Bassline for Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" (w/ unison riff in slow motion)

Hi again. As usual, I'm taking advantage of my vacation time to create new material.

This time, I'm honoring a request that many friends have sent to me: The bassline for Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke". I know the song from long ago, but never played it before. Very cool and fun line! I had a great time transcribing and learning it. I want to take a minute to talk about a couple decisions I made before recording:

1. The instrument: Basically, I wanted a passive bass for this and that's why I didn't use the Bongos or the Steinberger. My wish was to use the Peavey T-40 for this, but it needs a fret leveling in the high register (which is definitely needed here). So, the Rickenbacker was the chosen one because of that.

2. Detuning: There are some points in this line in which a low D# can be heard as a quick passing note. I don't see the point of detuning just the E string for playing a note that can barely be heard (again, a passing note), so I guess the bass that Nathan Watts used for this recording was tuned (low to high) D# - G# - C# - F#. Can't confirm that, but anyway I decided to follow my guess, so that's why you'll see that I'm playing the song in C major but it sounds in the original key of B major. Playing it that way, it becomes very evident (for the player) that the open A and D strings were also used to play quick passing notes. But a minor problem appeared, since the Rickenbacker 4003 has 20 frets: The unison line with the horn section reaches a high D#, which wouldn't be a problem if the bass were in standard tuning (that's precisely the highest note that can be found on a 20-fret fingerboard). But having it detuned, an extra fret is needed to get that note, so I had to bend the G string to sound a semitone above the pitch at the 20th fret. Nothing difficult, but anyway an example of why I'm not a fan of fingerboards with less than 24 frets (playing 4- and 5-string basses exclusively, as in my case).

At the end of the video, you'll see the bass-horns riff played at 75% and 50% of the actual speed. Hope this new release will help whoever wants to play this cool song but doesn't know where to start. Stay tuned to my blog for the transcription:

http://alvabasstuff.blogspot.com/

Thanks for watching! :=)

P.S.: Sorry for the constant light reflex on the bass' upper horn. Only noticed it after the video was done.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Sir
• Duke
• Stevie
• Wonder
• Nathan
• Watts
• Bassline
• Playalong
• Motown
• Rickenbacker
• Ric
• 4003
• Bass
• Alvabass

[s4001]

what do you use to slow the tracks down?

[Alvabass]

@s4001: Thank you for your comment! Any audio editor can perform that task. Sometimes I use Adobe Audition, sometimes Sony Sound Forge.

[ninelevelsdeepful]

omg your amp is so smooth. what kind is it?

[Alvabass]

@ninelevelsdeepful: Thank you for your comment! The sound you hear is the line signal of my Kustom KBA30 practice amp pluged to my sound card's auxiliary input.

[hentajus]

a rickenbacker and a motorhead shirt? Lemmy fan? :)

[Alvabass]

@hentajus: Motörhead rules! :^)

[JujiSmurf]

3:05

[MrToxodeath]

a la madre tocas bien cabron ajaj

[KiRiMa64]

Groove on! This is going on my must learn list!

[hiphopsucks96]

spot on! yes, nathan watts plays his bass tuned a half step down, due to the fact that it feels much looser, and may make his high action more bearable :P great observation on ur part!

[theresurrectionnnn]

I did this with a tab. OH MY GOD. Too bad I never saw this video. :( I still can't do the ending licks though. However, I finally figured out the intro (I know the bass doesn't play, but its still fun). No offense to you, though, nobody posted a vid about that part. Oh and yeah ditto IneffableAnalogy.

[IneffableAnalogy]

That was spot-on perfect and your tone is ridiculous. That slowdown at the end really helped me nail the parts I was having trouble with. Thanks for posting, and keep up the excellent work.

[tjruler102]

@Funkdizzleification o..k