How To Play Bass to Soul Man

Here's a beginner's bass guitar lesson - this lesson looks at how to play bass to Soul Man by Sam & Dave, bass line by Duck Dunn.

Hi! It’s Paul from how-to-play-bass.com here. I've got a lesson for you today how to bass line to Soul Man by Sam and Dave. This is a great bass line to play for people who have been playing for a short while and want to learn some songs that might stretch them out a little bit. What’s great about this line is the bass line powers the song. It’s a really, really cool bass line. Not particularly difficult. The bridge is there a little bit where you're shifting your left hand around a lot. The rest of the tune is pretty much played in one position pretty straightforward. The key to getting this song and getting it sorted is learning the verse which is the main pattern, which is the pattern that goes [demo]. But it’s getting that riff starting out slowly getting it absolutely spot on and then delivering it each time you play through the tune. If you can do that you can play this in a live context it will make the song a success. The song really relies on the base rhythm really powering the song through from start to finish. So here’s the basic verse, I set the metronome going I set it to about 100. So I’ll play the figure three times and we’ll talk through the notes. [Demonstration] So first note we’re starting on G and I'm playing it 10th fret of the A string, the next note is E 7th fret of the A string. The next note is D 10th fret of the E string and then you’ve got C-C-D-E. So C is 8th fret of the E string, D 10th fret again, E 7th fret of the A string. So here’s the pattern really slow. [Demonstration] G-G-E-E-D-C-C-D-E-G-G-E-E-D-C-C-D-E. And if you have a listen to the original recording that I've done played on the 7th day version and found it on 7th day greatest hits, which is a great solo album by the way. If you listen to the verse you'll clearly hear that rhythm and you could make a little if you don’t read notation you can make just a little crib sheet for yourself. So you play twice on the G, twice on E, once on D, twice on C, once on D, once on E and you could combine that with a rhythm that you're hearing together. [Demonstration] So after the verse we go straight into the chorus. I will play the metronome and we’ll talk through it. [Demonstration] So let’s talk through the notes. Now first chorus of these three courses that are identical apart from the first course—the half part of the first bar of the chorus is different and it plays, with kind of syncopated rhythm. The notes are just G-E-D so we did all those notes in the verse. G 10th fret of the A string, E 7th fret of the A string, D 10th fret of the E string. And then it goes up to G and just place 8th notes on that G note again 10th for the A string and then it goes down to F natural which is 8th fret of the A string back to G for two bars and then starts again. And then you’ve got C-C-D. So the chorus is pretty straight forward it’s just that the first chorus that place that rhythm and it carries on. It’s just basically eight notes of G, eight notes of F. Second and third chorus it doesn’t play that rhythm. It’s possible that even when they're recording that in those days all of the musicians would have been together. All the rhythm section was recorded at the same time. It’s possible because it’s pretty similar to the first rhythm that it was a mistake and he didn’t mean to play that and he just corrected it and they just left it in because that tape felt so good and the rhythm section does feel really good on that take. So it’s possible that that’s what happened. But it is something if you have it in original you'll hear and if you want to play it faithfully you should put that in. If you don’t then you can just, basically it’s a bar of G, bar of F, two bars of G, pattern starts again—G-F-G-C-C-D. So there are a couple of ways that you can approach the chorus. Have a close listen to the recording. Determine what you're trying to achieve by playing through it and select which method will suit that the best. The bridge, which is the section under the lyric “Grab a rope and pull me in.”, I will play with the metronome and we’ll talk through the notes. [Demonstration] So the first bar is E flat, 6th fret of the A string down to B flat 6th fret of the E string and then two more, two 16th notes on the E flat 6th fret of the A string and down to G, 3rd fret of the E string, A flat 4th fret o f the E string and A natural 5th fret of the E string. Now you have to shift up to get the next bar which starts on B flat 6th fret of the E string, F 8th fret of the A string and then you get that little run. B flat, F, E flat, D. So those frets are B flat is 6th fret of E string. A 8th fret of the A. E flat 6th fret of the A. D 5th fret of the A. And then you go down to the C for the 3rd bar of the bridge and all those notes with C-G which is the 3rd frets of the A and E strings respectively. So you’ve got C-G-G-C-G-C then up to the 4th bar D-A-D-A-D they're both 5th frets. The D is the 5th fret of the A string. The A is the 5th fret of the E string. And then finally the final bar is back in E flat it’s just E flat, B flat, E flat, B flat which are the 6th fret of A and E string respectively. I will play through this one more time and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to switch off, turn the metronome down and then I’ll play it. Slow the metronome down and play it really slowly so you can see it. [Demonstration] Okay, the outro is exactly the same pattern as the verse but it’s shifted up semi-tone. I’ll play it through a couple of times and then we’ll just talk through it. [Demonstration] So if you rewind the video back to the verse section or you remember the verse section that should sound identical except it’s a semi-tone higher. So it’s [Demonstration]. Note wise you’ve got A flat, A flat, F natural, F natural, E flat, D flat, D flat, E flat, F natural. And the locations are A flat 11th fret of the A string, F 8th fret of the A string, E flat 11th fret of the E string, D flat 9th fret of the E string. [Demonstration] Those are the notes for the tune.