How To: Play Victor Wooten’s “U Can’t Hold No Groove”

Here’s something to keep you busy this weekend. Bassist Jan Stankiewicz breaks down the Victor Wooten classic “U Can’t Hold No Groove”, in a really easy to follow format.

The tune comes from Vic’s 2004 album, A Show of Hands, which was re-released last year.

Jan shares “I would like to emphasize that this is how I play the song, and not necessarily how it is played by Victor Wooten himself. Still, I hope it will help you learn the basics of this song. I broke the song down into several patterns, following a more or less chronological order (but keep in mind that certain patterns keep recurring in the song.)”

If you’d like to see Jan play it in its entirety, well, there’s a video for that too:

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Leave a Reply to Mark Skrivseth Cancel reply

  1. Wow it’s going to be a while before I’m able to do that.

  2. Makes me wish my Marcus Miller Jbass was 24frets.

  3. Like when a bass plyer knowes how to play harmonics.

  4. I haven’t heard the whole thing. It’s nice but some of the notes I heard on pattern 1 were wrong. Not off key but just wrong.

    • Ivan V

      Krzystof, it is unbelivable, how good ear you have, that you hear how wrong he plays. Man you are great. I belive, you must be even much bether then Victor W himself.