Which one was the hardest song you have learned and why?

[dlloyd]

Use this too...

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Qras125bE[/media]

[jazzyvee]

Hymn of the seventh galaxy by Return to Forever. Even now it's hit and miss whether i execute it accurately enough all the way through. It's the kind of bass line that makes you work on a specific fingering method in order to play it well and in time.

My next challenge is Slam the Clown by Alain Caron and I've watched his techniques on that track off youtube and am actively practicing them before I start learning that track.

[Naetharu]

Well nothing very flashy for me; I'm still very much a learner. However I guess the ones that stand out would be:
[list]
[*]Bat Country by Avenged Sevenfold: I don't play a lot of metal and so it was lots of different techniques, quite fast right hand work with reguliar notes that needed to be clean and clear and then an interesting shift in rhythm with some modest left hand movement for the bridge and chorus.
[*]Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder: getting my hands around the run took ages. Much like the folks talking about Hysteria by Muse (A song I have not yet tried properly) I probably took eight to ten weeks to learn this one, starting really slow and gradually increasing speed. I'm still not to a point where I would be comfortable gigging it but it's getting there.
[/list]

[mikel]

Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull, gets me every time. Only joking.

[BrunoBass]

[quote name='bigjimmyc' timestamp='1487956890' post='3244610']


Same here. It saw it voted best bassline ever, bought it, realised it was beyond my ability! Fast forward a year or two and the band suggest adding it to our set. Cue six weeks of slowly gathering pace and fx pedals!
[/quote]

http://youtu.be/E1cSLmKUYak

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Naetharu' timestamp='1488051387' post='3245470'][list]
[*]Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder: getting my hands around the run took ages. Much like the folks talking about Hysteria by Muse (A song I have not yet tried properly) I probably took eight to ten weeks to learn this one, starting really slow and gradually increasing speed. I'm still not to a point where I would be comfortable gigging it but it's getting there.
[/list]
[/quote]

Yeah, Sir Duke. I had the tab from this;

[attachment=239103:LegendaryBassGuitarSongs.png]

I might be reading it wrong but one part of it didn't make sense to me. I made up my own bit by ear from the version I know best in a YT clip of that with "I Wish" following immediately after. I have exactly the same difficulty as with rhythm stick, the faithful execution, in this case, of the little giddyup in the middle eight (or is it called the bridge?). I now tend to go to the much easier groove of I Wish and skip Sir Duke. I'm not helping myself by doing myself out of that part of my practice but I really love I Wish. At my age I think I can indulge myself a bit.

[bazzbass]

YYZ I could only make it thru the first verse b4 cramping lol. Now I can play it many times, not completely note perfect yet though

[toneknob]

The Cinema Show by Genesis.

Start with solo acoustic 12-string guitar, tuned dDgGaDeGbbee (ie non-unison pairs on the middle two pairs, E and E pairs down a full step). Add bass pedals after a couple of minutes. Frantic triplet picking in the middle bit. Fade out, unplug, switch to double-neck Shergold. Instrumental in 7/8, switch to bass (finally) for the last few seconds.

[Norris]

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1487953190' post='3244543']
Two Bon Jovi bass lines for me, unsurprising as my new band is a Bon Jovi tribute. First one is 'Keep The Faith'. Getting it to bounce along nicely took me a long while. Now it is 'Homebound Train'. It is the bass playing equivalent of saying 'red lorry yellow lorry'. Making my fingers very sore it is. I always get there but sometimes it takes longer. I have gained much respect for Hugh McDonald since I started scrutinising his parts (so to speak)!
[/quote]

I have the same with Livin' On A Prayer. It's the relentless repetition of the riff, requiring concentration to keep it on track.

The toughest I've had to learn is Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group. Five or six minutes of riffs with hardly any the same twice. That was a case of breaking it into sections and nailing each one before combining them - as well as trying to cover the bass and keyboard parts together (G/B/D trio)

[Deep Thought]

The extended version of Black Betty by Ram Jam. Thankfully we only do the shortened version.

[Jazzneck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8

I had to learn this one using vinyl on a Dansette record player whilst my Dad was shouting "TURN IT DOWN!".

