Chords for Bass Ghost Notes

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _
_ [C] _ _ [Dm] _ [C] _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ [C] _ _ [D] _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _
_ _ [C] _ [Dm] _ _ [C] _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [F] _ _ [Ab] _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [F] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [F] _ _ Today, we're going to talk about ghost notes.
_ _ _ _ This is an interesting technique that a lot of bass players use in modern electric bass playing.
Probably one of the players who popularized this the most was Jaco [B] Pastorius.
_ _ Jaco was really _ very dexterous at incorporating these into a lot of different styles and a
lot of different ideas on his bass lines.
_ _ Ghost notes _ are really a combination of things between the two hands.
First of all, the fretting hand is playing a half note.
You're half fretting the note often.
[D] _ _ _ _ [Fm] _
_ _ _ [Eb] You'll kind of just get a hint of the note and then you'll get the percussive edge _ _ to
[Gb] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Ab] _ the note too.
Now obviously, it depends where you play it on the bass, these ghost notes.
Let's just play up here over the C here on the G string.
Now, _ often to bring these out, _ _ the best way is to play near the bridge of the bass, usually
on the back pickup.
The moment I have the pickup control set so that just about everything is coming from
the back pickup to really make this punch out.
Now, as I'm fretting the note, _ you'll notice that I'm not fully playing, let's say like
a C [C] here.
_ I'm not really doing that.
I might be going, _ _ [Gm] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _
[F] _ _ _ [G] _ [Bb] _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ see?
It's all just a combination of just dead notes and then I'm fretting some and then dampening them.
Now sometimes, we get a little overtone like with a harmonic as well.
This can be a cool effect to incorporate in as well.
Here's an example of a bass line which is using these dead notes and then some [C] harmonics too.
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _
[C] And there, you can see like I'm using the dead note thing to play the beginning of the line.
_ _ [D] _ [C] _ _ _ [D] _
_ But what I'm also doing is I'm getting a slight _ [G] _
_ overtone here from the natural [D] harmonics which
we just get, you know, we just touch the string over these points, we get the harmonics occurring.
There's also a section you can check out on harmonics on the [A] bass as well so you can check
these out a little more in depth.
So _ with playing that, I like the idea of just a hint of the harmonic and then with the percussive
edge of the dead note.
And as I'm doing this, you'll notice again, I'm right back on the back pickup here just
to really make those notes or the dead notes pop out. _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ And what I'm doing now is I'm starting to incorporate a little bit of muting as well
with the whole hand which we covered in the muting section.
So, _ _ _ [D] _ _
[C] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [C] _
[D] _ _ [C] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
let's see here, I'm just resting that finger lightly [G] _
on the string so I just get
that little edge, I get the mixture of the harmonic _ but it's really, I'm not making it ring out.
See if I did, I get this.
I don't want that, I just kind of want it _ _ very short.
[C] So, _ _ _ [D] _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ see like that.
And that gives you this nice kind of edge to the sound.
Now, some of the musicians who do this in contemporary bass playing, you check out some
of the bass players coming out of Africa, Etienne Mbappe from Cameroon, Richard Boner
as well, also from West Africa from Cameroon. _
These guys have an amazing facility to add this little kind of pocket of air, a little
percussive attack around the note they play and it just gives the bass playing a really
amazing kind of buoyancy.
So, it's really worth checking out bass players from different cultures, particularly from
Africa right now.
There's some amazing guys coming out who've really taken the technique that say Jaco for
instance kind of popularized and just added their own kind of flavor to it.
So, again, just to go over this.
_ So, what we're doing is we're just lightly touching the strings again.
Very similar, you've got a bit of the muting idea incorporated here as well.
But we're getting more attack, you see.
[D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
[D] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ So, [Ab] _ _ [D] _ _ there you can see like I was combining those ideas together.
A little bit of the muting, a little bit of the dead note thing as well.
You notice as I round up the string, _ _ _ _ _ _ see I've got that real subtle left hand damping coming
in so I'm just [C] touching the strings in front of the note I'm playing.
So, I was running up chromatically from [Db] _
_ [D] _ C to C sharp to D here.
But if I play like this, [Db] _ [D] it's a little too literal but if I play, _ _ it's a little [C] more dramatic sounding.
[D] _ _
_ _ [E] _ [D] _ _ _ _
And then if you combine that with the full on dead note, _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [C] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _
_ _ [D] it's _ _ _ _ _ _ _ very [N] effective. _ _