[Music playing]
The next section is pretty straightforward. It’s mostly in quarter notes. I’ll play it through the metronome slowly. Let’s get the metronome going.
[Demonstration]
So let’s look at that section. Now, note-wise, again it’s fairly straightforward, so the first bar is [Demonstration] and the first three notes are E which is the 7th fret of the A string, and that note is F#, which is the 9th fret of the A string. Then you’re on to the second bar, which starts off in G. G is the 10th fret of the A string. And the fourth note of that pattern is D which is the 10th fret of the E string. So that two-bar pattern which repeats three times is [Demonstration].
Then the fourth time through, what it does is you play the E bar, you play four notes of E, and then you’ve got a two bar chromatic climb down. So you start from D, which is the 5th fret of the A string, and you go D, C#, C, B. So it’s 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd fret and you do that twice. And then the pattern will go back to the verse.
Now, I want to talk just a little bit about the time feel of this song, specifically in this part. It’s got a very strong triplet rhythm and when you play this section [Demonstration], to me, although I can hear—I really hear the triplet subdivision and if I was playing this live, I would be more tempted to play it something like this and give it a bit of just a rhythmic pickup.
[Demonstration]
And what I'm doing there is I’m playing muted notes, so I’m going [Demonstration]. So I’m playing on the last 8th note of the triplet playing a muted note, which probably won’t be heard when you’re playing live but if you’ve got a nice sound setup, people will feel the air moving from that muted note. I really like muted notes. A lot of people think muted notes are just kind of funk and soul aligned, but there are a lot of rock bass players who use muted notes as well. Rob DeLeo from Stone Temple Pilots, Geddy Lee from Rush, and it just really helps moving some air without getting in the way of the other elements that are going around.
So have an experiment with that and see what you think, see what it sounds like, see if you can get it. You basically just go [Demonstration]. Just practice getting it on the last note of that triplet and then you can just go [Demonstration]. And that really works well in this section. It just gives it a bit more—it gives the bass line a bit more rhythmic propulsion and you don’t have to leave it all to the drummer to drive everything along.
So that was London Calling by the Clash. That should give you a good idea of how to play it. There’s also—I have done a PDF for my Ezine readers. If you’re not currently an Ezine reader, you have to go to our website, sign up, and go and join. And then when you get the next Ezine, which will be the first Friday after you’ve joined, you’ll see a way of how you can get hold of the back issues of a lot of the songs that’s I’ve transcribed and put out in the notation and bass tab format. So do go and sign up for that and check that out, and you’d get free bass line every week. I hope the lesson has been useful for you. If you’ve got any questions or queries, give me a ring. I’ll see you next time.
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