Working Bass LinesSuspicious Minds

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VIDEO TUTORIAL 2 SUSPICIOUS MINDS by ELVIS PRESLEY

This week’s second video tuto-rial is the Elvis Presley classic Suspicious Minds.

This isn’t the version with the ridiculous bass fill that Elvis recorded in his legendary Las Vegas comeback show. (That was transcribed in Bass Player magazine recently!). This is the ‘simpler’ version that was re-corded on the Elvis In Memphis album.

The tune starts with a simple 2 bar intro:

Then we’ve got two verses - the first of these is rhythmically simpler, and the second is more complex, plus has a slight chord change to lead to the chorus. Here’s the first verse:

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And here’s the second verse:

This leads to the chorus. The second chorus leads to the ‘bridge’ - so rather than print two different choruses with only one bar different I’ve included them both on this notation/tab:

For the first chorus play the first seven bars plus the bar on the third line with the ‘1.’ over the top.

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After this first chorus, repeat the structure of Verse 1 followed by Verse 2. Then the second chorus is the first seven bars from the chorus notation above, followed by the bar with the ‘2.’ over it.

That leads us to the bridge - what you have to watch out for here is the change of tempo when the bridge starts AND the change of tempo when you hit the four D notes that lead out of this section. Here’s what it looks like in tab and notation:

When you get to the end of the bridge you are back to a verse format that cycles round and around - here’s a basic verse pattern you can use for this, but if you were playing this in a live context you are free to throw in a bunch of variations here:

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How To Program The Sections In Band In A Box

If you want to work on this slowly with Band In A Box and build up to performance tempo so that you can then play along with the record, here’s what I suggest:

1. Set the key to C2. Aim for a performance tempo of around 120 BPM3. Use a real track style. I used the Dire Straits Rock 120 style. It’s a bit lacking in energy...but you can goose it up with some rockier drums and the 16th note acoustic guitar strumming if you like.4. Mute the bass!

Here’s the full verse progression:

This leads to the chorus:

This chorus leads back to the verse. Chorus 2 however leads to the bridge. Chorus 2 looks like this:

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The bridge is the last section we need to learn. This is slower and in 12:8 time. I used a tempo of 50 BPM and the Texas Blues Rock 12-8 real style.Like this:

A couple of quick notes about this:

The ‘G’ at Bar 6 is a 2:4 bar. I just let the bar last for two beats and then added the D. chord. That D chord should be four stabs on ‘D’ and a re-turn to the original tempo. So when practicing you could just make that D chord a stab and add the ‘to tempo’ stabs youself.

There is a bass less backing track to practice along with on the Working Basslines 32 page.