Can anyone here play any motown bass lines?

The only one I know is "Wrong Forum" by you!

 

I can play most of that stuff. How easy? Well, if you have a great ear and feel, it's not hard. Now to get the same sound is a different story! You definitely have to have some funk and groove chops as well as feel.

 

I grew up listening to that stuff. It's built in at the cellular level.

 

My girl isn't that hard, I can do parts of What's Goin On, Get Ready, and a few others, the only song I've learned fully (not by memory of course) is Ain't No Mountain although I changed like 5-6notes to make it easier for me.

 

It's that 5 or 6 notes that'll take you to new places. Worth working on them with a metronome and taking the whole chart only as fast as you can make it squeaky clean through that passage. "What Is Hip" has one string crossing that limits my speed for the entire tune. When I can do that as fast as I can do anything else, I'll be able to crank on that tune at any speed I want to take it and I'll feel like I've really accomplished something.

 

Motown Bass

You didn't mention if you already play bass or are just starting to play bass for the first time. If you are just starting to play bass the Motown sound might be a little difficult to pick up. If you already play it isn't so tough. I would reccomend a book that Hal Leonard puts out named "Motown Bass". It gives you the bass lines written in notes and tab plus comes with an instructional CD. This book helped me quite a bit.

Remember the Motown Sound was all created by The Funk Brothers.

 

Thassafack. Even if you absorb all there is to get about how Jamerson constructed such beautiful lines, if you don't have a drummer who will support you as well as give you your space the way all those Funk Bros. drummers did for him, may as well hang it up for that situation.

 

Yeah! Great tune! But the odd 13/16 meter is one of the most difficult to learn!

 

How well can you read? If you can read good to great, pick up "standing in the shadows of motown" the book is loaded with grerat transcriptions of many motown classics.

There are some great CDs that come with the book. The tracks are sepatate so you can isolate the bass part from the rest of the music.

 

First off you need the right setup. P-bass, flat wounds, and a piece of foam rubber touching the strings at the bridge to act as a mute. I can't ( at least ) get that choppy funky sound without flat wounds and a mute. Next, listen and practice.

 

Yes, I can play "I Was Made To Love Her", "Bernadette", "Reach Out", and many others.

In fact, it was me who played the bass lines on all those records.

 

Wow...Mrs. Kaye, when did you move to merrie ol' England?!?!?



I made my living playing those tunes for quite a long time. Wonderful stuff, and I can't recommend a better starting place for a bassist as far as tunes to learn.

 

I can play them, I grew up with them.
I find playing the songs generally to be easy,
but I find playing Jamerson's bass lines
precisely is much more demanding.

It is certainly ok to start playing these songs in a simplified form, since you enjoy them, it will motivate you to practice regularly.

As you get better, go back to the bass lines and buff them up closer to the original lines to improve the sound.

Happy thumping!

Thor

 

Are they hard? It depends which motown artist you're talking about. Just quietly, I've had a bit of a love affair with Stevie Wonder's bass lines.

 

Challenging yourself is the only way you are going to get better, I am self taught, by all means I am not a pro but what helped me was utilizing tabliture. www.guitattabs.net www.mtxtabs.net, are just a few and you can just do a regular search and find a lot of good tab sites out there. Shoot for S & G's I think I will learn some motown to add to my arsenal, I have heard some funky bass lines from motown. But try out some of those websites there should be some stuff out there for you to learn from. There is tab on this site as well. good luck

 

Get Ready was one of the first real songs i ever learned on bass. I don't get the P-Bass w/foam mutes w/flats sound as i don't have a P-bass w/foam mutes and only 1 of my basses has flats on it. We play that song in show [pep] band all the time. It's a great one to get people motivated. Motown bass is awesome. I wish i could just get a fraction of the feel ,in which Jamerson and pardon this description but that white guy that also played Bass in the Funk Brothers have. Motown is a great place to learn about bass lines. That's all

 

Looks like I'm partway there! 5 month old flats on a P/J bass! All I need now is the foam...and the ability to play that stuff. *sigh*