How to Play Bass to Teenage Dirtbag

Here's a video lesson for bass guitar beginners on how to play bass to Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus. It's a great tune for beginners to play - not too difficult and great fun to play. If you are a beginner the best way to get better is to take bass lessons. If you can't find a teacher I have a unique interactive online bass course. Check it out at my website.

How to Play Bass to Teenage Dirtbag Hi, it's Paul from how-to-play-bass.com here. I've got a lesson for new beginners out there looking to learn some songs. This lesson will teach you how to play a bass line to Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus. It's not exactly the original but it's pretty close to the original. If you ever played something like what I'm about to show you in a band setting, no one would raise their eyebrows and say “you’ve played that wrong” or anything like that. So, don’t worry about that. It's a pretty song to do; a nice fun song to play in a band setting. I'm not sure I can say much more than that. So, let's crack on with the lesson and let's go look at the verse riff. Okay, the verse; you’ve got to have a room to be flexible in the verse. What I'm going to show you to play isn’t exactly what's transcribed on there or it's not exactly what's played on the record. The sections you’ll need if I'll set metronome going— [Demonstration] As long as you hit those beats and those accents in your bass line, you're free to throw in some pickup notes and some 16th note lead-ins work quite well because it's a 16th note kind of drum feel going on. The main notes you need to hear are— [Demonstration] Two open Es on beat one, they're 8th notes to one end. Then on beat three and the end of three, you want to hit two Bs which is the seventh fret of the E string— [Demonstration] Then on beat one and the end of beat one on the next bar— [Demonstration] Open E again. And then on beat three and the end of beat three— [Demonstration] You want to hit the As. Now, you can play with the metronome to put some 16th note lifts in— [Demonstration] As I said, you're free to put in various rhythmic lifts and approach notes, stuff like that provided you get the— [Demonstration] Basic pause of the verse— [Demonstration] You can polish that however you feel— [Demonstration] Etcetera, you can do lots of feels. You can hear on the record, if you listen to the original, the guy playing the bass on the record does various different things in this section. So, I've showed you the main way that I play it when I play it live which fits nicely with what's going on around me in terms of the guitar and the drums. But as I say, there is a bit of freedom to experiment there and put some other things in. but if you want to just play it safe, I'll just play it— [Demonstration] And that’s not straying out of those notes of E— [Demonstration] A— [Demonstration] And B— [Demonstration] It's just doing some rhythmic pickups and some rhythmic lifts just to give you a line a bit more variety and a bit more interest. Okay, the chorus of the tune, it's pretty straight forward. I'll play through it with the metronome and talk through the notes— [Demonstration] And then you're back to the verse. Let's talk through the notes. It's pretty straight forward. It's a pattern that repeats. It starts off— [Demonstration] As open E string— [Demonstration] A, fifth fret of the E string— [Demonstration] B, seventh fret of the E string and then that riff that you'll recognize— [Demonstration] What you're doing there, C sharp, fourth fret of the D string— [Demonstration] G sharp, sixth fret of the D string, then you'll play in the low G sharp, fourth fret of the E string— [Demonstration] And D sharp, sixth fret of the A string, so— [Demonstration] So, it's pretty straight forward. Then the variation you have at the end of the chorus is like two full bars put in. So, my sound of that would throw you off. But if you listen to the recording and play the notes along with it, you'll not be thrown off. So, the last three bars are— [Demonstration] Then you're back to the verse. So, what that riff is, what it's doing is you got like an extra four 8th notes tagged on the end of it. [Demonstration] Those—which we've already done and then you go up to— [Demonstration] A, fifth fret of the E string— [Demonstration] E, seventh fret of the D string— [Demonstration] And then B, seventh fret of the E string— [Demonstration] Up to F sharp, ninth fret of the A string. So what you're doing in all of these patterns is you're moving in fifths. If you know what a fifth is— [Demonstration] Playing up a fifth— [Demonstration] It's an easy way to remember it because you can think of, C sharp— [Demonstration] G sharp— [Demonstration] A— [Demonstration] B— [Demonstration] But playing the fifth as well, so— [Demonstration] C sharp— [Demonstration] G sharp— [Demonstration] A— [Demonstration] A— [Demonstration] And a fifth. [Demonstration] If you don’t what it is, I won't go into the theory but you can find the fifth above a note by going two frets along on one string up— [Demonstration] So, G sharp— [Demonstration] Two frets up— [Demonstration] And then one string up— [Demonstration] It takes us to G sharp which is the fifth of C sharp— [Demonstration] So, that’s the chorus. It's pretty straight forward. I'll just play through that last pattern one more time— [Demonstration] And then you go back to the verse. Okay, after the second chorus, you go to the bridge. I'll play it with the metronome— [Demonstration] Okay, so that was a pretty easy section. Note wise, play these three times, it's a two full-bar patterns that repeat. The first three bars are these— [Demonstration] And that’s two on the open E string. Then B— [Demonstration] Second fret of your A string— [Demonstration] Then open A string.— [Demonstration] The pattern repeats. [Demonstration] The pattern repeats again. Then, you’ve got the riff that we learned in the chorus. [Demonstration] Remember the fifths? [Demonstration] So C sharp— [Demonstration] G sharp— [Demonstration] Low G sharp— [Demonstration] D sharp— [Demonstration] A— [Demonstration] E— [Demonstration] And B— [Demonstration] F sharp— [Demonstration] If you're not sure where those locations are, rewind the tape to the chorus. In there, it's spelt out then. And it just repeats that twice— [Demonstration] This is the second time— [Demonstration] And then the base drops out and you’ve got the lyric, which is the just the section before I've got two tickets to Iron Maiden, you got the lyric. It's prom night and I'm lonely or I feel I'm old whatever it is, where it's just acoustic guitar and vocals. After the second bridge, we've got the outro. I'll play it to you slowly without the metronome because the time changes at the end of the outro. So, it starts off. It's got a basic verse pattern— [Demonstration] If you're familiar with the recording, you know that last section ends. So basically, those last two or three bars, you go from the— [Demonstration] It's three hits on the open E string which match up with what the drum is playing— [Demonstration] And then you’ve got this beat where it starts to slow down— [Demonstration] Those notes are A— [Demonstration] G sharp— [Demonstration] F sharp— [Demonstration] G sharp— [Demonstration] F sharp— [Demonstration] Open E— [Demonstration] B, fifth fret of the E string— [Demonstration] G sharp, fourth fret— [Demonstration] G sharp, second fret— [Demonstration] G sharp again— [Demonstration] F sharp— [Demonstration] Open E, finishes— [Demonstration] And that’s the end of the tune.