["Stone Cold Bush" bass solo]
I know, I know.
A bassist on YouTube
playing Flea basslines.
How original, right?
But, I was inspired to do this video
after reading some monster forum threads
discussing whether Flea
is overrated or not.
"He's okay.
"He doesn't play very cleanly."
"Flea is overrated for sure.
"I mean he has done a good deal for music,
"but he's still spreading
"the existence [of?] more
anti-theory musicians."
"Flea's definitely overrated.
"It's only because he's
in a successful band
'he's so famous."
"Flea is definitely
not as good as it gets.
"He's good, but Marcus Miller
is the master of slap."
"You don't want to think
of all the bad things
"I have to say about Flea.
"There is not enough time on Earth,
"nor enough words."
Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Flea.
[crowd cheering for Flea fanboy]
I started playing bass my
freshman year of high school,
and a friend turned me on
to the Mother's Milk album.
I hadn't really listened to
the Chili Peppers before,
but that album became one of the ones
that I was listening to constantly
all the way through high school.
Whether you're just a fan of music,
or you're looking to
improve your bass game.
Here are seven reasons why
I think Flea is awesome,
including tips you can use
to emulate his signature style,
and sound as kickass as he does.
["What It Is" by RHCP]
[BassBuzz theme music]
Reason number one Flea is awesome,
is his signature slapping.
What makes Flea's slapping cool to me,
is that he's always
laying down a clear pulse
for the listener to follow.
A lot of his basslines might
sound complex or flashy,
but if you break them down,
they're actually pretty simple.
Here's the slap line from
"Aeroplane" off One Hot Minute.
["Aeroplane" By RHCP]
It sounds pretty cool, right?
But if we break it down,
and remove the pops,
and just keep the slaps.
It sounds like this.
[Aeroplane with slaps only]
It's just 8th notes all
the way through the bar.
One and two and
three and four and
One and two and
three and four and.
Which is laying down a super solid pulse
for the listener to follow,
and we just add the pops in,
in between those slaps,
and we get -
["Aeroplane" full bassline]
So, an easy way to make your
own Flea style slap lines
is just to start by slapping 8th notes.
One and two and
three and four and.
I'll just use the open
E string to demonstrate,
and then in-between those slaps
you can add pops on the octave
of whatever note you're playing,
and the octave is just
the next instance up
of that same note.
And you can find that up two strings,
and up two frets.
So, if I'm on the open E string,
that means I go to the
second fret of the D string.
If I was on the third
fret of the E string,
I go to the fifth fret of the D string.
So, I can just slap,
one and two and
three and four and,
and then add pops on the octave.
[nasty slap octaves]
And then if I'm playing
with a guitar player,
I can just follow the root notes
of whatever chords they're playing
and move around with them with my octaves.
Like let's say, they were playing
a chord progression like this.
[E - G - C - D]
And just add the pops in.
[adds tasty octaves]
Flea in a can.
Aah!
[Flea ripoff riff]
Reason number two Flea is awesome,
is because he's authentic to his roots.
Flea started out in punk rock
with bands like Fear,
before starting RHCP.
And you can hear that punk influence
at the core of the more
funk oriented Chili Peppers.
- [Reporter] What was
the difference between
playing in Fear, and with?
- [Flea] Well, playing with
Fear had all the energy
that the Chili Peppers have,
but it was Punk Rock.
It's got all the same energy,
but it's just a whole different feel.
- Without that punk attack and drive
the Chili Peppers would be
a totally different band.
Here's Flea's solo on "Naked in the Rain"
with like a normal,
respectable plucking intensity.
[respectably plucks bassline]
But, if I actually dig into it
super hard the way Flea does,
then you get this.
[plays balls to the wall]
That's the forking crazy energy
that makes us love,
or hate the Chili Peppers.
Yes, there are plenty of tighter,
more technical bassists than Flea,
but Flea's not trying
to be Marcus Miller, or Jaco.
He plays in a band that functions
on high energy and push,
not off of cleanliness
of execution and virtuosity.
If Flea had come from a
more jazzy background.
Then he might have played something
like this on "Stone Cold Bush" instead.
["Stone Cold Jazz"]
And the Chili Peppers
might never have been!
Okay, I'm just kidding,
but if you wanna play Chili
Peppers think punk rock.
