How to Play "Come As You Are" by Nirvana on Bass Guitar
Hi, it’s Paul Wolf from how-to-play-bass.com, this is the 10th lesson of my virtual DVD on how to play the bass for beginners. Before we get started, I wanna recommend that you head over to my website, how-to-play-bass.com, don’t forget the hyphens, and sign up for the free escene. Totally free, features articles, real life bass lines for you to learn and play, other cool stuff. Okay, in today’s lesson we’re gonna learn another great tune, Come As You Are by Nirvana. Now I missed that one, Nirvana the first time around, I was going through a “cooler than you“ jazz phase, and was far more snobbish to listen to rock bass music. Let alone any grunge. Anyway, glad to say, I managed to get my head out of my ass and start listening to all kinds of music again by the mid ‘90’s. And Come As You Are was a tune that featured with the pub rock band that I played with for a couple of years. So that was great fun to play that. There’s also a PDF from my website, how-to-play-bass.com, that gives additional details, that’s got musical notation and tab and some tips on how to play this great tune. Okay, let’s get started with the verse and introduction. Now, these are comprised of a two bar riff, shall play with a metronome a couple of times, and then we’ll talk through the notes. Two, three, four… okay, now this one starts on E, which we’re gonna play at the 7th fret of the A string. And then it goes to G, which is the 5th fret of the D string. Back to E, back to G, back to E, and then down to D sharp, which is the 6th fret of the A string. Now I play that one bar section slowly. Okay, and then the second bar of the pattern is made up, starts with D, which is 5th fret of the A string, up to A, which is the 7th fret of the D string, back down to D, then it holds that second D, for half a beat, then back to the A, back to the D, and then the D sharp again which is the 6th fret of the A string. So I play that bar slowly. Okay, here’s the whole thing again slowly in context. Okay, let’s look at the chorus. Now, this is an eight bar section, again it’s comprised of a two bar pattern that’s repeated for four times. I play a couple of bars with the metronome, and then we’ll talk about it. Two, three, four… okay, so pretty much, this section is just playing root notes. Slightly didn’t, different rhythmic pattern for the two bars. The first bar drop down to the open E string and this is the rhythm. So if you’re willing to count it it’s…one, two, and three, and four, and…left to the bar of E, we go up for the bar of G, and simply we just play eighth notes all the way through. Okay, so here’s the two bar pattern, slightly slower so you can hear it. And again… and you just repeat those four bars, and that makes up the chorus. Okay, the last section is the bridge, where the lyric is no I don’t have a gun, I play with the metronome, then we’ll talk through it, two, three, four… okay, and you heard how that led back into the riff at the end of that, and I’ll just play the first three notes of the riff. Basically this eighth bar pattern is made up of four two bar section, most of which are identical. The first one starts with the open A string. So it’s open A string and then up to the B for the last note of that pattern, and the B is fretted at the 2nd fret of the A string. Then the second bar is in C, and that’s the 3rd fret of the A string, and the last two notes are B flat, which is the 1st fret of the A string, and G, which is the 3rd fret of the E string. So that pattern is, one, and two, and three, and four, and… okay, those two bars are repeated three times. Then the final two bars are almost identical, except there’s a variation in the very last bar to lead back to the riff. So the bar beginning with A is as before… then the bar beginning with C, sounds like this… and so note wise that’s, C of 3rd fret of the A string, up to D, which is the 5th fret of the A string, you should play twice. Then the very last note is the D sharp, which is the 6th fret of the A string, then that leads to the riff again. So I just play those last two bars slowly for you… etcetera, etcetera. So that’s Come As You Are by Nirvana. In the next lesson we’re gonna look at Where To Go From Here. Email me if you have any questions, and I’ll see you next time.