Bass Song 11 - Won't Back Down

Won't Back Down by Tom Petty, what a fabulous song, and we're gonna be covering how to play all sections of this on the bass. This is of course part of my band programme, uh, where we're learning a set of 21 songs on either guitar, bass, or drums to give you guys the experience. Of playing in a band and having loads of fun doing that really. Um, this song is in the key of G, could also be classed as being in the key of E minor, but I think about it as uh being in the key of G. We'll be playing the root notes to the chords in the song. for the verse, that is the 7th fret. On the A string. The 5th fret. And then the third fret for the thickest string, that is E. and G. The other chord that's in the verse, or the other bass note that we'll be playing, is going to a C, but mainly E, D, C, well worth just having a quick practise. Kind of belong to the lyrics, but I want. Damn. OK, and we're gonna be doing this walking baseline, now of course you could use a pick. But we're gonna be covering a little bit more how to use our fingers. And getting this kind of tone with the first two fingers going alternately, starting off with the first finger and then going for the middle finger. Now this is certainly something that I am not super proficient at. Uh, again, the purpose of this course is to encourage you guys to want to learn this. But I am certainly not the internet's premier bass teacher, let me tell you that. If that's what you're looking for, that is not me, but I wanted to teach these songs and uh this is how we can play them on bass. So I would be having my thumb planted on the uh pickup just here. And then using that as an anchor point or a resting point to be able to get this kind of walking base idea going, so, uh, first finger, then middle and just going alternate. If one does happen to happen twice or anything, it doesn't matter too much. Uh, we want to try and be vigilant with that, but the purpose of this course is to try and play along, learn the whole structure of the song and really try and keep going. I think a lot of people stop before they should, um, so we're working on those things like structure and that kind of thing. But in general. That is the pattern. Then go to the sea. With We also have OK. So that is a slide. From the 5th threat to the 7th fret. And then go to the 5th rack. Now that doesn't happen every time and I've just checked out the video of Chris playing this. He only does it like 3 or 4 times in the whole song. Uh, I would use it as an option, just as an embellishment. Um, if you want to learn it how Chris is playing it, just follow exactly what he does in the play along video a little later in this song. But that is how we would play the verses. The chorus. Uh, in the little build up to it, we would have. And then at the end, The trickiest part of that I've found personally learning this is um making sure that when we cross strings, we're not changing this pattern with the right hand, so we would start off with the hey baby. With the first finger. Which means that when we cross string to the G, note here, we want to be leading with that middle finger, and when we cross strings again. That is definitely something that I would suggest working on and giving some attention, but the main focus of this whole series is to give you guys the skills and knowledge to be able to learn full songs, OK? So structure wise we'd start off with the intro, which is just essentially two parts of the verse, and then we have Won't Back Down, no I won't Back Down. When we're looking at the gates of hell, that goes to the sea. But then, and and that would only happen once, but then we're back to the normal. Then we have the chorus, back to a verse chorus. The solo is just the same, exactly the same form as the verse, and then it's chorus. So essentially, intro, verse, chorus, verse chorus, verse chorus done. Um, shouldn't be too difficult. But if you're new to this, this is the perfect opportunity to check you're keeping going throughout the whole thing, OK, so, so important. Let's have a play along with just the intro verse and chorus first of all, uh, we're gonna go slightly slower speed here as we have been doing so far in this course, and then a full play along of the full thing up to speed. Let's go for this now. Oh. So that's the slightly slower play along, now we're gonna go for the whole song up to speed, however, you're in control, YouTube has this great feature as I've said many times, uh, where we can slow down the the videos to 0.75, so 75% or 50% speed. That really helps you guys they're still getting used to playing along, keeping in time, um, it does make it, the songs longer, remember, so it can't once you've got it down, if you're trying to get the whole song done, it will actually be easier to do it up to speed in, in many ways because the song kind of lasts a short. Amount of time, but that's what I want you working on, and remember, don't just work on this until you can do it, work on it till you can't get it wrong, that's when you know you're ready to play in a band, and that's when you get that real band feeling when you have your confidence up. Here's the full play along now, I hope you guys really enjoy it. Yeah So that was how to play Won't Back Down by Tom Petty. Fantastic song, be sure to check out all the rest of the songs in this band programme series, which you can do right now.