How to Play Bass Line to London Calling - Part 1

Hi. It’s Paul from how-to-play-bass.com, another in my series of bass lines, showing you how to play bass lines to songs. Today’s song is going to be London Calling by The Clash. Now, this was suggested by one of my Ezine readers, a guy called Yanic in Canada. So this is especially for you Yanic. I hope you enjoy it. I will send you a high definition version too, as we discussed. This song is sort of easy but it’s got some things that are quite tricky in it. It’s got some slides and because there’s quite a fast trip at rhythm going through it, and it’s got a swing feel that can be quite difficult to get a hold of to get a handle of if you’re used to playing more straight eight rock rhythms. So it’s a good tune to have a look at because it’s got this very well-known slide, very distinctive at this in-turn and the out turn of the tune, plus it’s got this triplet rhythm, although it doesn’t sound like a sort of bluesy rock thing which a lot of triplet things in rock tend to do, so a very worth for some take, get under your belt and have a play with. Let’s go over to the lesson. First section is the intro. [Demonstration] Okay. The intro into London Calling is fairly straightforward. It’s two bar pattern that’s repeated a couple of times but it’s got that really distinctive slide in. I’ll play with the metronome then I’ll talk through the notes. [Demonstration] Okay. So if you’re following on with the counting, you saw that the first note actually comes in on beat four, and that starts with B, which is the second fret of the A string, and then it slides up. And that note there is E, which is the 7th fret of the A string. So it’s [Demonstration] and that pattern is from the E. It’s then a triplet which the notes are G, E, G, and they’re fretted 10th fret of the A string, E back at the 7th fret of the A string, G back to the 10th fret of the A string, then up to C which is the 10th fret of the D string. So I’ll play that pattern B without the metronome but the beat is nice and slow. [Demonstration] And then, the next pattern is identical except instead of going up to the C here, the 10th fret of the D string, you go C here, which is the 3rd fret of the A string. So I’ll play the two bar pattern. [Demonstration] Okay, so that’s the pattern. The important thing on this pattern is to really get that slide sounding strong and also it slides into beat one of the start of the two bar patterns, so that’s got to be quite strong. So you could play it and just—you notice I took my hand away there. You could play it and just let this slide sound. But I think it sounds better to slide and then play when you get to beat one. So you slide up. [Demonstration] The verse is a four-bar pattern that’s repeated four times. I’ll play with the metronome a couple of times, then we’ll talk about it. [Demonstration] Note-wise, it’s pretty simple. The first bar starts on E. Now I’m fingering A with the third finger, or you could use the fourth finger and then go over the top for the fourth above, we’ll do that in a second. So E, 7th fret of the A string we should play twice, and then that little run there starts off on B, which is the 7th fret of the E string, A at the 5th fret of the E string twice, and B again which is again the 7th fret of the E string. [Demonstration] So that little run with the B down to the A and back to the B is present in most of the bars. So that’s the first bar. The second bar is identical except, instead of playing E twice at the start of the bar on beats one and two, you’re playing F. And F you find at the 8th fret of the A string, so here’s the first and the second bars. [Demonstration] So the only note that’s different is the F; the second part of the pattern is the same. [Demonstration] Then it goes down to G, the third bar, and it plays G twice. Again, it plays the same run. And then, the fourth bar, you get the variation in that run. It plays the G twice again and then it just has the B, which is the 7th fret of the E string just as a little pickup note before it goes back to the E. So I’ll play the whole four bars really slowly. [Demonstration]