Super hot and fiery,
and hit your bass with
everything you've got.
That wild ferociousness is part
of what sets Flea apart,
and I think there's a lesson in there
for the rest of us as musicians
to be true to ourselves,
our own backgrounds,
and how we wanna play,
and what music we wanna make.
Personally, for the music
I wanna make and the way I play,
the way Flea slaps doesn't
actually work for me.
I learned that way initially.
[plays badly]
But, as you can hear
I'm not very good at it anymore,
because I switched to
pointing my thumb up,
so I could get better accuracy,
and cleaner tone,
and that's how I teach you how to slap
in my Beginner to Badass course
[wink wink]
It also allows me to do double thumbing
which is something I really
like to do sometimes,
like Larry Graham.
["Release Yourself"]
Or Victor Wooten style stuff like -
["Classical Thump"]
But Flea isn't about playing super clean,
or playing the most notes.
He's just about hitting flonking hard,
and bringing that punk fire.
[more Flea ripoffery...]
The third reason Flea is awesome
is his versatility.
Even though he has a signature sound,
he's not a one-trick pony.
He's also recorded with Tom Waits,
Johnny Cash,
Joshua Redman,
and many more.
Here are a few of my favorite
non-Chili Peppers Flea basslines.
["Before Your Very Eyes"]
["Bust A Move"]
♪ So come on fatso ♪
♪ And just bust a move ♪
["You Oughta Know"]
To me these basslines show
that Flea knows how to listen,
and respond to the music at hand
while still contributing
some of his Flea flavor.
[FLEA RIFF ALERT]
Reason number four Flea is awesome,
is his melodic playing
with the Chili Peppers.
It's part of what distinguishes the sound
of the band from more
straight-forward rock bands
where the bass just plays a support role.
And Flea was able to create interesting
melodic basslines with very
limited theory knowledge,
although he did have some theory knowledge
contrary to popular belief
as you can see in this
instructional video clip from 1999.
[Flea tears up some Do-Re-Mi]
Even though Flea was writing
and improvising primarily
from a place of emotion and intuition,
most of his basslines
still fit into the scales
that you would use if you
did know music theory.
For example, here's what Flea plays
at the beginning of the
chorus of "Can't Stop".
[plays chorus bassline]
So, check this out,
and if you don't read
sheet music don't worry,
I'll walk you through everything.
Those letters above the staff
show where the guitar chords change,
and there are four chords
in this chorus section.
G major
[plays G major chord]
D major.
[play D major chord]
B minor.
[plays B minor chord]
And C major 7.
[plays C major 7 chord]
And all the notes
of all those chords fit into
the G major scale.
So, Flea's bassline
supports the guitar chords
by playing a root note every time
there's a chord change.
So, we have G
on the G chord
[plays G]
D on the D chord.
[plays D]
B on the B minor.
[plays B]
And C on the C major 7.
[plays C]
And he creates interesting melody
by filling in around those root notes
with other notes from the scale.
So, we go,
G, B, C, D,
[plays notes]
all those are all notes from the scale.
B, B, A, B, C,
[plays notes]
D, C, D.
[plays notes]
So, all notes from the G major scale.
G, A, B, C, D.
You might find it surprising that 100%
of this bassline fits
within the rules of music theory,
coming from a guy who
supposedly doesn't know any.
So, if you're like me
and you don't have magical Flea ears,
music theory can be really helpful way
to get a stronger start with knowing
what's gonna sound good on a given song
or chord progression.
- [Flea] Music is made up
out of these building blocks,
and studying how these blocks go together,
and what they blocks consists of,
and the math of how it works.
It's all the same stuff,
it's just different aesthetics
that we're talking about.
[slappa da bass]
The fifth reason I think Flea is awesome,
is he's a solid rhythm section player
even when he's playing slap lines.
A lot of bass players just use slap
to kind of show off,
but Flea's slap lines
consistently have interplay
with the drums to create
the funky foundation
for the Chili Peppers.
The slap and pop
[slapping and popping bass]
of the bass is a lot like
the kick and snare
[kick and snare playing]
of the drum kit.
And you can tell Flea is
thinking about it that way
with some of his lines,
like the intro to "Taste The Pain"
["Taste The Pain" intro]
It sounds a little bit like
a kick-snare pattern, right?
