i had a friend who was extremely limited musically. i honestly believe that he couldn’t tell the difference between a chord and a note, and he blamed well didn’t know what a scale was. he had a friend who needed a bass player with whom to jam. his friend was very talented and painted the positions upon the neck of a bass for him that, when played, would correspond with the chord being played upon the guitar (i.e., there was an ‘a’ painted on frets X, strings y and he would play one of these ‘a’ notes while the band was playing an ‘a’ chord. (they were not just ‘a’ notes). i thot that he was a mile off until we played a song together (i was playing the guitar) and it worked out pretty well. i haven’t the slightest idea of the basics of bass, but now, a friend of mine needs a bass player, and i need a diagram of the same type that my friend had so that i can help him out. can anyone help?
I play bass, but I’m still not sure what you’re asking here. You friend needs a diagram to show… what?
The strings on a bass are the same as the top four strings on your guitar. If you know what frets make what notes on what strings for your guitar, you know them for bass as well.
let me rephrase this…to play bass while the guitar is playing an ‘a’ chord, what notes on bass can one hit without being discordant? same for ‘b’ chord, etc… looking for diagram of this.
thanks for your help.
What pravnik said.
If you know keys, scales and modes just pretend you are playing a four string guitar.
The diagram you are talking about is probably tablature, otherwise know as tab.
Here is a link that may help.
Slee
With regard to which notes the bass player can play without being discordant, the basic answer is “any note that is contained within that chord, or any inversion of that chord”. There may be other non-discordant choices as well, but this will depend on the chord, the key and the top line or melody, and it’s hard to give a general all-purpose formula without getting unwieldy and technical.
In most cases, and if you’re trying to keep it simple, then the bass player will simply play the root note of the chord (the note the chord is named after). If he needs to inject a little variety, but still wants to keep it simple, he can safely try octaves of the root, and thirds and fifths will almost always work. The thirds will have to be major or minor according to whether the chord is a major or minor chord, but for most simple pop or rock music you can get by assuming that it’s a major.
With regard to creating this easy reference diagram, it’s hard to imagine what this could consist of except labelling every note on the bass frets which, as has been noted, correspond to the lowest four strings on a guitar but are one octave lower. If you know the guitarist is playing an ‘A’ chord, find an ‘A’ on the bass and play it, and you will at least avoid being discordant although it will be rather dull to play or to listen to.
I agree with most of the other posters that the request in the OP is nearly impossible. However, as a bass player not much more proficient than harry’s friend, I’ll offer this:
If you can find the root of the chord, you can get by at the simplest level by playing that. Next level of complexity is the octave and fifth: the octave is two frets higher on the second string up from the root, while the fifth is two frets higher on the next string up from the root. Next most common is the third, one fret lower on the the next string up, the fourth is the same fret position on string higher, and the minor seventh is at the same fret position two strings higher. In tablature, they look like this:
|---x-x
|--xx-x
|---x-- (this is the root of the chord)
|------
Noodle around in that box, particularly in the classic chord progressions (E-A-D, C-F-G, etc.), and you’ll be amazed at how much stuff you can play. Won’t work for everything, but you can cover a whole lot of ground (including much of the Motown and Stax/Volt songbooks) with not a lot more than that.
rackensack, while not what i was looking for, it will certainly do! thanks a-plenty.
thank you to everyone else as well. it was 10+ yrs ago that all of this took place, so i am probably a bit confused…
One good thing about bass is that major/minor chords and major scales are fingered the same most anywhere on the neck.