Blxxdy satisfying when we played it live though.

BTW, I live in the past now.

[Funky Dunky]

[quote name='bigjimmyc' timestamp='1487956890' post='3244610']


Same here. It saw it voted best bassline ever, bought it, realised it was beyond my ability! Fast forward a year or two and the band suggest adding it to our set. Cue six weeks of slowly gathering pace and fx pedals!
[/quote]

It is an AWESOME line, isn't it? First time you hear it, you pee your pants a bit. I was lucky enough to pick it up really quickly - not sure how, but I got it down pretty fast in spite of my lack of talent!! Something about it just locked in for me and it's always a great one to rip out the bag. I struggled to get a couple of the transitions smooth but it was worth putting the time in. Chris Wolstenholme's finest moment, IMO - and when the drums and guitar kick in, it's all over. Blinding.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Funky Dunky

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1488102091' post='3245753'] The Cinema Show by Genesis. Start with solo acoustic 12-string guitar, tuned dDgGaDeGbbee (ie non-unison pairs on the middle two pairs, E and E pairs down a full step). Add bass pedals after a couple of minutes. Frantic triplet picking in the middle bit. Fade out, unplug, switch to double-neck Shergold. Instrumental in 7/8, switch to bass (finally) for the last few seconds. [/quote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLrpG0DCqI

[toneknob]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1488114451' post='3245910']
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLrpG0DCqI[/media]
[/quote]

Hah. That brings to mind our singer's flute performance.

Oh - where do I get a remote bubble blower?

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1488121035' post='3246002']
Hah. That brings to mind our singer's flute performance.

Oh - where do I get a remote bubble blower?
[/quote]

A good old drink of Fairy Liquid to chase down some of Dr Windbreaker's Magic Salts should do the trick... just give it a good half hour before you're due to perform. Oh and have a large bucket on standby.

[HengistPod]

Limelight, by Rush.

Not because it's particularly difficult, but the change in rhythm when it gets to the solo and then when the vocal comes back in, stumped us when played in a band situation. We could all play it fine individually, but when we did it together it fell apart every time. There seems to be an extra bar in there that doesn't seem natural when you're playing the song. But when you look at the music, there's no extra bar at all. Gah!

[megallica]

Back in the early 90s I bought a Guitar World magazine with the transcription to Number of the beast. I always liked Maiden and enjoyed their albums but struggling to keep up with the tempo and laying down those runs was a real challenge. I think I came away from that with even more respect for Steve Harris.
I still get finger cramps when hear that intro

Edited March 1, 2017 by megallica

[acidbass]

Probably Sir Duke. The phrasing and swing is so hard to get. I love playing it now and use it as a warm-up song.

[gjones]

[quote name='Funky Dunky' timestamp='1487979335' post='3244879']


This is, deceptively, THEEEE hardest bass line of all time. I can play things WAAAY harder, but the correct execution of Rhythm Stick eludes me 90 times out of 100. Without a word of a lie, I spent three months learning and polishing this. I practiced it every day. And I eventually got it. And I went "Right. Done. Learned." And I stepped away from it and moved on to the next tune.

Then I tried to play it again and haven't pulled it off since.

And the thing is, from reading others' posts on Basschat over the last few years, and from conversations with other bassists - some of them I would describe as special - the phenomenon I described is by no means limited to me. This bassline continues to stump bassists WAY better than me.

My question, therefore, is what kind of VOODOO resides in the fingers of Norman Watt-Roy?

Don't even mention Paul Turner's flawless version with Shuffler, which is noticeably faster than the original.
[/quote]

I learned it just to challenge myself. I've never played it live with any band I play with.

[Conan]

[quote name='mingsta' timestamp='1487982716' post='3244893']
Overture 1928 by Dream Theatre. I learnt it fot my friends prog metal side project. There were more notes to learn in that one song than about ten of the regular verse-chorus-verse type songs in my pop covers band. I never really nailed some of the insanely fast runs that myung does. Anyway, certainly made me appreciate the technicality of the peops who play this genre of music. I also find that I have trouble really committing to really learning a song well unless I know that it's going to be gigged.
[/quote]

Yeah. One of the few songs that I've ever given up on learning in full was their Pull me Under. Most of the song is fine, but the ascending/descending runs in the bridge sections are just impenetrable to me. Someone far more technically minded than me will probably wade in and say "Oh, it's just a myxolydian-locrian heptatonic minor Armenian scale, played [i]andante con moto[/i]" or some such - which will only make me feel worse.