Here's a drum beat playing
the exact kick-snare pattern
of the slap-pop pattern I just played.
[drums playing]
And here's the bassline with that -
[plays bassline with drums]
Okay, so that drum part's way too busy,
but what if the drummer just like,
removed some of those hits,
so that there's a little bit more space
for the bassline to breathe.
It might sound more like this.
[drums playing]
[plays bassline with drums]
Having the bass and the
drums partially synced up
is how this is most often applied
in actual Chili Peppers grooves.
For example, the groove
from "Skinny Sweaty Man"
from the Uplift Mofo Party Plan.
The bassline sounds like this.
["Skinny Sweaty Man"]
And here's the drum part.
[drumzzzzzz]
And here they are together.
[bass'n'drums]
So, the bass and drums sync up sometimes
but not always, and that's what helps
keep Chili Peppers grooves interesting
and not too monotonous
where it's just the same rhythm
from everybody all the time.
So, one cheat code for
getting your basslines
to be more connected to the drum part
is to think of your
thumb as the kick drum,
and your popping finger as the snare drum,
and just get some practice
imitating drum beats.
So, here's a simple drum
beat I could do that with.
[simple drum beat playing]
Boom, boom, crack.
Kick, kick, snare.
Kick, kick, snare.
Or slap, slap, pop.
[slaps and pops the bass]
Slap, slap, pop.
Just on an octave on an E.
Slap, slap, pop.
Slap, slap, pop.
I can move that octave around.
[bass and drums continue]
I could do that with a more
complex kick-snare pattern too.
[complex kick-snare pattern playing]
[amazing beatboxing of kick-snare pattern]
[plays bassline with kick-snare pattern]
And then move the notes around.
[bass gets funky with drums]
If you need help learning to listen
to the drums the way Flea does,
you can check out the beginner basics
in my How to Play Bass
with a Drummer video.
[life is beautiful around the wo-orld...]
The sixth reason I love Flea,
is that he brings his funk
influences to a more pop
and rock audience.
- You know, people like Bootsy Collins,
and Larry Graham, and The Meters,
and Sly and the Family Stone.
- And you can hear those
influences in his playing.
Here are some basslines that I think
may have inspired Chili Peppers tunes.
["Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again"]
["Can't Stop"]
["Get On The Floor"]
["Stone Cold Bush"]
["Earthquake"]
["Aeroplane"]
So, if you wanna come up with cool,
funky ideas like Flea,
just listen to the stuff he listened to.
Graham Central Station,
Sly and the Family Stone,
Parliament, Bootsy, the Meters,
Brothers Johnson
And the lesson here
for budding musicians is don't be afraid
to draw from your influences.
People do it all the time,
you can't NOT draw from your influences.
The trick is just to not 100% copy them,
so put your own spin on it
the way Flea has taken his funk influence,
and put it into a package
with his punk rock,
and hip-hop influence,
and that's what we call
the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
[i got a mellowship]
The seventh and final reason
I think Flea is awesome is that
even as he and the Chili Peppers
have evolved their style over the years,
he's still retained that
authentic Flea sound.
Because let's face it,
a lot of artist sell out at some point.
They bland-ify their sound down,
so they can be more accessible,
and get more sales.
[ 5 sells out super Hard]
But while Flea has matured
as an artist over time,
I don't think he's ever sold out.
Since "Blood Sugar Sex
Magik" came out in 1991,
he's moved away from the constant
Balls to the Wall slap lines,
and in a more melodic,
nuanced direction, like with -
["Hey"]
["Dreams of a Samurai"]
["Hard to Concentrate"]
But, you can still hear that punky
funky spirit going crazy
if you look in the right places.
All the way from 1984's
Red Hot Chili Peppers album
to 2016's, The Getaway.
["Get Up And Jump"]
["Backwoods"]
["Nobody Weird Like Me"]
["Naked in the Rain"]
["Can't Stop"]
["Tell Me Baby"]
["Dark Necessities"]
Owww, my thumb hurts. [whines]
Those are seven reasons
I think Flea is awesome.
What do you think,
is he awesome, or overrated?
Let me know, I'm gonna go ice
my slap blister. :(
I'll talk to you next time.
["Pretty Little Ditty"]
[wait for it...]
[almost there...]
[triumphant Vulf cadence]
["Magic Johnson"]
