 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this bass guitar lesson, we are going to explore and learn the incredible bass riff from the song Good Times by the band Chick from the album Risk. An incredible song, an incredible album, you should check it out if you like R&B, funk and all of that stuff. Wow! Incredible bass lines and phenomenal chord progression, song writing and so on and so forth. So it's a very common bass line, I hear a lot of my bandmates playing it, so I ended up transcribing it and here goes, it's just two chords pretty much, it's on E, E minor 7th so that's E, G, B, D and the second chord will be an A chord, the way it's being played is it's like a G over A or an A 13th chord or you could say 11th chord that makes this whole thing into an E Dorian vibe, so an E minor 7th going into an A A chord or an G over A chord. So very Dorian, you can see our notes where we've notated all this, the bass lines are also tapped out for you to learn and also the hit points of each of the notes which are played. Before we get cracking, it will be great if you could consider hitting that subscribe button and turning on the bell icon for regular notifications, let's get cracking. So we start with four hits of E, almost like another one bites the dust if you think about it, it's just on the 1, 2, 3 and by the way before I go any further we are dividing the beat into four units and playing straight. So that's 16th notes for you, so that will be counted as one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a like this, two E and a three E and a good way to start would kind of be this actually, one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a maybe an A, four one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a one E and a two E and a three and a four E and a one E and a two E and a three. There we go. Blue E and a three E and a. Okay, now that you got the pulse with the one E and a two E and a and so on, let's actually get the bass line. So we go three E's at one, two and three and you want to choke it, play it very staccato, so you don't want to do, you want to choke it. So you could choke it with your left hand or you could even choke it with your right hand with the alternating picking fingers. I like a combo of both, so it doesn't give out any weird harmonics. Similarly, A or the challenge if you fret a note and then you want to do staccato is you can't do it with your left hand. You can then only rely on your right hand pretty much or your picking hand to get you a nice staccato. So be aware of doing both versions. So maybe that's a good exercise. Just do staccato E, staccato A because you need this vibe to play the riff. Also try and open it out just as a practice at the end. So to staccato, I'm actually muting with the other with the other finger or not muting, then it'll be legato. There we go. Coming back to the riff now. So I'll play you the first bar. Okay, let's walk walk ourselves through that. One E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a E and one E and so to count this or to understand where the hits are you go one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and okay the first three are on beat one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and while the fourth E will be at the E of the four one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a okay. So that's a nice Dorian climb. You can play it in a couple of ways at least I do. So let's do that again very slowly one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a one E and a two E and a three E and a four E and a one E and so that a chord which is like in a seventh or G over A will have its occurrence or its first hit point not at the one of bar three but at the E of bar two of the four E right so it anticipates we call this as rhythmic anticipation. I have a nice video explaining the theory and with a lot of examples on rhythmic anticipation which we leave in the description. So you go E E E E E F sharp G A B C sharp D E A. Now you could play it you could play it this way just follow the string and the fret movements I'm just showing you the climb. And the first three notes are obvious. Open E. So that's B C sharp D E now to go from B C sharp D E. I'm just moving my shape my whole hand that's a bit easy for me because that allows me to play A on the E string. So pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump pump and you then do three A's. So pump pump pump pump pump pump there's an open A E F sharp G minor third A B C sharp D E A and you need to hit that A very quickly or preceding the bar bar number three again. Pump pump and then the next two A's are on the one two three and now pump pump pump pump Now how do we do that? Now I like to play that with an open A but you can even play it with a fretted A. I prefer open A there. Let's get that together. So again I'll break that down for you in terms of hits. So it starts at the E of the four and then the E. An extra open you need to play. And it ends with. So E B open E fretted B. Now you could slide up to give you a more lighter G which I think is that's what it is in the song or maybe it's maybe it's a bend or something. Nevertheless the G is a bit of a kind of a silent passenger. So you could either do hammer slide or just like a random bend. Either which way sounds cool I guess you could look at that as an exercise on your own. So start with hammer and slide and then bend. Okay that's the end. So let's break down the whole thing very slowly. One more time. Right guys so that was Good Times very popular bass line. Look at the notation where you can figure out the exact hit points of the beats. For example while I was playing throughout the lesson I kept saying one E and a two E and a three. It's a bit tricky to count it and play at the same time. Maybe tough for you to also follow unless you have some kind of a visual cue. So you have my handwritten notes. You have the notation as well which is downloadable as a PDF on Patreon. Do consider giving that a check and learning it that way the tabs are also available along superimposed with the notation. So that's about Good Times the bass riff and if you want to learn more bass riffs like this on our channel and more bass guitar concepts or bass concepts in general you need to subscribe to our channel now. Thanks for watching the video thus far but even more thanks if you hit that subscribe button and hit the bell for regular notifications and there's a playlist waiting for you in our description which shows you all of our bass guitar riffs and licks and lessons where you cover some of the more popular stuff with all the fingering and the relevant theory. So happy learning catch you in the next one. Cheers.