I’ve added  new tablature in the download section of this site. 

Here is a transciption of the bassline of PDA ‘We just don’t care’ – John Legend in the key of B, the hit from the album ONCE AGAIN, October 2006.

|| Download the .rar file (gp6, mp3, and pdf file) here ||

• Play 
   Guitar Pro audio
• The opening note is a fast slide down and pluck simultaneously and is meant as a cool effect a bassist could play to signify a start or transition from one musical part to another, not an actual identifiable note. In guitar pro i could not get the desired effect. If anyone knows how to make the desired sound in guitar pro, please comment.

Learning this bassline note for note is a good excersize in enriching your Funk/ RnB vocabulary, as well as practising your sightreading skills. Of course there are a lot of good transcriptions on bassplayers and the basslines that made them well known and respected, such as motown legend James Jamerson.  But I also encourage you to learn to make your own transcriptions. This will greatly develop your ear and in combination with a good music theory book, gives you a better understanding of music in general.

In this bassline there is frequent use of the ghosted note technique. Ghost note:  hand/ finger on string, but not putting pressure on the string so it touches the fretboard resulting in a percussive  sound, rather than an actual identifiable note.

Youtube lesson by James Bowens on ghost notes can be found here.

There are a lot fills based on the major/minor pentatonic scale. For example bar 53 (bridge 1) and octavated 8th note parts (think disco, bar 24/25). Often times in this style of music the bassplayer will approach the 3′, natural 5′ and natural 6′ notes with a whole note slide/ or whole note hammer-on.  In the 2nd bridge there is also some interesting chord work!

Note 1: There are a few times in the original bassline that an Eflat is played, which is the 4th fret on the low B string of a 5string bass. For 4 string bassplayers, tough luck, the loss of that single note ruins the whole experience;)

Note 2: To transcribe a whole bassline or song note for note is a time consuming task, so I reused some of the basslines (da segno sign) for the later verses and choruses.

Note 3: This score was made with Guitar Pro 6. I reccommend this software, because it is great for making your own transcriptions or arranging and composing.

If you use my transcriptions on your site or in your own lessons,  please credit me.

How to open rar files:
To be able to download and open .rar files you’ll need WinRar (download.com link). This is a paid software.
Free software here.