Paul Wolfe: Hi, this is Paul Wolfe from How-To-Play-Bass.Com here. This is a quick video lesson on how to play Sting's bassline on the tune "The Bed's Too Big Without You" which is from the Reggatta de Blanc album and of course was done by The Police. This lesson is for beginners and a quick word before we carry on, if you are a beginner, the quickest way for you to make progress forward, get better quickly, if to take lessons with the teacher. I heartily recommended it. If you can't find a teacher locally to you, I do a specific program of bass lessons for beginners and they are online, they are interactive. You get an assignment at the end of each lesson which you have to film and upload for me to critic, before we move on to the next lesson. There is more info on my website. There is a link just to the left of the video here which would take you straight to the page with information on it. So if you are interested in having lessons, hop over there, have a look. if anything that might be of interest to you use the contact form on the website and let me know and maybe we can hookup.
Let's move on with the lesson. "The Bed's Too Big Without You", as is said is a great song for beginners. What's good about it is what's interesting about it is the rhythm. This is a bassline where the bassline doesn't start on the one of the bar. So you got to watch for that. There is only two parts to it. So it's fairly very straight forward. Once you mastered both parts, you pretty much got the tune down and then it's just a question of playing through the tune. So another one of those tunes where there is no scope or there is no room for changing or throwing in variations to the stuff like that. The bassline is very much kind of is a glue between hard line and the drum line and if you try changing it round; song kind of loses its shape. But it's a good discipline to learn a line and be able to deliver it consistently through a tune. There is lot of tunes that has bass players we called upon to play. If you ever get to be in a gigging band or a working band where you just got to get the bassline, deliver it, deliver it with groove and conviction and flair and feel and took this is a good song you can use to start working on, mastering a line and then just delivering it through the tune. So, let's go and have a look at the first part of The Bed's Too Big Without You.
Okay, the verse is pretty simple. I got to mention I am going quite slowly. I talked about the rhythm being slightly unusual. It starts on beat 2, 3, 4. I'll play one more time. Okay this is a lot of space in this line. Note wise it's pretty simple. You play four notes here which is E second fret of the D string. So the next two notes are B second fret of the A string and the last two notes of the pattern of G the third fret of E string and the open E string. If you know anything about triads, that's an E minor triad try going from the octave. You got octave fifth minus third root and then you got a whole bass of space before you come back in. So, it's pretty straight forward and you got to get that rhythm and when you play along with the song you just have to listen carefully, so that you know where you are coming in and make sure you are copying what's Sting is playing. But that's really the verses are all, that patten, no variations just get it nailed, nicely and solidly and then the only other pattern in the song is chorus.
The Chorus is fairly straight forward as well, but again it's got an interesting offbeat rhythm. It starts on the end of B 1, 2, 3, 4, 1. This fret starts on B, playing here, the seventh fret of the E string. So you go from B and notes of B, D which is the fifth fret of the eighth string E, seventh fret of the A string G which is the fifth fret of the D string back to A, back to D, Back to A, open E sting. So it's B, D, E to on G, E, D to on A, open E string. And also the other thing and this goes for the first part as well. The open E string you need to mute as it doesn't stay ringing and you need to do with your right hand or your left hand depending on which kind of system you are most comfortable with. I use left hand muting for this, so all I do is literally just touch the string with my hand like that and I just mute it. must be careful not to touch it to hard otherwise you will hammer no tone and in contact to it. If that kind of a fret, just try to mute it to create some even more space in the bassline and that's pretty much to it. It's just the question of getting those two parts down, putting them together and playing along with - and The Police.
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