 Hi guys this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson we are going to learn one of the most popular and iconic bass lines of all time by the incredible soul funk band Chick and the bass line is good times from the album Risk. So we are going to learn this bass line like how a piano player should play it. The left hand will take up that duty as you saw in the intro video while the right hand needs to do something. So the right hand could end up playing a melody or I've kind of pulled out what the piano player has ended up playing in the actual song and we'll do that in the right hand and the left hand will be what the bass guitar is doing. So it's essentially going to be like a two instrument rendition the bass guitar in your left hand and your chord pattern with a nice lick here and there with some good octave passages in the right hand. So if you have never heard this song before I suggest you do it's an incredible song and if you are not so keen on this specific song even that is fine this is going to really boost your hand independence capabilities and like I always say in my YouTube videos wherein we have a lot of bass lessons since I'm also a bass player and I love bass lines in general you'll realize that when you play a bass line on the piano it's among the toughest things you'll ever do on the piano they're really really incredible challenges to to give yourself as an instrumentalist right. So let's get cracking before we do just a few things the entire notation for this including my handwritten notes are available and waiting for you on our Patreon page for just five bucks a month and if you'd like to bump up that subscription you can even do workshops with me in person regularly monthly and you also get other video resources and learning material. So patreon.com slash Jason Zach is where you could head over and support us it would also be nice if you can hit that subscribe button and that bell icon for regular notifications and you're never going to miss our latest content. So let's get cracking first of all with the bass line it's on a 16th note grouping or a 16th note time division if you will so to count it it'll be nice if you can go one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a that's how you generally sing out or chant out 16th notes and the bass line is what we are going to learn first then I'll show you the chords with the bass line and then the piano licks which are very unique to the song okay so the bass line goes pretty much like sort of similar to another one by it's the dust but there's a lot more okay so that's a lot going on let me break that down first of all three is at one two three so you can go one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a then at the uh of the four you need to play another e so one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a one e and a one the second bar you're going to strike at the e of the one so let's do bar one sneaking into bar two slightly one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a one e and a one e okay e and e and of bar two okay okay then okay so what is happening there so just on the beat with the and of course G A B C sharp D E A okay and the chords for this particular song if you ask me are outlined as you could say E minor seventh and then A 11th or G over A or you can also look at it as an A 13th or an F sharp minor with an A in the bass so um these are the chords so E and A are your bass hits or your bass roots or chord roots if you will and let's walk you through that again and these chords or this chord progression and the entire scale in total could be considered as the E Dorian scale which is E F sharp G A B C sharp D E it's not E natural minor which has the flat six it's not E harmonic minor which has a flat six and a raised or a normal seven not that it's a natural or a normal six major sixth flat seven very nice scale for soul and rnb music and even funky music you'll find the dorian scale used a lot so here goes it'll be okay let's get it till there and then we are going to talk about the A chord and its embellishments so E E E E four E and a one E and two E and a three E and a four E and a so from the two it's quite easy two and a three E and a four E and a and a so then the E of the four of bar two will anticipate the four major the four chord or the four dominant chord which is what the dorian gives us so so one more time the whole story so i'm crossing my hand after my thumb with the middle finger and there's a double root or double E so okay and then it goes very similar to how you played E but then the A would be played the first A of the A chord will be at the A of the four just preceding the third bars one so then so three of the A's so and you come back to A really quickly let's get that lick only again so it starts off at the A of the four so and then the last part where he goes pump pump pump now this F sharp G is more like a slide he kind of goes but then he kind of slides it on the guitar but it sounds weird to play just F sharp on the piano so i'm going pump pump pump okay now with the chords there are just two chords you could play and kind of it'll work for the track so you can play E minor voiced like this a kind of a rootless voicing without the E because the root is anyway very prominent in the left hand so hold that down you would kind of play the same chord or you can like that chord so i'm voicing it as C F sharp A so that's A major with a 13th in there or a major 6th we could look at it as F sharp minor in its second inversion with an A major or A root in the bass so whole thing and that's your B D G in the right hand voicing hold it next now let's dive into the lick played by the piano player or the keyboard player now before i come to the lick it'll be if you read sheet music or if you like to use midi we have this waiting for you on our patreon especially my hand written notes which is also there and that shows you the exact hit points of what i'm playing the chords the voicing and so on and the sheet notation is available as a pdf download so you may want to check that out on our patreon and learn with me because the lick is going to get a bit more specific okay let me now move into the lick and finish our arrangement off of playing good times okay there's a nice kind of a slide a very country idea so you whack the chord with the bass at the beginning but instead of holding it as a semi-brief you add this phrase one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a e and of the three and a will be you do d g together and then slide that d to e so one e and a two e and a three and a four e of the four okay first beat will be the entire chord and you need to hold it with your right hand you can't use the sustain pedal for this song because your bass line needs to be very punchy very staccato and choppy so keep your hands held down there okay now i'm playing the same chord bdg and then another lick comes in so let's just do the first chord with the e dorian scoop up if you will and by the end of it all you could kind of hold on an entire e minus seventh with bdg no pedal at the a we go b and d with an octave so pretty much the same hit points and a two e and a three e and a four e and of the three and the e of the four okay when you finish the d you can actually hit this or these two with the pedal because you're octaving pedal end with this jazzy chord of f sharp minor in its second inversion so so and then you keep holding that down so both the licks together with the two chords e minus seventh and a lick octave again guys hope you found the lesson fun and i hope you're going to find it useful in your journey to conquer hand independence hand independence like i said at the beginning of the lecture can happen really well if you can figure out a bass line and then comp it figure out a pattern in the right hand a very unique chord pattern and there are so many of our videos where we cover arrangements of songs using a lot of the bass lines i don't uh i never simplify the bass when i'm teaching i always like to start with that because i believe that you can build that as a foundation which already grooves and then the right hand has to kind of play catch up to the left hand rather than the other way around which is what i find a lot with students who start off the piano the left hand is as important as the right hand but it just has a different role you could say right so the notation again available on patreon and if you'd like to learn with us in person if you'd like to subscribe for our workshops again you could go to patreon check out the different tires which are available there you can also reach out to nathaniel school of music on our website nathanielschool.com or you could fill up a form and one of our course advisors will reach you right away thanks a ton for watching the video cheers catch you in the next one