Jaco Pastorius Style Groove Breakdown - Lesson with Scott Devine

Hey, how are you doing? Scott here from Scottsbasslessons.com. Hope you're well. If you haven't been to the website yet, make sure you do so straight after this lesson, because there are literally hours and hours of video lessons completely for free for you to check out. If you subscribe to the news letter, you also get sent special content that is kept for my subscribers and isn't on YouTube. In today's lesson, I'm going to be talking about and deconstructing a 16th- note groove that's similar to what you'll hear Jaco Pastorius used to play. When I was a kid, or around 18 or 19 and first started playing bass, I remember the first time I heard Jaco Pastorius, and it literally blew me away. It was the 16th note groove that I had never heard before. Up until that point, I'd heard people play bass like this kind of thing. Then, I heard him and it was that kind of thing. There's a trick to it, and I'm going to talk about that today. But, first of all, let's deconstruct this riff that I'm working on, and I'll take you through it bit by bit so you can play it and get it into your own playing. So, it's over an F-dominant chord. The notes of the F-dominant chord are F, A, C, E flat, and F. But, remember these notes are all over the fret board. That's what we're going to use to build this - what I've used to build this groove from. The groove in its full speed is... Once more. It's mainly constructed from the notes of the F-dominant seven chord, which are F, A, C, E flat, and F. Now, let me take you through it really slowly. It starts on an F. That's like the first phrase. When you're learning things like this riff, it's really important to break the phrases into small, bite-size sections. Then, you have a chance to learn it and get your fingers around what you're trying to play. Then, you just add it bit by bit. The picture gets bigger and bigger as you go. So, the first bit again. That's F. This is interesting. Sliding into the major third, then fifth. This note here is the thirteenth. This D here, of the F Mixolydian scale. That F Mixolydian scale is just basically the scale that fits over any dominant chord. So, here we go. Now, when it hits this F, here, it starts again. Then I go up here. So, the first section. Second section. So, that's F, sliding into the major third from the minor, A flat to A, C, D, C, then right up there to the F. Now, when you hit this F, that's the start of the next phrase. And, this is a little bit tricky this phrase, so keep an eye out. Here we go. Now, remember, here's the F-dominant 7, here. So, we're going root, root, flat 7, thirteenth, then I'm stretching with my little finger down to the sharp 5, and sliding to the fifth. Then, I'm hitting the fourth or the eleventh, which is the B flat. B flat, G, then I'm stretching over here to the A flat, then sliding into the major third of the F. So, in its entirety, this is what it sounds like. Slower. Just loop it around like that. Once more. So, right up until that point, we've got... Then, I kind of go... down from the F, to the E, to the E flat, which is the flat 7 of the F-dominant 7 chord. And again. Actually, that bit there, I'm not hitting the E. I'm just going from the F straight to the E flat. I'm not hitting that E. So once more. I did kind of pull off there but it's just a passive note, that E flat. The next part of the riff is exactly the same. It starts the same. Then, I'm doing - I've heard these called 'stings' before. I'm kind of rolling back and forth between the seventh and eighth fret. F, F, E flat. When you're doing that, you have to make sure you're not gripping the neck too much, because you're not going to be able to wiggle between these two frets. Just to show you, I can actually move my thumb and do it. There, you can see my thumb. I'm not even relying on my thumb to hold onto that fingerboard. Then we've got a... which is, again, chromatic slide. You hear this all the time. Chromatic slide into the third of the F-7, then hitting that flat 7, which is the E flat. Then, I'm just moving it down a semi-tone and playing. You'll hear this all the time. Guitar players play this all the time. Imagine the groove was... They play that all the time, right? All it is, is the thirteenth of the F-7 to the minor third. It's not of the F-dominant 7 chord, because it's not in that chord. But, what they're doing is superimposing the blues scale on top of that dominant chord. You can do this all the time. If you have a dominant chord, you can superimpose a minor pentatonic scale on top of that to get that bluesy sound. So, this is the second part of the riff in its entirety. Again. Now, up to speed. Now, I am adding ghost notes in when I'm playing, and that's what gives it that sixteenth note quality. These two fingers are going pretty much all the time. They're doing this all the time. That means you get this. But, you need to keep that going through the entire riff. They don't go all the time, but generally, I would say 90% of the time, they're just going back and forward. When they're not playing, I'm dampening the strings with this hand. I'm not taking my hands off the strings. I'm kind of just laying it on. Hear it? That's a great exercise. Just hold the F. Let's apply that to the groove, really slowly. Now, I'm going to play it up to speed, along with the backing track. If you want to download this backing track, the link is right below this video if you're watching it on Scotts Bass Lessons. But if you're watching on YouTube, just hit the link below the video, and it'll take you through to a page, and you'll have to download it from there. So, let's hear this riff full speed with the backing track. So, there you can see how playing the ghost notes it kind of adds a real rhythmic quality to the riff. Without it, it would simply be that kind of thing. But, with the ghost notes, it gives it that kind of driving train kind of thing. That's when I first heard Jaco Pastorius and was just like 'I have to get that into my playing.' It took me a while to get that in there. So, don't worry when you first try and get these ghost notes into your playing. Don't worry if it takes you a little while longer than you think, because it really does take a little bit of practice to get it ingrained in there. Also, something that might help you when you're doing this is to think about your tone a little bit. I put my jazz bass and I just have the bridge pickup on here. I don't have the net pickup on at all. I've got the tone rolled all the way off. So, I'm getting that sort of bark- y sound. It's a lot tighter than this if I open everything up. It doesn't sound quite the same as... for me. That's more Jaco-esque. He played it fretless pretty much 99.9% of the time, anyway. That has quite a bark-y sound to it anyway. If you've enjoyed this lesson, do me a massive favor and click that 'Like' button underneath this video. Other than that, take it easy, and I'll see you soon and get in the shed.