The way you make me feel - MJ

[wesman2232]

Ok, so I have been asked to accompany the piano in my school's Show Choir on this song.

Listening to the song, I can tell there are at least 2 "bass" parts.

There is a bass synth that I hear, and a synth keys playing some bass as well.

My question is to play one or the other or combine the two somehow. My earliest thought was to take what I hear from the song from both parts and make that my bass line, but as my ears are not fully trained yet I can not tell if it is going up the strings or in some sort of root/5th pattern.

This would be what I'm hearing mostly, but not sure of.

G|--------------
D|----3-3-3-----
A|---------------
E|--1--------1---  repeat then up a string for the other chord change

But I'm also hearing it like it goes up from the root to the 5th or whatever in steps of pitches.

Like : root, note, note, 5th, root. I'm thinking it could be like E1, A3, D1, D3 in bass notation.

I would love some help and it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[BassyBill]

Try this - it works well for me when I play it with one of my bands. I've written it in 12/8 for easier reading, but you could just as well write it in 4/4 with a triplet feel.

You're not going to get it 100% authentic as it's mainly synth on the record. I think you're right in that there does seem to be two related bass parts. One of them is pretty much all on one note, but it sounds to me like there's some rhythmic variation in it, perhaps due to filter modulation or the like from some source such as note velocity values. This is the part shown in the pic below in bars 5-8.

The rest of what you hear is shown in bars 1-4 and if you play this part for most of the song, it cops the groove just fine (sounds that way for me, anyway). I do switch to the one note pattern shown as the latter 4 bars here and there (for example, during the middle section) just to switch things around and for musical effect.

Needless to say, you need to shift these patterns up from F to Bb and C to fit with the chord changes!

I hope that's helpful.

Link Removed

 

[wesman2232]

Thanks for the help. That sounds more of what I hear

Ya, the "Bass Synth" is the one with only 1 note. While the Keys Synth set to bass has the variation in it.

Thanks again.

 

[Bob_Ross]

you need to shift these patterns up from F to Bb and C to fit with the chord changesLink Removed

Massive apologies for resurrecting a dozen-year-old thread, but I figured maybe I'd spare TB additional clutter.

I've got an upcoming gig where I have to play this tune, and either my headphones (and/or personal pitch discrimination skills) are complete crap, or else this tune is hovering somewhere between F and E natural as a tonal center!

With my bass tuned to A440 neither F nor E sounds correct when I play along with the original studio recording (downloaded from youtube). F is too sharp, E is too flat. Both just slightly.

Anyone else encounter this? If you've played this tune in the "original" key, did you play it in F or E?

Thanks.

 

[BassyBill]

According to Wikipedia, the song is in E major but recorded in F major. The version I get streaming from Amazon music is way off E and very, very close to F.

 

[JCBeard]

Bob_Ross, You’re right that it is between E and F. I suspect that it was originally recorded in E and tape was sped up during mastering. Makes it real difficult to play along with the recording and not think your way off. When we covered this song, we did it in C# to accommodate the range of the lead singer. Not many people can get up as high as where Michael hung out on a lot of recordings.

 

[AidanHampson]

My transcription for this is in E. He also played in E live, which might be a good clue??

 

[Whousedtoplay]

According to Wikipedia, the song is in E major but recorded in F major. The version I get streaming from Amazon music is way off E and very, very close to F.

I remember those days from the 80's.
It's when the Synth bass was supposed to "eliminate" the bass guitar, "Just listen to the new sounds of the synth bass."
That time, I used to "mimic" the timbre of the synth bass.
In this song, I think there are two synth bass lines or, maybe, it's just some special effects/presets on the synth bass.
One line - the bottom one - just blurs that "lowered" F, while the "top" bass-line plays a different "shuffled" phrase starting with Eb (Eb Eb Eb) - F - G and ending with F (F F F.)
It's like playing shuffled double stops: Eb/F - F/F - G/F - F/F.