Grateful Dead Music Forum

So can anyone make out the bass line during the chorus Amin section: "half step...mississippi uptown todeloo"...i know it is all half steps from the A...but can't get past that?

walk it through the chords

so from Amin...chromatically to F / C / G....

I'm not sure what you're asking... the bassline is just Phil interpreting the chords... focusing mainly on chord tones, as outlined in the tab page. There's no one way to play it IMHO... keep it fluid.

fwiw, I tend to lean more towards versions where they stay away from the Intro style walkdown on the Chorus and pretty much stay on the Am (Phil usually being the busy-est player and often the only one to suggest a walkdown).

http://www.archive.org/details/gd72-09- ... sbeok.shnf

i gotcha....simple is always better...thanks

I would say that a fair jumping off point for the bass part over the Am section of the Chorus would be to play the same notes you play on the intro, taking into account that the time length of each walkdown note during the chorus is 2x of the intro walkdown.
I would reccomend that no other instrument play a walkdown during the chorus, and that the band overall should not musically highlite the Am walkdown during the chorus.

Pete, fwiw I hear nobody overtly walking down during the "A" part of the chorus in that example; sounds like everyone is doing the sort of static thing. The actual walkdown is really only in the intro and solo sections. Funny in that 72 example how JG sings the middle verse inside out (2nd line first)... also, in the 1st verse "Pappy" instead of Daddy. Of course the alltime classic is "Saddy dat down and died" (an MSG one iirc)

I hear a bit more of a walkdown from Phil (and Brent) in this later one from '82 (but still very subtle) http://www.archive.org/details/gd82-10- ... sbeok.shnf

Are we talking about the instrumental part? Am AmM7 Am7 D9 etc? Now that I think about it I do highlight that A-G#-G movement somewhat, but not every time and only up an octave - never down on the E string. I'll sort of contrast them with the A root down on the 5th fret of the E string.

I actually have that part written out on a post-it stuck to my monitor at work. that's what jogged my memory.

Rusty the Scoob wrote:Are we talking about the instrumental part? Am AmM7 Am7 D9 etc?

nope:

bass line during the chorus Amin section: "half step...mississippi uptown todeloo"

Best advice w/o painstakingly tabbing etc, play a little Am bouncy riff, repeated over a 2/4 feel until you get to "hello baby"/F-C-G.

Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot about that post.

I do exactly what Tigerstrat describes there. Basically I stay out of the way of Jerry's vocals under the Am, then support the harmony "FCG" section with the roots a little more strongly, and on the downbeats. Try to keep changing octaves and directions on the FCG chords to keep some fluid motion going, but without being too noticed by the listener.

Here's my take on it: http://www.archive.org/download/Fennari ... oo_vbr.mp3

tigerstrat wrote:Pete, fwiw I hear nobody overtly walking down during the "A" part of the chorus in that example

Yeah, that is what I was trying to point out to the OP.

fwiw, My preferred method is no walkdown over the Chorus by any instrument.
This makes the walkdown in the solo stand out better to my ear.

You guys are all very insightful....the response to my question was much appreciated....



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Was listening to the Omni 90 show (official release in box set) and could not help notice Brent clearly does play the walk-down in that part---also, the last 2 "notes" of that walk down seem to be clearly F and E major chords, then A min, then the F C G chorus.

I'm now playing it that way after doing it basically all A min for 20 years!

Our bass player will do the walk down mostly to fuck with me trying to sing.