Getting the Bass Right on Take Care of Business
This is one of those riffs everyone tries to learn first. It sounds simple because the note choices are straightforward, but getting it to sit right with the drums is where people struggle. The track is in E, played at roughly 118 BPM. The bassist Mick Ralphs is locking with the kick drum on the one and the snare on the two and four, and that pocket is what makes it work. Here is the main riff as it appears in the intro and throughout the verses: E|---0---2---3---0---|
A|-------3---3---3---|
D|-------------------|
G|-------------------|
Each bar is four quarter-note beats. The pattern repeats. Count it as 1-2-3-4, with the root on E at the open string, moving up to the second fret, then the third fret, and back down. The A string hits on beats two and three with that third fret Fnote held briefly before landing back on E. The chorus locks into a slightly different groove. The bass stays more root-oriented: E|---0---0---2---3---|
A|-------3---3---0---|
D|-------------------|
G|-------------------|
It resolves back to the main riff pattern. That is the essential framework. The solo section uses the same riff with slight embellishments, mostly hammer-ons and pull-offs around the fifth fret area. I ran into a problem a few years ago when I was trying to play this live with a band that wanted to use a pick. Every time I switched to a pick, the articulation on the return to the open E string got muddy. The transition from the third fret on the A string back down to open E is where it fell apart. My workaround was to use a light finger slide down the A string instead of lifting off completely. It kept the note connected to the open E without the wash of extra material ringing out. It took about two weeks of deliberate practice to make it sound natural, but once it clicked, the whole groove tightened up noticeably. One thing beginners consistently miss is the timing of the third-fret note on the A string. It is not a pickup note. It lands squarely on beat two and holds through beat three. If you treat it as a quick passing tone, the groove loses its forward drive. Another counter-intuitive point: the riff sounds heavier when you leave a small gap between the open E on beat one and the second-fret Fon beat two. A tiny micro-rest there, not a full sixteenth, but enough for the string to stop vibrating before the next note. It makes the whole thing punch harder than strumming it straight through.
Get the Full Details
The downside of relying on this tab is that it only captures the studio part. The live performances from that era often had the bassist adding slides into the third fret and occasional ghost notes on the D string that are not written here. If you are playing along to the record exactly, you will sound correct but maybe a little sterile compared to the original feel. For most practice purposes this is fine, but if you want it to match the recording closely, you need to listen carefully to the attack and dynamics rather than just playing the notes. You can find this tab and several variations on standard tab sites like Songsterr or Ultimate-Guitar. The community-uploaded versions vary in accuracy, so cross-reference with the actual track. The original album version is from the 1974 self-titled debut. If you want a clean reference, pull up the album track and slow it down with any playback software. Most free media players let you reduce the tempo to about 70 percent without changing pitch, which makes nail ing the exact fingering much faster than trying to play at full speed from day one. I usually recommend spending about ten minutes a day on just the transition between the A string third fret and the open E return. That one movement is the backbone of the riff. Once it is clean at tempo, everything else falls into place quickly. Most people can get this under their fingers in a couple of weeks of regular practice if they focus on that specific bottleneck instead of running the whole song repeatedly.
