Help double-check this (one bar) transcription, please

[Toronto Bassist]

Yup, just one bar, a vamp by Jaco from Teen Town off one of the "Live in New York" CDs. I want to make sure I have it right, though, because if it's the way I think it is, the fingering will take a bit of getting used to.

Here's an excerpt at normal speed:

http://www.vaughn-s.net/ttfast.mp3

And here's an excerpt slowed down to about 100 bpm:

http://www.vaughn-s.net/ttslow.mp3

And here's what I think the notes are:



If anyone could help me out, it'd be greatly appreciated!

[fettbass]

Well this will be rather hard for me to communicate without writing it down, but i'll try and say what i'm hearing from the sample, and how I would notate it. Those first 3 E's that you have notated as a gallop, I would notate as 3 16ths (not a triplet). The next interval you have notated, a minor third, I just don't hear, I hear a chromatic walkup to an f sharp, which then pops up to the b.

So the grouping for the first 2 beats would be, 3 es ( 16th notes) , an f 16th note (that's beat 1), an f sharp 16th note, a b 16th note, then another fsharp 16th note.it ends on a b 16th note, an octave down which is tied into the next beat, which is another grouping of 4 16ths.

The next two beats would be: B an octave lower ( that 16th tied over from measure 2), for a 16th, then another 16th b , followed by 2 16ths on c#and d . and for the 4th beat, it would be 4 16ths, pedalling back to the lower b. (16th note grouping of f#, b,f,b) . Sorry i don't have a scanner, and can't just write it down, but that's what i'm hearing, although i might be completely wrong. You'd also be in the key of B minor, which has 3 sharps, the only accidental played in this example would be the f natural. Sorry if this doesn't help, and sorry for describing it so stupidly.

[Toronto Bassist]

Thanks for the input! I'll try it out with the song and see how it matches.

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

He doesn't play it exactly the same every time but to my ears, the basic version (and the way I'd play it) is this:



Sometimes he replaces the sixteenths on the third beat for a slide (he obviously was playing his fretless on this tune) like this:



Hope this helps.

P.S.: Don't forget that the third 16th on the last beat is an E sharp. It could be written as an F natural but since that E sharp is already on the first beat, I preferred to leave it the same on the last beat for avoiding confusion (E# and F natural on the same measure). The last sixteenth note of the vamp is an open E natural, of course.

[Toronto Bassist]

Thanks a lot! Jaco's note choices were kinda tricky to figure out although his playing is ultra precise. This will give me something to work on for sure.

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Actually, I'd play it like this:



It's definitely my style and the neck area that I absolutely feel more comfortable, but it sounds "boomier" than on the first version. Of course it can be compensated with amp and/or bass EQ, but I've always felt that another key to Jaco's signature tone (aside from his fingers, solo bridge pickup, amp and strings) is that he mostly chose the "clanginess" of the thinner strings over the "boominess" of the heavier ones. So that's why I first wrote the tab starting on the D string.

Another example of this is "The Chicken": He always played the riff starting with the Bb on the A string, first fret, then the open D and so on (an example here) but my first instinct is definitely to play it starting with the Bb on the E string, 6th fret, then the D on the A string, 5th fret, and so on.

[Jefenator]

This is my best take (haven't had my coffee yet).

[Toronto Bassist]

Thanks for all the help guys. When I first heard it, the shape of the notes really eluded me and I'm normally not too bad at transcribing. The fingering for my original idea would've been pretty awkward at high speeds...also the right version, as noted, works better when transposing to other keys.

It's a great riff, and as you can hear, makes for a great jam session! I would've posted the whole thing, but figured that invite copyright angst.