about THE Bass TAB
Burning Down The House by the Talking Heads comes off of their 1983 album speaking in tongues. On bass, or synth bass, is Tina Weymouth.
Many of you may know that I have a boss sy1 pedal. The reason I did not use that on this song is because it doesn’t have a good stock synthesizer sound to it. It’s got a lot of cool different sounds that are really creative just not the right sound for this song.
Another reason is in the 2002 Hall of Fame clip. Tina also used a P-bass and a pick playing the song electric rather than her fun finger poking that you can see in the official clip.
For those of you who do a solo show using a looper, this would be a perfect candidate for you to consider.
This song originally started as a groove or Jam that Talking Heads would play and David would chat out different things such as Burning Down The House.
The song very easily could have been named something else but it just goes to show you how this repetitive nature really lends itself to a looping setting.
The way that I got my bass tone and my cover is by Palm muting.
Everything is the song is staccato except for the last note in each bar/phrase.
In addition to palm muting throughout the whole song I also had the tone knob at about half and I used a compression pedal on a light setting.
Why choose “Burning Down the House”?
Burning Down The House wasn’t a Patreon request, but it was requested by one of my viewers. I really like the song as well, so it felt like a no-brainer for me to do. I wish there was more that I could say about it, but there’s not too much other than it was requested, I like the song, and I felt like doing it.
RESEARCH
Below are links and comments about them to what I found that helped me tab out this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAQI3XRoHic
2002 Hall of Fame 0:38 – Tina Weymouth playing electric p-bass with a pick, low fret numbers (goes from 3 to 1) 1:01 – “burning down the house” Looks like fret 5 to1 1:19 – frets 3 to 1 to 3 Tina is shown a few more times, but it doesn’t show anything new, particularly since it’s the same bass part throughout the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2LhwMprLQ
Stop Making Sense | Burning Down the House | Official Clip HD | A24 0:38 – Tina playing synth bass part 1:08 – Tina’s rhythm is easy to see, especially when the two 8th notes are next to each other 1:55 – close-up of Tina playing the synth
Additional THOUGHTS
I’ve incorporated a lot of this information into this Behind the Bass video. My Behind the Bass series is a great way to learn more about these songs that I do. I’ve incorporated demonstrations in there, clips of Phil playing, and more!
If you love to hear my voice, check it out along with all of the other Behind the bass videos that I’ve done here.
Where can I get bass tabs for “Burning Down the house”?
You can find links to the play along (YouTube) and Interactive/Downloadable tabs here for “Burning Down The House” and my other covers.
https://samboatmusic.com/bass-tabs/ is a resource for you to find the tabs you need quickly and easily.
It’s a searchable and Sortable table with information and links for my songs. It has the artist, song title, tuning, links to the YouTube video, Bass ONLY Video, blog posts, and printable tabs. As my catalog grows, it’ll be updated to stay current and as useful as possible for you.
Is that all?
Yup! If you enjoy this type of content, you can find more Blogs Here.
Please let me know if you like what I’m doing by commenting on the YouTube video, or even sharing it with others.
Be sure to check out the rest of SamboatMusic.com for more content!
