How To Play Bass To Let's Groove Tonight

Hi, in this video lesson we’re going to look at how to play the bass line to Let’s Groove Tonight by Earth Wind and Fire. Here is the main riff— [Demonstration] Okay the main riff, the tune is pretty straight forward. I'll play it through the metronome and we will take to the notes— [Demonstration] Okay, I'll stop the metronome. It's pretty simple riff. It starts out with the open E string— [Demonstration] Then the next note is G 3rd fret of the E string— [Demonstration] A 5th fret— [Demonstration] Back to G— [Demonstration] 3rd fret and that’s the first bar— [Demonstration] And the 2nd bar starts on F#-- [Demonstration] 2nd fret of the E string then up to B— [Demonstration] 2nd fret of the A string— [Demonstration] Open A string— [Demonstration] Back to B— [Demonstration] So— [Demonstration] And that’s it, very straight forward, very simple but it is important to get it spot on and nail it especially if your new band that learns also being covered by a keyboard player because you don’t want to play out of time or out of sync with the keyboard player or sound messy. So, that’s the first part of the song. Second part of the tune is the interlude. So, let’s go on to put that— [Demonstration] Okay, the interlude of the tune, play it through the metronome then we will talk through the notes— [Demonstration] Okay so, this starts out, this pattern obviously jumps up to a higher register. It starts out here on this A which is the 7th fret of the D string— [Demonstration] And then you’ve got a passing note A# 8th fret of the D string as you go up to B— [Demonstration] B is at the 9th fret of the D string and then down to E which is the 7th fret of the A string— [Demonstration] So those first two bars are— [Demonstration] Then those two bars, I repeated— [Demonstration] And the pattern moves up to C 10th fret of the D string— [Demonstration] Down to the lower octave of C 8th fret of the E string— [Demonstration] Then up to D 10th fret of the E string— [Demonstration] And to G which is the 10th fret of the A string. So those two bars— [Demonstration] Then you’ve got the 8th note sort of stabs which is on F# which is the 9th fret of the A string. Now, before you come to play the F# you're playing G here. You're probably fretting it with your fourth finger. What you need to do is bring your first finger up to play these 8th note sort of stabs— [Demonstration] And let’s say you're hand is ready to get fret the B 14th fret of the A string— [Demonstration] So you can get that nice little slide back into the riff— [Demonstration] So just I'll play the pattern really slowly for you again. Remember that stops out in A— [Demonstration] Those two bars repeat— [Demonstration] Back to the riff— [Demonstration] So that was Let’s Groove Tonight, very straight forward tune. The big lesson to learn from this is one of those tunes. There are lots of them in the sort of pop and rock repertoire where the bass line is an integral part of the tune and you really need to get the bass line down. Get it nailed. And if you're in a live band scenario, you need to just deliver the bass line without getting too fancy playing the basic pattern giving it some feel being the foundation stone for the rest of the band to build of. If you start varying it around too much, what you'll find happening is you might throw off some of the other people in the band. So, this is one of those tunes where you need to just stick to the essential part and deliver it bar after bar, time after time with a bit of feel and make it really happen. So, that was Let’s Groove Tonight. It's a great tune for beginners. If you are a beginner, the best way to make forward progress is to find a teacher. If you cannot find a teacher near to you, I do a series of interactive online bass lessons. There is a link in the description bar just the left of this video that you can find, you can click over there, have a look, se if that something that might be of interest to you. If it is, send me an email. If it's not, then just use this lesson to learn the tune. Well, good luck with that and I hope it helps you learn this straight forward tune.