'For the Benefit of Mr. McCartney' was written to represent Paul McCartney’s bass work during the later part of his time with The Beatles. The line features many elements often found in McCartney’s basslines, such as a strong use of chord tones, the use of inversions, and the straight repetition of established parts. The line is also very melodic in places, reflecting McCartney’s tendency to have his basslines act as a sub-hook. This track also features some of the more unusual compositional elements that The Beatles began to experiment with on later albums, such as sudden time signature and tempo changes.
Don’t forget to hit the Download Resources button above to get the PDF transcription and the audio files for this piece (available to subscribers only).
This course contains the following videos, each of which can be selected from the video player above:
This video is a full demonstration of 'For the Benefit of Mr. McCartney', performed on a Fender Precision bass.
This video gives a brief overview of the course.
In this video you'll learn how to play the A section, which is bars 1-5.
In this video you'll learn how to play the B section, which is bars 6-14.
In this video you'll learn how to play the C section, which is bars 15-22.
In this video you'll learn how to play the F section, which is bars 36-58.
In this video you'll learn how to play the I section, which is bars 72-77.
This lesson covers Paul McCartney's tone and offers advice on how you can achieve something similar.