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Paul McCartney

#46
I have to mention this because I think about it a lot and I know McCartney is especially pleased with this line. The bass line to the intro of "Michelle". The acoustic guitar has its own "bass line", starting in D minor and the root walks down a half step each quarter note. For the bass guitar part, the genius is not in what he does, but in what he DOESN'T do. He rocks this little "root-5th-octave root" up, then back down...that's it... and the beauty of it, is that it adds so much power to the acoustic guitar walk down. What I call the "less is more" genius. I think most players would have just followed/replicated the walk down, or at best, oppose it.
 
#47
Skel said:
The bass lines themselves are really not difficult to *play*
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Have you tried playing "I Saw Her Standing There" at the speed he played it? I've been playing for 30 years, and have played all kinds of challenging bass lines over the years, but I just learned it last week and it took 2 days for me to play it to speed without mistakes. It is a lot harder than it sounds. The same for "Day Tripper" if you play it the way he did. I see a lot of bass players play it in first position starting on the open E string, but he played it an octave higher at the 7th fret. That makes the fingering for it a lot harder, since you can't use open strings.

There are some McCartney lines that aren't difficult to play, but there are quite a few that are.
 
#49
Showdown said:
Have you tried playing "I Saw Her Standing There" at the speed he played it? I've been playing for 30 years, and have played all kinds of challenging bass lines over the years, but I just learned it last week and it took 2 days for me to play it to speed without mistakes. It is a lot harder than it sounds. The same for "Day Tripper" if you play it the way he did. I see a lot of bass players play it in first position starting on the open E string, but he played it an octave higher at the 7th fret. That makes the fingering for it a lot harder, since you can't use open strings.
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+ a zillion. My band plays Day Tripper (with embarrasingly bad vocals - I need to convince the other guys to drop it). I'd LOVE to sing the song, but I can't play it as Paul did and sing it. Way too hard. Remember, though, he was playing both of those songs on a 32" Hofner (Day tripper may not have been the Hof in the studio, but most definitely was live), not a 34" or 35" whatever we're playing. BIG difference, I'm not sure he would have written that Day Tripper line on a 34" bass. Most players don't play Day Tripper in the octave Paul does, they transpose it down to use lots of open strings and minimize hand position changes on the chorus. The prechorus particularly is very high on the neck if you play it like Paul, which I do.

And as I posted before, remember he played these lines and sung the songs, both of which (among others) have very challenging vocal parts as well.

"Oh! Darling" is another one that's a lot more difficult than it seems. He never plays the same thing twice. This is probably because he's just improvising over the changes in the studio, but I love the line and the way it works with the vocals so I tried to play it as on record when my old band played it. Impossible to remember.
 
#50
Showdown said:
Have you tried playing "I Saw Her Standing There" at the speed he played it? I've been playing for 30 years, and have played all kinds of challenging bass lines over the years, but I just learned it last week and it took 2 days for me to play it to speed without mistakes. It is a lot harder than it sounds. The same for "Day Tripper" if you play it the way he did. I see a lot of bass players play it in first position starting on the open E string, but he played it an octave higher at the 7th fret. That makes the fingering for it a lot harder, since you can't use open strings.

There are some McCartney lines that aren't difficult to play, but there are quite a few that are.
Click to expand...

I understand what you're saying. I've been playing "I Saw Her Standing There" for many years, and being a guitar player, using a pick, I really don't find it difficult. I love the line though, and for a guy at his young age, to be able to come up with it, play it, and sing the lyrics....that would be difficult.
 
#51
Philbiker said:
+ a zillion. My band plays Day Tripper (with embarrasingly bad vocals - I need to convince the other guys to drop it). I'd LOVE to sing the song, but I can't play it as Paul did and sing it. Way too hard. Remember, though, he was playing both of those songs on a 32" Hofner (Day tripper may not have been the Hof in the studio, but most definitely was live), not a 34" or 35" whatever we're playing. BIG difference, I'm not sure he would have written that Day Tripper line on a 34" bass. Most players don't play Day Tripper in the octave Paul does, they transpose it down to use lots of open strings and minimize hand position changes on the chorus. The prechorus particularly is very high on the neck if you play it like Paul, which I do.
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I find Day Tripper to be a lot easier to play on my Schecter Hellcat 6 (Fender Bass VI copy). It is 30" scale with very narrow (almost guitar) string spacing. For that matter "I Saw Her Standing There" is a lot easier on it too. Generally I'm playing a 34" scale Lakland JO4 though.
 
