Seven Nation Army bass tab video

About this riff

This is a great first riff for beginning bassists: it stays low on the E and A strings, moves in a simple stepwise pattern (E-E-G-E-D-C-B), and locks tightly to the kick drum, so it's more about steady timing and note duration than technical demands. Note that in the original recording it isn't actually a bass at all—Jack White plays it on a guitar dropped an octave—so on bass you can dig into it for a fuller, punchier tone. Focus on consistent rhythm and clean note transitions rather than speed, and it becomes an ideal groove for building solid pocket feel.

Did you know?

The famous 'bass' line is actually Jack White's Kay hollow-body guitar run through a DigiTech Whammy pedal set an octave down, since the White Stripes never used a real bass—White considered overdubbing bass a form of cheating. He came up with the riff during a soundcheck at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, on January 29, 2002, and initially thought of it as a possible James Bond theme, naming it 'Seven Nation Army' to keep track of the idea.

Sources: [1] [2] [3]

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