 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this bass guitar lesson, we are going to look at one of my favorite artists of all time, the king of pop, Michael Jackson. And we are going to study five of his bass lines or guitar riffs if you want to call them that. I don't know how it could have originated, maybe a bass guitar or a guitar. Nevertheless, I'm going to show you what the bass guitar is playing and a few variations here and there to make it easy for some of you who are starting off and also a few variations to make it more interesting for those of you who have been playing the bass for a while. And if you are a piano player or if you play any other instrument, you could still follow along because you can learn a lot more concepts than just how to play it on the bass guitar. You can learn about some theory, why they composed it like that, how to count it, how to transcribe it, all of this will be covered. So five MJ riffs stick around till the very end because all of his hit songs are going to be covered. In fact, you can see them in the chapter markers and if you'd like to start with your favorite head over to that chapter marker, but I'd encourage you to watch through the lesson first fully, understand it, digest it and then you can always use the chapter markers in the description. And we cover a lot of song tutorials on the bass. So we've put together a nice playlist. You can see that also in the description. So there's quite a bit to learn even after this lesson. If you've just stumbled on this video as a first timer to our channel, do consider subscribing to the channel. It will mean a lot for the, for us to move through the YouTube algorithm ecosystem. And it'll also allow you to access the lessons, the new ones, whenever we update them, which we do quite often on our channel. So and hit the bell as well, that'll help. And like all of my lessons, I supplement them with handwritten notes as well as notation, bass guitar tabs, more specifically as well as notation will be available for this lesson available on Patreon.com slash Jason Zach. So do head over there and for $5 a month, you'll get all that I do, all the supplementary notation, MIDI, backing tracks, pretty much anything to help support the learning of this lesson in a very detailed way, just like a normal lecture you would have from, you know, a teacher if you go to. So let's get cracking with five of the top baselines, at least which I think of the great Michael Jackson. So let's see how it goes starting with beat it. So with beat it, I'm going to first start off now, a lot of these songs are tuned in a very weird way. So I don't know if it's Eve, it's E flat or somewhere in between they detune it kind of deliberately because back in the day, I guess people were copying a lot of songs and looks like things have not changed much today as well. So I'm going to teach you since it's such a great baseline, I'm going to teach you in two positions. First of all on E, open E and then I'm going to teach you on what I think is the original key which is actually E flat. So most videos I find also on YouTube, they teach us on E. I would like to teach you also on E flat because I'll allow you to understand your intervals and play away from the known notes like the open fret and at least the first four or five frets which we are generally comfortable with. So beat it in E position or in open position will go something like and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. The first thing I'd like to point out is there's a pickup. It doesn't start at the one of the bar. It starts at the end of the four and we are dividing the beat into two equal units. It's straight. It's not swinging, it's straight. So the first one is not at the on beat, it's at the off beat. So before one we preceded with that one and two and three and four and one and two and three and it's very important to know and count four before you even start the music. So one and two and three and four and at the end of the four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three. I'm super imposing the beat divisions one and two and three and four and with the actual bass line. So you get an idea of where it's placed. You can also see the notes to show you exactly one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. So there's small variations in the bass line but it's just the second time it's easier than the first time because we don't play that last D okay. So let me break that down very slowly for you. We'll start at the end of the four and two and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two very slowly. So open E, G, B, open G, E, you could even fret the G if you wish. It's more convenient I guess then you don't have to worry about ringing or I could even hammer on to that F sharp and watch out this watch for the staccatos. I like that muted feel there. I like hammering you could try it if you wish or so open D or fretted D you can play that with your pinky there'll be a little bit more of a stretch so take a call depending on your level or fluency with these things on your instrument one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four one and two and three and four and one and two with some more opens. So we can even play beat it on the key of E flat now E flat is a bit tricky to play around the first few frets even though this is E flat but I choose to play E flat on the 11th fret because I think it's a bit more ergonomic so now you need to know your intervals the first thing I'd like you to form is a minor chord from E flat which is E flat minor the chords in fact of the song are E flat minor and then D flat major then E flat minor again okay E flat minor you're highlighting that with your bass so root minor third perfect fifth at this range of the bass I prefer to go in an intervillic way one minor third perfect and then you go that's a that's your minor third up top this is the shape for that so everything is with respect to the root this is the minor third close to the root is the perfect fifth with respect to the root this is the minor third but played up top we also call that a minor 10th and then we go octave this is also called as the third position of playing the scale I like to just call it as the pinky position because your your root is starting off with the pinky you start playing your position has the pinky wall as I like to call it here so now that's how you fret it okay it ends with a minor seven one more time three four and you stop there on the D flat which is the minor seven so again I'm calling out the intervals for you guys one two okay one and two and three and four and one minor third perfect fifth higher minor third root or octave okay and then what's that that's a ninth or the major second played up an octave again okay and the fingers I hope you're figuring that out through watching now you could continue to do that hammer on I like to sometimes even bend that okay so that's the beat it baseline let's move into song number two I guess the next most famous or maybe this is more famous than beat it I don't know really okay so let's now tackle Billy Jean MJ song number two so it's on the key of F sharp you could argue F sharp minor or natural minor and it's just one recurring shape it's just eighth notes no gaps one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and something like okay now in the original what happens is there are two two F sharp bases arguably one being a synth base or maybe both being a synth base but I find it very difficult to play both F sharps together