Is This The Most Popular Bass Line Of All Time?

If you took 10,000 bassists and asked them to play something for you, how many would play "Hysteria" by Muse?

Bass Teacher Breakdowns are a hybrid part-by-part breakdown in addition to a reaction and live playalong. This series is here to give the most detailed breakdowns on the web.

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0:00 Intro + Background
1:01 Live Reaction + Playalong
2:54 The Main Riff - Tone
4:02 The Main Riff - 16th Notes
5:02 The Main Riff - Open Strings w/ Fretted Notes Combo
6:09 The Main Riff - How To Play
7:15 Making It Easier
8:11 The Chorus
10:58 The Bridge
12:14 Summing It All Up

#hysteria #muse #bass @muse

[montybrewster]

I have no idea how bassist or guitarists play night after night with that kind of intensity??? It's staggeringly impressive. Great video again dude.

[rome]

Chris Wolstenholme definitely uses Big Muff-style fuzz. That's a different sound that just straight ahead "distortion." But even just a fuzz pedal isn't going to get you his sound. For one thing he also uses a bass synth pedal. I'm pretty sure it's the Akai SB1 Deep Impact. They're very expensive on the used market right now, but there are any number of bass synth pedals that will do the trick. Lastly, he also uses a bi-amp setup. He splits his signal between two amps -- one clean and one dirty. The clean one provides the solid low end. The dirty one is for the high end fuzz.

[DeanoMayerWreckfest]

Thanks to a birth defect I have no fingers and only half a thumb on my playing hand, so the unrelenting nature of Hysteria's bassline scared me at first and I thought overcoming that would be my victory – but it wasn't (I actually found it easier than I'd imagined). The hardest part was identifying the chromatic climbdown in the third part of the riff, since my natural instinct was to look for another note instead of the one just played. It felt fantastic once I'd worked it out. That said, the second part (E, using A string) can still give me trouble with single-digit playing.

[sabin]

i had never heard that song before....as an amateur(very very amateur) bassist, i wanna learn how to play it. it sounds was always aware muse existed, but i've never actually listened to their music....now you got me into a rabit hole of music....which is a good thing and for that you get a like.

[ShowbiZ-]

Muse is a perfect band. There's no doubt about it. Their music is complete and has more layers than you can actually hear without listening to their isolates instrument tracks.

[erik]

I play cello and started to learn the cello suites by Bach. There’s a lot of open strings and arpeggios in it as well.

I bet the members of Muse, especially Bellamy, listened to Bach a lot.

[peterikarlstad]

The bassline seems to be inspired by Alphonso Johnsons playing on "Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly" written by Chic Corea and performed by Flora Purim. It has also been used by Bomb The Bass on the track "Bug Powder Dust" from the album "Clear".

[Thishumanis]

The open notes...glad you pointed that out.

[clinteastwood]

Except that Chris only plays it, the bassline itself is composed by Matt Bellamy, the guitarist/lead vocalist/frontman of Muse. In fact, all of their music (including all basslines) is written by Bellamy except a couple of tracks on the 2nd Law album. Chris is a good bassist for sure but he really has nothing to do with writing the music. Even the basstones most of the time are Matt's ideas. When you talk about how amazing the bassline in Hysteria is, you really have to give the credit to Bellamy because he's the one who actually came up with it. Chris' job is to just play it.

[JB]

I first learned the magic of riffs like this from Dennis Dunaway’s part on Gutter Cats vs The Jets, on Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, (many many years ago!).

[axxellein]

Bill Wyman- Bass on !9th Nervous Breakdown!

[pensnut]

"Slither" is like this, pattern wise, as well.

[sv]

I feel like he gets underrated as a bassist sometimes.

[charlieb]

As a three piece rock bassline, it’s excellent and shows how a bass alone can carry an aggressive mix, full sound with the help of distortion and creativity. It teaches next to nothing about the function of a bassline in most typical arrangements, even within rock. It does serve its purpose of grounding and outlining harmony as well as complementing the rhythm laid out by the drums with note choices. The one thing it does better than almost any song may be one of the most important though: It created interest in/love for an instrument within a genre that often takes it for granted.

[samjordan]

At one point, Chris used a Wooly Mammoth fuzz pedal for his distortion.

[danielatherton]

This bassline was by NONE OTHER THAN...the bassist of the band 😅

[nigeltooby]

Bassline suggestion: Heart of Gold by Johnny Hates Jazz.

[robertotakahashi]

Great video, bro. I believe he uses not only fuzz but also some kind of bands synthesizer. Sometimes O thin the fuzz sound comes from the bass synth or are boasted by the bass synth in a fuzz setting.

[pullibo]

Becase in the bas is all the others, linning. Haw a nice

[k.h.]

Bassline had to be influenced by distant early warning by Rush