I thought I would try to transcribe and notate a Motown bass line. I choose Bob Babbitt’s line on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sign Sealed Delivered’. A popular tune for function bands, so I’m quite sure many bass players already know this. However, there are a few nice little phrases in this, check out bars 19-20 and 47-48 both over and F chord. Babbitt has a few nice little rhythmic changes during the fade out.
The run at the start (which repeats through out the song) gave me a few issues. Was it an A or Ab? In a clip of Bob Babbitt playing this, he plays an Ab, listen carefully and you can hear the note is an A sliding in from the Ab. The music show a slide, so bare in mind its a slide from a semi-tone below.