so I'd leave it to you you can either do the high F sharp first which is on the on the fourth fret of the D string and come down and it's just these this block of notes see so F sharp C sharp E natural F E C sharp B C sharp bum bum bum but how I like to play it also is to start with that lower F sharp it kind of adds the bite so root fifth minor seventh octave minor seventh perfect fifth perfect fourth perfect fifth so this is how I played you could use your pinky for these notes you could use your index finger for these notes index finger pinky finger there so don't hammer anything pluck everything you can even start from the top if you feel your wrist stretching out a bit you can head over to the ninth fret of the A string you'll find the F sharp right here waiting for you you just can't get the low F sharp anymore but it still works very easy to play at least for me and I think yeah you'll find a much lesser stretch than here if you want to get those notes smoother I would recommend moving your wrist as well don't keep your wrist very stuck on the base move your wrist and for more power the thumb can push into the base more to allow you to not you know or to prevent you from buzzing the notes if you push your thumb your your fretting thumb it can get you to play lot more strong and a lot more clean okay so that's Billy Jean quite an easy song actually not if you play this for the whole song but still yeah all the best with Billy Jean now song number three smooth criminal smooth criminal is basically on again it's a bit weird with the tuning but I'm going to assume it's on the key of A minor and show you from an open A so it's almost the baseline of smooth criminal is almost the same as what Michael Jackson is singing isn't it but you don't do the vocal copying exactly you hold your ground and again it starts off in a very offbeat one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and what's very interesting about this baseline pretty much like all the MJ baselines we are going to learn and already have learned with beat it and so on would be that the start of the line is generally at a pickup it's at in this case the and of the four so one and two and three and four and one right one and two and three and four and one and two and three but we have to divide the beat into four equal units because there's a lot of 16th note information there's a lot of notes happening at the ease and the earth and a four and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a one and a two and a three and a four and you see you have you have fours you have ones you have ends but you have a lot of ease and earth as well so we are dividing by four and see the grid which I've written it shows you exactly where the beats are circled and it's pretty much two bars of info which you have to just keep copying but start at the end of the 40 let me play it once I'm starting with open a three and four and start with one and two and three and four and one that's the loop two three again stop and try to stop whenever you think the snare drum is there in the song which is generally at the twos and the fours and three and a four and a one also where Michael Jackson probably says all those fancy sounds which you hear from him along with his singing which I have no clue how any of that works two three now you're playing open a so it's very important to to mute it pump pump so be able to mute it with the fretting hand the left hand in my case you can also mute it with your right hand itself just play the the index and use your middle to mute so you get a nice staccato vibe and when you need to open you sound really nice versus you can get a lot of vibes of the song okay so that smooth criminal again the notation is there do consider downloading it so song number four given to me you may be thinking huh it doesn't have a popular like a catchy bass line but it's one of my favorite songs and you hear it being played on the guitar so I thought I'll give you like a guitar bass hybrid for given to me to give you like the bass notes as well as the guitar part so it'll be a nice accompaniment you can do if you're covering this song so given to me basically is emulating the vocal line so you're going to figure out a way to play that tune pretty much that and then try and add the bass ingredients and also try to bring in the guitar which I think is really cool so start with your pinky on the 12th fret of the E string this will sound nice I think first of all the chords are given to me okay now I'm going to start it off on the 12th fret so first let's get that going e b perfect fifth little bit of a jump one more time slowly same finger for for the fifth as well as the higher octave so I'm trying to make it a point to mute my my notes as I go along I don't want the low end ring of the open strings so I try to mute it as much as possible with my picking hand so just to show you again see I'm using my thumb to kind of anchor as well as mute so it really helps with the random rings which tend to happen with at least newer players so let's get that done and mind you I sometimes mess it up myself the fifth you skip the A string and then voyage towards the D string octave and again okay and the second line or the second cycle you can do what Michael Jackson does which is anticipate the melody if you wish otherwise keep it going the same way or you can anticipate here and there or normal there we have it that's given to me so I've saved probably the best for last which is bad and that's I guess the easiest of the lot you can start it off on A minor and it's just open A in the beginning I'll play it for you not that you need to know it must have already heard this song but so it's sort of like a Dorian song A minor D major which is the one minor go heading over to the four major you know I'm bad I'm bad so what am I doing there I'm doing the open A fretting on the third fret the C A C D open D tritone which is D sharp also known as E flat and then ending with the E which is the second fret of the D string let's do that again A C D tritone E and the reason being that's a bit faster the reason being because the tritone is like a very chaotic note if you ring it for too long right so A C D pass to the five so that's an eighth note cluster there A C D so now they don't carbon copy the riff it's not pa instead it's root will delay itself to the end you know I'm bad Right guys, so we have learnt 5 of at least my favourite Michael Jackson riffs of all time. If you would like me to cover any more Michael Jackson riffs or anything else which are cool bass riffs or lines which you would like to learn do leave them in the comments and thanks a ton for watching this video, do give the video a like and a thumbs up if you like the lesson of course do consider heading over to our Patreon page for Notations, MIDI and my handwritten notes for every one of these 5 bass lines which we've learnt and not only for this tutorial for everything we've done in the past and what we are going to do in the future. On our YouTube channel if you are a new viewer or a new subscriber I hope you can hit that subscribe button as well soon or maybe now. Basically you'll get a lot of learning resources on our Patreon channel to help supplement the learning and I also teach piano as some of you already know I also do teach music theory, year training, composition, production and a bunch of other stuff. So if you like what you learn do consider being a part of our channel leave us a comment like I said earlier and I will catch you in the next lesson. Cheers!