In today’s bass guitar lesson I’m going to show you how to play killer bass fills using the legendary Jaco Pastorius groove from the Pee Wee Ellis Tune ‘The Chicken’.
Every so often I release a bass guitar lesson which has that ‘little bit of magic’...
...and I get question after question from students who want to delve deeper and find out more.
A couple of weeks back we released a lesson called The Chicken for Beginners where I broke down and simplified the legendary Jaco Pastorius bass line.
I’ve been asked time and time again if I can share some of the ideas I’m using to create the bass fills when I’m just jamming at the beginning and end of the video.
So I thought about it hard: First analysed what I was playing and then thought about how best to teach it to you with an easy to understand, simple and above all logical progression.
Hopefully this will give you some ideas on where Part One of The Chicken For Beginners Lesson can be taken… but also share some of the secrets of how Jaco Pastorius created his infamous 16th Note Funk Feel!
Here’s the original bass line and the 5 fills written out in standard notation and tab.
Original Bass Line
Fill 1
Fill 2
Fill 3
Fill 4
Fill 5
Lesson Wrap Up
The secret to creating bass fills using the 16th note funk feel can be as simple as creating subtle variations to the original bass line or groove. Just altering the notes of one beat can have a dramatic effect...
If you’re a beginner to intermediate bass player and want to take this lesson to the next level we have a whole Walking Bass Course and Bass Line Creation course inside the Bass Lab PLUS membership. - Join FREE Today with a 14 day trial.
Both courses are easy to understand and simplify complex ideas so bass players in the early phases of learning can make rapid progress and achieve results that impress their friends and family fast.
Good luck and get stuck in!
James