#52
Skel said:
I understand what you're saying. I've been playing "I Saw Her Standing There" for many years, and being a guitar player, using a pick, I really don't find it difficult. I love the line though, and for a guy at his young age, to be able to come up with it, play it, and sing the lyrics....that would be difficult.
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There is a clip of them playing it live on YouTube and he makes it seem effortless to play it and sing at the same time. Pretty impressive.
 
#53
Skel said:
I understand what you're saying. I've been playing "I Saw Her Standing There" for many years, and being a guitar player, using a pick, I really don't find it difficult. I love the line though, and for a guy at his young age, to be able to come up with it, play it, and sing the lyrics....that would be difficult.
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I always loved that song, but didn't PM say somewhere that he lifted the bassline note for note from a Chuck Berry track?

I think it's 'talkin' bout you' (not totally sure though). You can hear the early Beatles version on the Star Club live CD. He probably played it a million times in Hamburg, that's how he got it down cold ;)
 
#54
floopy said:
I always loved that song, but didn't PM say somewhere that he lifted the bassline note for note from a Chuck Berry track?

I think it's 'talkin' bout you' (not totally sure though). You can hear the early Beatles version on the Star Club live CD.
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I remember reading that somewhere. I'd like to hear the song to see if it is true. I guess I'll have to do search when I get home. Chuck Berry's bass player played upright at the time, so if he played that line at that speed on upright it is really impressive.
 
#55
floopy said:
I always loved that song, but didn't PM say somewhere that he lifted the bassline note for note from a Chuck Berry track?

I think it's 'talkin' bout you' (not totally sure though). You can hear the early Beatles version on the Star Club live CD. He probably played it a million times in Hamburg, that's how he got it down cold ;)
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And it turned up later (1966) on the Bobby Fuller Four's "I Fought the Law" (listen to the bass during the guitar break).

Getting back to McCartney...
I was thinking about how we get bogged down around here in the "less is more, serve the song" vs. "less is more is too restrictive and boring" dichotomy. The thing about Paul's playing is that even when he played a lot of notes (someone brought up "Nowhere Man"), each one was essential! So he transcends the argument. It's due to his amazing musicality. Jamerson was the same way. Counting the number of notes per song is irrelevant with these guys, because they're thinking as composers, not being wankers.
IMHO...
 
#57
dougjwray said:
And it turned up later (1966) on the Bobby Fuller Four's "I Fought the Law" (listen to the bass during the guitar break).

Getting back to McCartney...
I was thinking about how we get bogged down around here in the "less is more, serve the song" vs. "less is more is too restrictive and boring" dichotomy. The thing about Paul's playing is that even when he played a lot of notes (someone brought up "Nowhere Man"), each one was essential! So he transcends the argument. It's due to his amazing musicality. Jamerson was the same way. Counting the number of notes per song is irrelevant with these guys, because they're thinking as composers, not being wankers.
IMHO...
Click to expand...

+1. About ripping off the riff, McCartney quickly volunteers that he stole it (in some interview), and I thought he mentioned "Little Richard", but regardless - Paul is so humble that even if he didn't rip it off, he would say he did if anybody even began to accuse him of it.
 
#58
Showdown said:
I remember reading that somewhere. I'd like to hear the song to see if it is true. I guess I'll have to do search when I get home. Chuck Berry's bass player played upright at the time, so if he played that line at that speed on upright it is really impressive.
Click to expand...
He lifted the basic figuring of the bassline from a guitar part, not a bass part. And I, in turn, have lifted that same bass figure for an original composition by my band. Very much as an homage to Paul and his philosophy. Oh yeah, the bass part drives the song bigtime.....
 

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