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If you know your basic scales, you may be wondering where to go from there. After all, scales are the foundations of all music right? If scales are the foundation of music, chords are the first bricks laid upon the mortar. Now, when you teach yourself bass guitar, it should be an awesome experience and a fun one as well. If you are a relatively new bassist, the single most challenging thing to learn is to make your fingers obey the motions you want them to. In this section of bass guitar chords tutorials, we will be touching on several aspects of music harmony and techniques. If you do not have any basic knowledge of music theory or you are not even able to fret single notes properly, go back to the other sections of the website first. The topics covered here are slightly more advanced and you need to have some proper foundations to avoid frustrations. For the rest of you guys, you might also be wondering. What is a bass chord? Why do I need to learn how to play chords on the bass guitar? I would like to address this by saying that most bassists don't typically play alot of chords by themselves during a piece of music. The bass guitar is a "support" instrument and your role is to complete the harmony in a band or ensemble.
In short, your usual duty as a bassist when jamming with other musicians is to play one of the notes that forms the chord harmony in the band. This is where your knowledge in music theory of bass chords comes in. Sometimes, bassists are not told what to specific music notes to play but rather only informed of the chord progressions or key that a piece of music is in. In such scenarios, you are expected to play the bass to complement and support the overall music across the music progression. Of course, you could be given sheet music or bass chord charts to create your own basslines or improvisation across chord progressions. To do all this, you need to have some basic knowledge of bass chord formations and music theory. With a good grasp of the tools and knowledge in your mind and guitar, only then can you play the bass guitar to your full potential.
Now that you know how to make the most basic bass guitar triads, the next step is to practice. Use the other scales, and create the rest of the basic chords on bass guitar. Have fun!
Our final chord is the G Major chord. This chord is fairly similar to the C Major chord in the fact that it involves an octave built off of the tonic. Our G Major triad would consist of the notes G, B, and D. To bring our chord full circle, we would need to simply add the octave of G. The G Major chord should look like this: G, B, D, G Now that you know the most common bass chord patterns, the final step is to practice. The only way to properly memorize these chords is to add them to your music. Try saying the chord names while you play them, as this will better help you to memorize the chord. Have fun!
To turn this triad into an arpeggio, we would simply need to play the notes C, E, and G in either ascending or descending order. This may sound fairly simple, and that is because it is; arpeggios are simple, yet impressive when put to proper application. The neat thing about arpeggios is that they can be built off of. Using our C Major triad of C, E, and G, we can create a more dynamic arpeggio using the notes of the C Major scale. This is why it is important that you have a full understanding if basic keys and musical intervals. To build off of our C Major triad arpeggio, we simply need to choose intervals that will accentuate the arpeggio. For instance, if we play our arpeggio from C to G, then jump a fifth to D, then return to G and descend, we add a richer, fuller and more complete sound to our arpeggio. The best way to add dynamics to an arpeggio is through trial and error. Some notes simply will not sound pleasant. Sometimes arpeggios are best left to their basic notes. These are things that can be assessed through experimentation. Now that you know how to create bass guitar arpeggios, the next step is to try creating your own. Keep your mind open to expansion when working with arpeggios, but dont feel it necessary to always add. Sometimes simplicity is best. Check out the slew of other bass guitar lessons that we offer on different sections of the site as well. Enjoy!
A Major triad is built of a Major third (four half steps) with a minor third (three half steps) on top. Using this strategy, lets create our three basic triads for our I-IV-V progression in the key of C Major.
Our tonic triad, we already know, is going to be built off of our tonic, C. Moving a Major third from C, we come to the note E (C#, D, D#, E.) Moving a further minor third will bring us the note G (F, F#, G.) This means our C Major tonic triad consists of the notes C, E, and G. For our subdominant triad, we need to start on the subdominant of C Major, which is F. If we move up a Major third, we are brought to the note A (F#, G, G#, A.) Moving a minor third from A will bring us to C (A#, B, C.) Finally, for our dominant triad, we know we will need to build off of our C Major dominant note, which is G. Moving a Major third from G brings us to the note B (G#, A, A#, B.) Moving a minor third from B will give us the note D (C, C#, D.) This means our basic C Major triad I-IV-V progression will contain the notes C, F, and G, and each notes respective triad will look as follows:
Tonic I
C, E, G
Subdominant IV
F, A, C
Dominant V
G, B, D Using what we just learned, we can now easily play a basic I-IV-V progression on bass. Once you have mastered this simple I-IV-V progression, try deriving your own from each of the major keys!
Now that you know how seventh chords are built, try building some of your own. Dont limit yourself to one section of your fret board; try moving the notes to different sections to achieve different pitches. Have fun!
Playing the notes of the Bb tonic triad, you can play over both the tonic and the dominant chord. Playing the notes of the C supertonic triad (second scale degree chord) which contains the notes C, Eb, and G, would allow you to play over the subdominant triad chord. This means that, in the context of Bb Major, you would only need to know two chords to play over a three chord progression. In the end, the best way to use diatonic chords in bass guitar playing is through practice. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the scales, then try and pick out the proper chords. Have fun, and good luck with it!
An Introduction to Arpeggios
The word arpeggio comes from the Italian verb arpeggiare which means to play on a harp. Harpists never play chords with all notes ringing simultaneously: they play chords broken down into individual notes, played one by one and this is what arpeggios are. To put it together: an arpeggio is a musical technique where the notes of a chord are played in sequence, one after another, instead of being played simultaneously. A nicely executed arpeggio contains only notes belonging to a single chord, and these notes have to be played individually. Even though the chord in question might be a simple tonic triad containing only the first, third and fifth notes of the scale, here we are going to take a look at how a diminished chord can be arpeggiated. The example below shows how very simple chords can be arpeggiated. Both lines feature rather common chords: first the chord is struck, then after a rest the example showcases how the given chords can be arpeggiated in the simplest possible way.
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one by one. The example below shows two diminished seventh chords and a possible arpeggiation of these.