 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this bass guitar lesson, I'm going to focus on the song Stand by Me by Benny King, an incredible double bass performance throughout the song. It's essentially a loop, if you think about it, wherein the verse, the chorus and the entire song structure is driven around that. It's pretty much all that you're going to learn. Now I will teach you how to play that, but the goal behind the lesson is not only to learn Stand by Me, which you will, so get your bass guitars out or bass instruments out, you can do this on any bass instrument, including the piano if you wish. So as you learn it, we are going to look at different positions of the bass guitar. I'm going to cover the open positions. I'm going to cover different positions up the fret, up the frets to play some of the higher frets comfortably in a more intervallic way. And we'll also learn how to count this song. In fact, that's what we are going to do right at the very beginning, how to count this song really well, how the beats get divided in this particular song and then how do you access those subdivisions on your respective instrument, right? So we'll first get cracking with the rhythm pattern and how do we count it? Then we look at the bass line, the tune, following the chord progression. Then we look at a few more bass guitar specific things like positions, finding your way through the instrument and so on and so forth. So hope you guys find the lesson useful. If you do at the end of the video, do leave us a comment and a like and share the video with your musician friends or anyone who'd like to learn the song. Also there's a subscribe button somewhere there, feel free to go and click it. That'd be very helpful. There's also a bell icon. You can click that for regular notifications whenever we launch a new video. And all the notation for this including the bass guitar tablature, MIDI files are waiting for you on Patreon along with all the other lessons which are done on the channel which focus on things like music theory, year training, composition, the bass guitar of course, the piano of course, and the guitar and a lot of other things will be coming your way. So let's get cracking. So when you count this song, you have to figure out the maximum subdivisions which are used within the beats. So if you say, when the night, two and three and four and one, so if you just hum the melody with the pulse, when the night has come home and the land is dark, so what I'm snapping is the pulse. So in the night, two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one, right? So it feels as though the beats are getting divided into two or the maximum subdivision, the maximum we go inside our beat is by two. So let's test that out with the bass line, pump, pump, one and two and three, four and one and two and so if your head moves like this, if this is the pulse of the song, then the bass is very much going in subdivisions of two and the way we count this is by saying one and two and three and four and so one and two and three and four and one and two and three, four and one and two and three and four and one. So even before I play it, I like to transcribe this music either with sheet music or even in the paper, just writing down one and two and three and four and then superimpose the bass line as you sing with these syllables. So I would go one and two and three and four and one. So imagine yourself playing it and then you go one and two and three and four and one and two and three, four and one. You realize all the hit points and then you can circle them or tick them or mark them in any which way you want and then that's going to motivate you to play those particular notes which I'm going to share with you of course is exactly on those beats and counting is crucial one and two and three and but I would always recommend you to count while moving your head so that you get an organic natural vibe to this particular song. So one and two and three and four and one and just like people do you could even snap your fingers one and three four. Usually when we snap, we snap at the two and the four so one and three four and one and three four and one and three four and one two and three four. So snap at the two and the four count at with everything one and two and three and four and then you get the superimpose beats. You could also see my notes which I've handwritten that should give you an idea and also the tablature and the notation which you can download. So coming to the actual hit points so I'll just simplify the process by playing an open A on the A string on those hit points so one and two and three and four and one and two and so one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and right and three and four and one and two. Of course this is not the bass line. The bass line has all those notes breaking that down one and two and three and four and one and might as well do it with the standby me articulation of that bass line which is one choke at the one staccato one. The way I choke the notes is I could either use my alternating finger. If I'm picking with the index I will mute it with my middle. That's a standard way I mute so I get a nice staccato. However I could also since it's an open string I can also get a nice sound by choking it with my other fingers. You don't want to you don't want to whack it hard or clutch it hard just light enough so that the note chokes itself okay so one will be pump pump so this is the first thing I'd like you to practice like a staccato-lagato combo thing forget the pa-ba-ba for now okay so what was that pa-ba will be pa-ba-ba notes so I'm now going to teach you the line in open string position where pretty much a lot of our notes are as open as possible open means you don't actually press the frets with your left hand or your fretting hand you go one two and three and four and one so at the four end we have an E G sharp and then an A let's see how that goes one and two and three and four and one remember the first one is staccato one and two and the end of the two goes on one and two and three and four and four and which is E G sharp E open G sharp on the one two three fourth fret of the E string so one and two and three and four and that's the fourth fret that's how you count it one two three four and three and four and one and three and four and one so every four and are basically approach notes or passing notes to go to the next chord root so the chords in this particular song are on the key of a major this entire song is on the key of a major and the chords chosen by the composer are a major so let's play the chord roots at the one and the end of the two and let's see how that sounds one and two and three and four and one and two and with the track in the night has come and three and and then we go to F sharp minor second fret on the E string and the land is dark and the moon