free jam tracks - brought to you by nick cresswell

Play Bass Funk 02

08 E Funky Hotdogs No Bass mp3 wma
Time/size: 5 mins 09 secs/7.09mb
Funk jam track: Funken it up in C (114 beats per minute/bpm)
Backing track instruments:electric guitar and drums
Progression: I, iii, IV over the 1st 4 bars and then it goes to the V, IV and plays the iii-IV part again. The chords are simple power chords: E5, G#5, A5 and B5.
Suggestions: I'm just playing octaves the whole way through on the bass part for this track. You can listen to the bass I put down for it on play-guitar-funk-02. So I'm playing octaves for the chords E, G and A over the first 4 bars and then B, A, G# and A over the second 4 bars.

This is what I am playing over the first 4 bars (I am play it 4 times over the 4 bars):
G|------------------------
D|----2---------6-----7--
A|------------------------
E|--0----0---4----5------

Then I am playing this over the last 4 bars:
G|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D|-----9------------9---------7------------7---------2--------6-----7-----2--------7----7--
A|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E|--7-----7--7--7------7--5-----5--5--5------5--0-----0--4-----5-----0-----0--5-----5---

I am using my thumb to slap the E string and popping the D string with my index finger. This is slap funk bass 101. I am not a very good slap player - in fact it's fair enough to say that my slap playing sucks. But that is ok - I'm just starting out with it. You should aim to be able to play the above better than I am on the track on the guitar page which has bass on it. See how you go with it.

The theory I put up on this site is for beginner to intermediate players - if you want more advanced theory you should find a good teacher in your area and get stuck into the good stuff. Even if you can only afford to get 1 or a few lessons, you will always learn something off a good teacher. If you can't get to a good teacher then try and jam with other musicians, look up things on the net and read the same information from different websites. The more views you take in the more chance you have of working things out for yourself. Music theory is not right or wrong - it's just theory - you ear is a much better indication of what music is right or wrong. Take everything with a grain of salt - including this.

Tower of Power - What Is Hip 1973