Bassplayerlive! Lessons

Sekou Bunch Sekou got the Brave Soul Award for doing Jaco’s arrangement of Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee.” These four bars occur halfway through the form, and they’re chock-full of interesting ways to get to the chord tones of the changes (Abmaj7–F7–Bb7–Bb7). The cutest turn is between bars 3 and 4, where he outlines an Em7 chord on his way to the 5th and 3rd (F and D) of the Bb7 tonal center, doing it with a flurry of triplets for extra oomph.

Jeff Berlin Jeff’s been doing his thing for so long, it’s easy to take for granted how amazingly clean and effortless his playing is. In this example, there’s nothing extraordinarily “out” or fancy, just a series of expertly crafted and musical runs in G Mixolydian under a G7 chord. Bars 5 and 6 mirror each other with arpeggios and small runs in F and G. That motif continues until he sets up the coming change in bar 9 to E major by throwing the F# in the final run, which eventually lands on the 5th, B.

Stu Hamm To pull off this Stu Hamm tapping figure, start by using your left hand to hammer on an F# “power chord” while your right hand does the lead hammering-on and pulling-off. Then, just before bar 3, do it again, but this time hammer on an E power chord with your left hand. Pay close attention to the ties in the staff and the notations in the tab, and don’t be afraid to just try it. It’s easier to play than to explain.
Billy Sheehan Eighth-note triplets at 242 bpm? This kind of speed kills most bassists, but Billy eats this stuff for breakfast. He chooses the D Phrygian mode, uses a specific fingering position (index finger on the first note, pinkie finger on the second note, then follow the tab), and then just lets it rip. Check out how he slides up into each subsequent position change. The only break in the pattern is in between bars 2 and 3, when he reverses the upward motion and goes back down for one run. The two consecutive D’s near the end of bar 2 are the giveaway.

Stanley Clarke The man of the hour showed everyone how he does it: fast, and on a signature Alembic tenor bass, tuned ADGC. The Stanley-Marcus-Victor “School Days” jam was an Em7–A7 progression, and Mr. Clarke cranked it up with this blast of deceptively varying pentatonic scales. The pickup bar is a G7 arpeggiated climb that moves quickly from low to high with the help of an open string. The first half of bar 1 is in E minor pentatonic, but it quickly shifts to A major pentatonic from beat three on through the rest of the example. Play it fast enough, and the quick jumps between G7, E, and A make it sound a little “out.”

Victor Wooten Victor’s turn at the “School Days” plate came second, and it showcased his fluid finger technique and interesting choice of rhythms. You can see in bars 1 and 2 how he starts and stops a bit, using eighth-notes and a couple of well-placed rests amidst a multitude of 16ths, before finally flooring it on beat two of bar 3. Almost the entire example is an A Mixolydian scale workout, with similar consecutive notes in unexpected places (check out bar 4, beats two and three). To top it off, Vic goes way out into quasi-half-whole diminished land in bar 4, beat four, but the way he uses slides (see the tab) is what gives this new flavor the same fluidity as the rest of the run.

Marcus Miller When Marcus’s turn came, he broke out his signature melodic slapping. This lick pretty much stays in E minor pentatonic, but as with all things Marcus, the sound and feel of his thumb is what makes it so special. Carefully note the hammer-on and thumb markings; if you’re doing it right, the 16th-note runs on beats two and three of bars 1 and 3 will roll smoothly out of your left hand, and they’ll feel really good when you finally get to pop the high E at the end of the bar.