brbadg wrote:Digging Rustys part on this,but damn they are rushing through this!
It's definitely a little quicker than we do it now... whoever counted it off must have been listening to some 1978 earlier.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1978-0 ... sbeok.shnf
About my general approach to Phil - I have several basic eras, rounded to the nearest year:
1966-1970ish - play mostly pentatonics, but avoid the 3rd. Examples - Truckin, Hard to Handle, Dark Star, etc. Lots of energy. Some grit in your tone helps. You're kind of like a laid-back version of Jack Bruce.
1971-74 is when he really developed his playing. It's very similar to a jazz bassist who's walking swing lines, but with more rhythmic variety and a more melodic approach - you're always thinking the Root first, then the arpeggio, then adding passing tones to connect the important notes together. Feel free to hit offbeats, drop bombs and weave long melodic ideas together under the Jerry songs. Knowledge of first-year college music theory voice-leading techniques helps a lot, although conceptually you're closer to the Pre-Bach era when each instrument wove a melody first and thought about harmony second. In most Bobby songs you want to play a lot simpler and fade into the background a lot more.
1976-79 - same basic idea but you can be a lot looser, even sloppy, because Phil was usually drunk. Stay higher on the neck, above the 5th fret as much as possible, because his Alembic prototype had intonation problems with the lowest few frets.
1980-83 - you're a little more mature, your playing is a little tighter because you've got Brent in the band and you've switched to 34" instruments. (Fender Jazz, G&L, etc) You've stopped dropping two-note bombs, probably because they're harder to control on the long-scale basses.
1984-88 - you have your 6 string, so explore the really high notes.
1989-on - his tone gets a lot more open. Scoop the mids, make each note count.
Above all, you have to learn to play with a pick. I'm not really a pick player either, and I hate having to make sure to have one handy at all times, but it's essential... you simply cannot get the right feel and sound without one. Flatwound strings are also pretty crucial for his tone pre-1989 or so.