The other one I gave up on recently was Rush's YYZ. Not just coz it's hard (which it is) but because I just couldn't be arsed and knew i would never be gigging it!

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1488379093' post='3248424']
I learned it just to challenge myself. I've never played it live with any band I play with.
[/quote]

Opposite, I learned it because a mediocre band I was playing with insisted on doing it.
Then they changed their mind after running through it twice as the phrasing on the vocals was too difficult.


See also the bastards that only did Babooshka three times before the guitarist ditched it.

[lonestar]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1487952600' post='3244534']
I find James Jamerson lines tend to be among the more tricky as they're typically not repetitive and feature a lot of subtleties. The bass line to Bernadette is a deceptively tough one to perfect
[/quote]

Try For Once in my life. Jeez

[wambamalubop]

Lee Sklar's bassline on Stratus

Deceptively simple but locking into that groove defeats me and might until for ever...

You can scroll to 2:52 if drum solos are not your thing, though these are some of the most interesting and creative ones to my thinking.

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aw2rM0w-pc"]https://www.youtube....h?v=5aw2rM0w-pc[/url]


He seems like a lovely human being in this interview. http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2013/03/07/stories-behind-the-songs-leland-sklar/

"[color=#000000][font=open-sans, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][size=4]As I recall, Billy was originally going to do it with Stanley Clarke. I think when they got together there was just too much blowing and not enough hunkering down. So Billy called me and asked if I’d like to come to New York to do an album. We did it at Electric Ladyland. I flew in on a Sunday, we worked all day Monday and Tuesday, and I flew home Wednesday and it was done. [/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=open-sans, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][size=4]Those two days were so intense. It was almost like an out of body experience. I couldn’t even hear myself because I had a little Univox amp and it was set up right in front of Billy’s kit, which is basically like sitting with a bunny in front of a freight train. It was like you almost didn’t even know what you did until you went and listened to a playback. [/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=open-sans, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][size=4]There was nothing really written out. I think once we started playing that, I got into that bass line and just sat there. I think that was part of the appeal to Billy, was the fact that I was just holding it down and I wasn’t starting to go off of it and blow. You have to get into this headspace [to play the line.] Billy has a unique quality that when he fills, he rushes like there’s no tomorrow, but he always is there for the downbeat. So you’re trying to hold this bass line down and he’s just flourishing all over it, then he’s there at the downbeat. You can’t go with his fill, otherwise you’re lost when you come back in. I was in a zone. It takes about a bar and a half to lock in. We’re kind of riding a little bit until it really hunkers down, and that to me is the charm of this record. It’s tight but it’s really loose. [/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=open-sans, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][size=4]It’s a song that took on it’s on life. Then Massive Attack lifted it and used it. I’ve had people come up to me when we’re playing it and say, “Oh, you guys are doing that Massive Attack tune,” and I have to say, “No, it’s kind of the other way around.”[/size][/font][/color]

Edited March 1, 2017 by wambamalubop

[funkgod]

For once in my life, just for the feel.

And as for those deceptive ones... has to be "you to me are everything"
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT1iDKkZNYU"]www.youtube....h?v=yT1iDKkZNYU[/url]

the one that took me the longest to get almost right, and im still on it 30 years later
is "squib cakes" by tower of power
Thats a whole concept in its self .
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJH0x1CTho"]www.youtube....h?v=pvJH0x1CTho[/url]

Edited March 1, 2017 by funkgod

[lowhand_mike]

yep agree with alot of these
Number of the beast took a while but i eventually got the stamina to play it, Run to the Hills is similar with its relentless galloping

and on the subject of stamina Hysteria was a nightmare, i would get horrible cramps in my right forearm and it took a long time but its getting to be enjoyable (eventually)

always wanted to play sir duke but just dont think i'm good enough, just had a look at it on songsterr and it starts off ok and get progressively harder