Top of the week, fellow bass-ballers!

Remember how I told you last week that there's a difference between South-African grooves and West-African grooves? Well, this is the week to clarify this statement.

South-African grooves have a hypnotic, steady quality to them. The note choice and the rhythm is usually simpler. West-African grooves are generally busier, and rhythmically and harmonically more complex.

With that in mind, let's examine a bass groove in the style of Richard Bona. Richard is a great bass player from Cameroon, and if you get the chance to pick up his solo albums, by all means do it. It's great music, and his bass playing is augmented by his singing. Definitely something different worth listening to!

Here we go, a groove in the style of Richard Bona! By the way, this groove is in 3/4, so don't be surprised by the feel...

Settings

Tempo: 220 (We're fooling the AB system into 16th notes...the actual tempo is 110)

Sound: Elec Fing

Click: Start

Loop: 4 times

Groove Skeleton: 1-e (16th notes)

Tonality: Dominant or Major (Mixolydian or Ionian)

Style: West African



Enjoy, and remember, you can find the previous Groove in the South-African style in my lesson folder...stay tuned for more!

Peace,

Patrick

P.S.: If you're playing the TAB version below, set your tempo to 110 and ignore the bar lines. You're actually looking at two 2-bar phrases rather than three bars.