 4 of my lesson on "Sightreading for electric bass", but meanwhile I want to supply you with a few songs you can play when you worked through parts 1 to 3.

In part 3 we covered all the natural notes on the fretboard up to the fifth fret:

These notes can be arranged to form a major scale starting on the note C, called the C Major scale:

Or they can be arranged starting on the note A to form the relative minor scale called A minor:

(Don't Fear) The Reaper is built on the A minor scale:

The song's distinctive guitar riff is built on the i-vii-vi-vii chord progression in A minor, forming the chords A5 - G - F6(sus2):

guitar riff

BÖC's bassist Joe Bouchard mainly has two ways of playing to this chord progression:

Either he only utilizes the root the fifth and the octave of each chord.....

...or he plays the basic triads to some of the chords...

In the course of the song these two appraoches are combined and varied.

Weekly Basslines #149: Return To Sender (Elvis Presley)

Last thursday (January 8th) Elvis Presley would have turned 80. A good opportunity to take a look at the bassline of one of his songs:

"Return To Sender" was recorded for the Soundtrack of the film "Girls, Girls, Girls" in the year 1962.
The song is composed around one of the most popular chord-progressions in pop music,
the so-called I-VI-II-V-(One-Six-Two-Five)-progression.

The chords are built from the first, sixth, second and fifth degree of a major scale.
For the C major scale these chords are C (I) - Am (VI) - Dm (II) and G (V).

Many songs use the I-VI-II-V-progression throughout and even more use it in certain sections.

In "Return To Sender" the verses are built upon this progression. The key is E flat and these are the corresponding chords:

Bassist Ray Siegel plays a "walking bassline" on double bass and only uses chord tones:

Here's the song (from the movie "Girls, Girls, Girls"):

And here's the transcription:

Related Posts:
Weekly Basslines #122: Burning Love (Elvis Presley)

Weekly Basslines #103: Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen)

Weekly Basslines #101: Fluorescent Adolescent (Artic Monkeys)

Weekly Basslines #148: Spooky (Atlanta Rhythm Section)

"Spooky" was originally an instrumental played and composed by the saxophonist Mike Sharpe in 1966.
In 1968 a vocal version of the song became a huge success for the group Classics IV. Guitarist James Cobb and producer Buddy Buie wrote the lyrics to the song and later became founding members of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. They re-recorded the song in 1979. Bassist Paul Goddard who sadly passed away in 2014 gave the song an extra lift by adding a real cool bassline to it.

The song starts in the key of E dorian and then (after the second verse) modulates up a half step to F dorian.
The dorian mode ist derived from the major scale:

Therefore the E dorian scale includes the same seven notes as the D major scale. The main difference is a different set of chord-progressions. The important I-IV-V chords in D major are D-G-A, but in E dorian they are Em-A-Bm. The next figure shows you all the diatonic chords of E dorian:

Each scale has a set of very common chord-progressions. One of the most common in the dorian scale is the change between the I-chord (which is minor) and the IV-chord (which is major).

The famous dorian i- IV-Progression in E dorian would be Em - A. In "Spooky" the chords are embellished by adding so called "optional" notes to the basic triads.

It makes a really cool sounding progression. The next figure shows those two chords for all of you who like to try them on guitar:

The following transcription of the song is done off the 1979 album "Underdog" and might vary in some details from the bassline played in the video above. 

Here's the complete transcribtion:

Here's a little tutorial video I made playing the first two verses:

Related Posts:

Basslesson - The dorian mode (part 1)