👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 Want to go from rank beginner to being a competent bassist in just 21 days? Take my Beginner Bass Challenge here and get started playing - FAST:
becomeabassist.com/products/b...
►► FREE: Get the tabs, notation and practice tracks for all the Motown bass lines in this lesson → becomeabassist.com/motown-bas...
Motown Bass Lines! As a bass player, it’s hard to go past Motown and James Jamerson when talking about incredible bass lines.
In fact, some bassists get super intimidated when they get asked to play Motown bass. You end up standing in the shadows of some of the most respected and influential bassists of all time.
But playing Motown bass lines doesn’t have to be intimidating or scary. In fact, in this lesson, you’ll learn 5 beginner-friendly, entry level Motown lines that are:
► Instantly recognizable - in fact, they carry the songs entirely; and
► Also easy to learn, get your fingers around, and master
Two of these bass lines are so simple, they only use 3 notes the entire song!
If you want the tabs, notation and practice tracks from this video (including the slowed down versions to make practicing easier) and to get them all for free, make sure to head here:
becomeabassist.com/motown-bas...
Fill out the form on that page and you can download everything you see in this video. It’ll make it super easy to learn, practice, and master these Motown bass lines,
Now because of the Motown record label’s record-keeping practices, it’s not always clear which musicians ended up playing on which songs - especially if multiple people were brought in to have a pass at a song.
Sometimes three or four people would come into the Motown studios and lay down the same part for the same song. Which take ended up on the final recording? Sometimes it’s tricky to tell.
For example, on Papa Was A Rolling Stone, the bassist on the final track could have been James Jamerson, Eddie Watkins, Leroy Taylor or Bob Babbitt. In fact, Bob Babbitt talked about this on his forum back in 2008. Check out the post here:
www.bobbabbitt.com/smf/index.p...
Apparently Babbitt and Jamerson were on the same session, but Jamerson walked out because he was being asked to repeat the bass line over and over. That being said, Babbitt himself doesn’t remember this. I guess that’s what can happen when you play on as many recordings as he did.
So while Jamerson is synonymous with Motown, it’s not always certain that you’re hearing him on the Motown recordings.
No matter who is actually playing though, these Motown bass lines are a ton of fun, they’ll get people singing along and dancing and like I said, they’re easy to get your fingers around.
Good luck with the lesson and happy playing!
Cheers,
Luke
P.S. Here's that journal article I mention in the video. Super interesting look at Motown's practices that led to legal action and defamation cases over who played on what. It actually cites primary sources too: www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
[Chapters]
0:00 Intro
1:12 Motown Bass Line #1
4:06 Motown Bass Line #2
7:32 Sidenote: Motown Bass Tone
8:25 Motown Bass Line #3
11:06 Motown Bass Line #4
14:51 Motown Bass Line #5
18:07 FREE: Get The Tabs & Tracks For These Motown Bass Lines
#motown #becomeabassist #basslesson