Rick Danko’s Electric Bass Techniques

In this Homespun videos series, The Band's legendary Rick Danko teaches some of the picking techniques and bass lines that have formed the basis of his powerful style and help bring the famous songs of The Band to life.

Videos

• Tune Up & Intro to Scales (06:16) - In this first video, we meet the late legendary musician Rick Danko from The Band and then we go over tuning and simple scales.

• Scale Exercises & Right Hand Technique (07:51) - Here, Rick goes over some scale exercises in different keys and covers good right hand technique.

• Boogie Exercise (10:29) - Next, we are shown the 4 parts of a boogie exercise meant to strengthen the fingers.

• Exercises in A (05:43) - In this video, we are shown exercises in the key of A and see Rick play them along with a drummer.

• Rick's Background & Thoughts (07:39) - Here, Rick talks a little about how he got started in music and how he views his role as a bass player.

• Fretless Bass & Playing "The Weight" (10:37) - Rick goes over the fretless bass and then talks about fitting in bass lines with the drums using the song "The Weight" as an example.

• Bass Chords, Octaves, & Playing "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" (09:55) - In this final video, Rick goes over using bass chords and octaves to make a much bigger sound and plays "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" before giving his final thoughts.