Daily Licking 031: Bass Line for Chorus 5 & 6 of Mr. P.C.

Well, caught up with the tenor solo finally, both are all the way up to chorus number 6.

This bass line keeps getting more and more interesting, this guy is just as nuts as Coltrane. Let us examine these next 24 measures.

Janek Gwizdala - Practicing and 'Traffic' improvisation

Someone suggest Janek improvise to the idea of traffic...its pretty amazing what he does with the looper and just his bass.

Janek Gwizdala Clinic from TC Electronic

Here is one of three or four awesome clips from a clinic Janek must have done recently in Dublin or the UK where he is traveling these days.

Check him busting out some sick Benson licks and singing what he plays.

In this clip he discusses singing what you play and how it helps. Check out the three of four other clips of the same clinic at the TC Electronic Channel on You Tube.

Daily Licking 030: Bass Line for Chorus 3 & 4 of Mr. P.C.

Two more choruses, (chori?) coming at you and guess what, this guy breaks the rules too.

To B natural

Some funny things start happening in these two choruses, and I don't mean funny ha-ha.

For one, a suspicious number of b naturals start showing up in the bass line. I think he is in cahoots with Mr. Coltrane. Up until this chorus, he would play B flats, but what do you think, do you think he and Coltrane got together beforehand and agreed to do this? Or do you think that now that he is three choruses in, and Mr. P.C. has heard Coltrane go all honey-badger bananas and spray B naturals everywhere, so him and his radar ears just said "Oh it's like that, huh? Okay, it's on!" and started throwing natural sevenths into the bass line as well. That is a bass player that is listening, right there.

Daily Licking 029: First Two Choruses of Bass on Mr. P.C

More bass this time, once I started I couldn't stop myself, so maybe we will catch up with the tenor solo and do the bass line up to chorus six as well.

Walking? More like running.

At this tempo it is more like a sprint than a walking bass line. But, just like Coltrane, does P.C care? Of course not. Let's see how he attacks this thing at a tempo this crazy.

Flea Can Run A Marathon?

Apparently he can. Or at least he is gonna try. Glad to hear he is talking better care of himself these days, then uh, maybe he did, before, in the old days. Awesome.

He is going to run in The L.A. Marathon and do it for a really great cause, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, which gives free music lessons to over 250 low-income kids. It looks like maybe this is something he helps fund or is definitely involved in somehow, which is very cool.

He is offering a free signed RHCP book to the first 50 folks that donate $45.00 to his running team.

All in all, pretty cool. In an era of musicians that are maybe a little too full of themselves and are more interested in discussing how unfair it is to have to sleep on fur pillows, it is cool that Flea is working so hard to help kids get into music and offer his talent and passion to the project.

Here is the link where you can read about more of it and contribute:

http://www.crowdrise.com/teamsilverlake/fundraiser/flea

Freaky Styley is one dang awesome bass record. It was earlier in the RHCP's career, so if you are not familiar with the Chili Peppers before they became mega-mega rock stars check out that record for, in this bassos opinion, Mr. Flea's best playing.

That record shows just how truly funky Flea is. Go get it if you don't believe me. Check out, Jungle Man, American Ghost Dance, Freaky Styley(for some very funky double stops), and of course, Black Eyed Blonde.

Bass Player Magazine's Free Lesson Issue Online

Bass Player Magazine has posted a compendium of a bunch of lesson articles they have published over lo' these many years and bundled it up into something called "Play Bass!". How exciting. The cool thing is they are apparently giving it away.

BUT... it uses this overly cutesy magazine metaphor which is, frankly, kinda lame. It is rare for a real life metaphors to work on the Internets, but they went and did it anyway, curled page corners and everything.

So, um, instead here is a direct link to the 18MB pdf version so you don't have to use Adobe Air (which is a tool of Satan himself) to read the articles and flip imaginary pages.

There are some really good lessons in there from John Goldsby, Flea, Steve Swallow, Ron Carter, and they have the Victor Wooten Open-Hammer-Pluck thing too, so all the kids should love that. It's a nice little file to have around for reference, if I do say so. And I say so.


http://pages.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/bp_playbass/offline/newbay_bp_playbass_pdf.zip

Daily Licking 028: Bass Line For Head to Mr. P.C

A brief respite from the tenorisms of Mr. Coltrane for today.

Rather we shall take a look at what the songs name sake, Mr. Paul Chambers, is doing down there at over 200 bpm while Coltrane is busy abusing those poor chord tones.

So, below are the first two choruses of the bass line, the one played during the melody of Mr. P.C.