This week let’s take a look at a great bass riff for beginners. Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes!
Yes, I Know It’s A Guitar!
This week we’re looking at what most people would consider a pretty easy bass riff: Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.
Obviously this isn’t played on bass in the original song. Jack White plays it on a guitar dropped an octave, through a pedal, to sound like a bass. But even so, this is a great bass riff for any beginner bass players out there.
The Main Riff
Here we have the main riff of the tune
Practice Track:
A Little Theory!
Now just as a little analysis of what’s going on in the riff, for any of you that what to delve a little deeper, we’re in the key of E minor and the riff is simply outlining a chord progression of E minor, C major B major.
Then for all you music theory nerds, this tune (believe it or not) is a good example of how the harmonic minor scale is used in minor keys.
We begin with an E natural minor scale over the E minor. This gives us the D natural in the riff. Then when we move to the B it’s a B major chord (as outlined in the vocal melody). That gives us a D#, the major 3rd , which implies an E harmonic minor scale.
So any of you that have learned a harmonic minor scale and wondered why or where it would be used, you can see with this tune it’s all about the chord progressions.
I watched this right after your Bassic Fundamentals tone lesson 1 and ended up playing off the 12th fret E string with heavy fingers to mimic the original sound. Thanks for both lessons!
I started playing it with the TAB here, but now I find it easier to move the first bar up one string and play the 2nd fret of the D string and the open G.
yes!! more riff lessons please.
Awesome. I am a beginner. And I love this song. Thanks for the lesson. I would love to here more easy but popular riffs.
Ita great, i love it but you should also have an audio with another guitar playing the sams thing