first verse of "Thinking of you". In the absence of any tab and I can't find any youtube clips. Can any one tell me what is going on here? http://www.davethebass.com/audio/thinking.mp3

I tried playing the octaves fretting with 1st an 3rd finger and picking with 1st and 3rd but no joy. The timeing between chords in hopeless and so is the muting.

Watching clips of other songs, he seems to have played a mix of fingers and a kind of crazy brush slap style.

mY FAVORITE BERNARD SONG. Love the line, love the jam. GREAT CHORUS.

It's all mostly Roots and octaves. There's the one lick that's chromatic but other than that it's all timing.

starts in g - root, octave, root, octave, root. that's the main groove that he does. then it goes to D, then Eb and he hits a Bb and then the little lead in is a root octave thing on F.

the chorus is just Eb and Bb.

Cheers for the reply, but its not the notes. Its the fingering. Tab might help but mostly its the right hand technique that puzzles me.

Cheers for the reply, but its not the notes. Its the fingering. Tab might help but mostly its the right hand technique that puzzles me.

are you used to playing a lot of ghost notes? Bernard is ghosting before most notes and during most riffs.

i would say to really learn the line you gotta get really familiar with ghost notes and work on your rhythm. it's all about the rhythm.

I have no idea what he was doing, but I have a theory that he used his thumb for the low notes and played a sort of slap line without slapping. I've seen his use his thumb on stuff like "Dance Dance Dance" doing those octave parts. So I'd say use your thumb and first finger for the bulk of it, and do two fingers for the non-octave stuff.

As for the left hand, octaves are much easier and easier on your precious hand muscles if you use 1-4 fingering.

Rhythmically, I can't help you. You have to absorb that on your own.

It does my heart good whenever anyone discusses the late great and sorely missed, Bernard Edwards!:cool:

For years, I listened to him constantly, and he is probably a deeper an influence on me than any other too.