If you practice this with a drum machine set to a simple beat, you’ll get the most out of practicing this riff. Listen to the song and you’ll hear how the second note is emphasized to match the start of the bar. Notice that this riff starts just before the start of the bar. If you’re just getting started learning bass, this riff is a good way to work on your basic technique and timing skills. This riff is also included in my easy guitar riffs lesson and for good reason – it’s incredibly simple to learn. The guide is written for guitar, but it includes a list of songs in Eb Tuning you might want to learn on bass. If you are interested in experimenting with Eb Tuning, check out this guide to Eb Tuning here. You’ll hear how the feeling behind songs and riffs slightly change when you tune down. Some bands like to play in Eb Tuning as a way to get a slightly heavier or more aggressive tone. You can play all your riffs in this tuning and while it will feel the same to play, they will sound different. The great thing about this tuning (called ‘E flat’ tuning or ‘half-step-lower’) is that everything is played the same way. This means the E string tunes down to Eb (E-flat), the A string down to A flat, D string down to D flat, and G string down to G flat. Use a tuner to tune each string down a half-step. If you have never tried changing your bass tuning to anything else before, give it a go with this riff. Knowing how long to hold a note and when to stop it plays a big part in keeping a tight rhythm. Some notes at the end of the riff are held for most of the bar, while other times the last note ends by the next beat. When learning this riff, listen closely to how long each note is held. Here’s how to play the riff with your bass in Standard Tuning: To play this riff while keeping your bass in Standard Tuning, we can simply shift it up an octave. The actual song will sound a half-step lower in pitch. If you keep your bass in Standard Tuning and try to play the above riff along with the song, it won’t sound right. Here’s how to play the riff with your bass tuned down a half step to Eb Tuning (Eb Ab Db Gb): It’s very simple to play as long as you pay attention to your timing and rests. The bass riff is what drives this song, so it’s naturally a fun riff to learn. Practicing this riff with a metronome or drum machine is a great way to dial in your timing and develop a strong sense of rhythm. Part of what made this song so popular when it first came out was the way the simple ‘bass’ riff paired with the thumping beat. Practice this riff along with a metronome (120 bpm) or a drum machine set to a quarter note bass drum pattern (just like the song). Shift the other notes up or down the strings to make them easier to play. Once you learn the notes on the fingerboard, you can learn to move notes around just like this for any song you want.įor practice, start with the first version and try to keep your hand around the 5th and 7th frets. Play around with both versions to get a feel for what you prefer. This is more in line with how some bassists would play a riff like this. With the second version, your hand stays pretty much at the same place and you jump from string to string. There is a reason Jack White plays it that way (because he uses an open-tuning), but this way may not be the best way to actually play it on bass. In the first version, all the notes are played on the same string and you need to move your hand up and down the string. The big difference is how they feel to play. Learning how to figure out which fingers are best to play something is a skill you should start working on as a beginner.īoth versions play the exact same notes, so they should sound the same when you play them. For example, which finger should you use for the very first note to make it easy to play the 10th fret note?Įxperiment with using different fingers throughout the riff to figure out which feels the most comfortable to play. When you play this riff, think about which fingers make the most sense for each note. This is the version based on how Jack White plays the riff on his guitar: I’ll give you two different finger positions for this riff so you can experiment with playing the same notes in different positions on the fingerboard. This makes his guitar sound similar to a bass. Guitarist Jack White uses a DigiTech Whammy pedal to pitch-shift his guitar tone down an octave. This song doesn’t actually use a bass (the band doesn’t have a bassist), but it’s a great bass riff for beginners to learn. You probably expected to see this song on this list as it’s such an instantly recognizable riff and very easy for beginners to learn. 15.1 Related Guides and Lessons: Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes
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