Bass playing for Lead or Rhythm Guitarists | Knocking on Heaven's Door

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In this second lesson on the subject; learn how to further apply simple guitar music theory knowledge to the bass guitar. Using Knocking on Heaven's Door as an example, see how to play a functional bass line to any chord sequence!

Catch up with the first lesson here:    • Converting to Bass Guitar for Lead or Rhyt...  

Abridged Script:

In the last lesson we got as far as learning this movable Major scale pattern and I encouraged you to learn to find each note in this pattern by interval number... So, in this lesson we’ll show how you can play a functional bass line along to a great any different chord sequences by beginning to apply this knowledge.

To demonstrate the simple principles we are going apply, let’s use Knocking on Heaven’s Door as a well-known song with a nice simple repeating chord sequence. Here are the basic chords I might play on acoustic guitar.

The first and simplest approach to bass playing is to play the root note of each chord on the first beat of each bar. And if we play that against a recording of my acoustic guitar rhythm you can hear it works OK, even if it’s perhaps not the most dynamic bassline in the world, it helps to support the sound of the guitar chords, by defining each chord more clearly and also grounding the rhythm.

So, outlining the root notes is our first and simplest approach to creating a functional bassline. And this is easy to do from a rhythm chart, because the root note is always the first part of any chord symbol… so the root note of G major is the note G. The root note of D major is D, A minor is A and the root note of C major is the note C. And so on and so forth.
It should be stressed that in many cases, this is not only the easiest way of producing a functional bass-line, it is also often the best approach. A very common error that guitarists make when converting to bass is to think that they have to make the bass-line ‘more interesting’ or ‘more complicated’. Less is often best, when creating a bass line.

It is usually worth experimenting with what you might add to the root note however, and the next step that can be done easily and with no risk of sounding out of tune, is to double up the root note by adding the note an octave above. If you find your root note on one of the bottom two strings, you can always find an octave by going two frets up and two strings across.

Which fingers you use may depend on how large your hand is. I favour using my pinky to reach the octave note. But some bass players use their third finger. You may decide to use this trick on each bar, or you may keep it just to add as a fill at the end of each line. Here is what each of those options sounds like when supporting the acoustic guitar part; you can hear they both function OK, but each approach gives the music a slightly different feel.

Finally, for this lesson, there is one more note that we can safely add to almost any chord. And that is the fifth note relative to the root note of that chord. If you have watched our lesson on how basic chords are formed you will know that, for the three main types of chord: Major, Minor and Dominant Seventh, the fifth note is always the same. This just means that we don’t have to alter this note when the chord type changes from Major to minor or to 7th chord. The fifth is even easier to find than the octave. It is two frets up and one string higher than the root. To prepare to use this, try playing the root, fifth and octave over each of the root notes used in Knocking on Heavens Door. For the G major chord…the D major… the A minor chord… and the C major chord. Again, we can choose to use this either on each bar, or just on the last bar of each line like this.

So, there are three simple ways to approach creating a functional bassline along to most songs you might be expected to busk along to.

I know from the feedback to the last video that I have upset some bass players with the concept of ‘instant bass-playing’. So, I want to stress here, that these ideas are simply offered as a very easy way for guitar players to start playing bass. But that, once you start, you will quickly realize that you have entered a whole new musical world. There is infinite scope for developing your bass-playing, just as there is with rhythm and lead guitar. It is a fabulous instrument in its own right and you will find many great lessons by real bass players on You tube who can help you take your bass playing to whatever level you desire.