you can play D here on the fifth fret of the A string or you can go to D open which has a nice crunchy sound and the moon is the only light we'll see okay so a F sharp D E can even go a F sharp D low E if you wish or a F sharp you can even do the high F sharp a F sharp what is this high F sharp it's on the D string fourth fret a F sharp D third chord open quite easy and then just pick the E or the lower E so you can decide which notes you want but the rhythm I am suggesting before you get into the walking or the passing notes it's nice to just play the chord roots at the one and the two and a half of the bar the one will be staccato the two and a half would be legato let's see how that sounds when the night has come F sharp and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see keep going and no I won't be afraid no I won't be afraid just as long D as you stand by me goes on to the chorus oh darling darling stand by me stand by me and goes on stand by me okay so that's your baseline pretty much at the one and the two and a half of the bar now let's start adding in the flavors which are the connecting notes to each chord we also call them as passing tones or passing tones are the moving notes and the landing tones are the chord tones which it resolves to so a a e g sharp a that's the first set of notes you can see the notation of the tabs it'll be there a a e g sharp a you could play it like that e open g sharp fourth fret a of the string open a a e g sharp a then to approach f sharp a g sharp f sharp that's open a g sharp on the fourth fret of the E string f sharp on the second fret of the E string so a e g sharp a a g sharp f sharp f sharp e f sharp so that's your passing note for f sharp f sharp f sharp e f sharp just a single one there f sharp f sharp e f sharp f sharp and then da da da now you don't have that low D at least I don't have the option of playing it since the low e is my lowest note so I can do f sharp f sharp e f sharp f sharp higher f sharp to get an octave on the bass just go up there so f sharp e d d d f sharp e e and then e g sharp a you can play higher or come back to our usual e g sharp a a e g sharp a it's a nice start to play with the open because it'll also test you to not ring your strings it'll help you to play a bit more cleaner so try start with that and I'm obviously going to show you other positions of playing the track so let's do that again with more of an open vibe now f sharp la la room now higher that's higher f sharp e d d f sharp e e g sharp a or e g sharp a e g sharp a let's now try and follow the original or the official bass line by Lloyd Trotman on the double bass so what we hear is we are hearing the higher octave note so it actually kind of starts from it starts from the octave a so I am choosing the high a on the second fret of the G string has a nice vibe now when you do f sharp use your middle there index f sharp needs to be played with a pinky okay so don't forget the legato staccato toggle or starting staccato then legato okay coming down I can do my open D instead of doing which I taught you in the open position the low e originally what the bass player does is to play it higher so it stands out more I'm sure so whole bass line in the original style of the original octave of pitch registers down f sharp now e major now we don't have to only play it in the sort of open fret area or just the first few frets now the challenge of playing the bass on the first few frets since it's a wider instrument compared to the guitar you're gonna need to stretch your fingers a lot more so even if you are a newcomer to the instrument I would then recommend finding a position higher maybe here this would be a nice starting point position 2 which is the 7th fret of the D string so this will make it a lot more easier I feel to play because the frets are a bit closer your hand doesn't stretch out that much it's a little bit more ergonomic you could say but you have to remember your notes and your intervals so that's what we are gonna try and do here so now before I teach you stand by me here remember the intention is to help you grow as a player so I also want you to understand the fretboard a little bit at this particular point of the lesson so if this is your a this is kind of an octave with respect to the original a so we are assuming that this is the root and this would be its octave so you can remember your notes in the different positions position one now I'm gonna leave a major scale tutorial on the bass where I've talked about all the different positions to find the scales not only major even the minors and pentatonics so do check out the description there'll be a few more lessons you could watch to supplement this but I'm just gonna fast forward and say that this is an octave this is the root so you need to know your intervals in each position so a b which is your second major third perfect fourth perfect fifth major 6th major 7th octave so when you take the line it's the octave five seven octave also you could say so you can adjust your swarras as well as per the notes or what I'm singing are Indian swarras which just show you which interval you're on sa is the one pa is the five knee is the seven sa sa nida or sa nida sa nida pa dha dha pa ma or nida dha pa ma yeah you can do all your intervals here based on your knowledge of the scale so let's just do the original bassline now but from up the seventh fret so come down to get the fifth now I'm playing the major sixth here you could also do if you started with your ring and here with a pinky so if you're on this shape you'll be playing the F sharp or the major six down here but if you're here then you have to play the major 6th with the pinky above on the a string now coming to that D so I'm going with this right guys so hopefully now you know different positions different shapes to play the song in check out the tabs all the three positions are notated for you with notation in the bass clef as well as tabs and hopefully you guys have figured out how to count it as well we'll be doing a lot more bass guitar tutorials on all these great baselines where the intention is to take the bassline dissected transcribe it figure out why they played this stuff like in this entire bassline you realize that there are chord tones pom pom pom pom pom pom and there are passing notes right so that's a very important component in composing a bassline you have the chord roots which are used and you have the walking notes or the passing notes or the approach tones which are going to the landing tones which are nothing but chord tones right guys so hopefully you found the lesson useful if you did do consider leaving if you did do consider leaving a comment with what you thought about the lesson do consider giving us a like and don't forget to hit the subscribe and there's a bell waiting for you to click right away do that now thanks a ton see you soon