Playing bass from guitar cords

[rodlloyd]

I normally play bass from standard music notation but I have been asked if I can play from guitar cords in a fake book. We are taking about standard ballroom dance music.

Can some one explain how this works.

Rod

[iamthebassplayr]

Fake books have the chord progression laid out above each measure right?

You can always go along with what the roots are of those chords and venture off from there.

Should be easy enough to fake your way through it

[E2daGGurl]

That's pretty much what I play from, most of the time (jazz duo or trio).

It's easy. The chord gives you the root. Then, learn the basic chord forms (or look in a guitar chord book) to find out what the other notes are (there are also bass chord books but you don't need one). Use chordfinder.com or something.

The bottom four strings on the guitar are the same as yours - so there you go.

I'm not advanced enough to do much more than roots and fifths (and sevenths and minor third if it's a seventh or minor chord) but that's usually more than enough notes.

[rodlloyd]

I have never used guitar cords and looking into it, it appears there are 139. That is a lot to learn. Are there a basic dozen or two that cover most tunes and common keys

Rod

[E2daGGurl]

I would not say that there are only a basic dozen.

However, since you are transitioning from sight reading, you may have to simplify your style until you get the hang of the chord system.

I'm guessing, if you are a sight reader, that when I say "root" and "V" that doesn't ring a bell right away. Is that true? Anyway, if the chord is C-anything, then the root is the C and you play that on the downbeat, just for starters. The fifth (V) of C is G. So, to play a Cmaj or a Cmin, you need at least a C and a G for the I and V. This will get you further than you think. You should be able to hear/find the transition notes for the rhythm you want (I'm thinking you're trying to do quarter notes walking style, but I don't know that for sure). Just play a nice warm root is one way to start.

If you memorize the I and V for all the scales, you will be prepared to deal with a lot of those chords (maj, min, 7ths, minor 7ths) but without playing the notes that actually make the chords into a 7th or a minor. That's fine - a lot of what you've been playing by sight reading has been on roots and V's too, with a IV or a VII thrown in for transition (I'm assuming, based on jazz charts I have that are fully notated).

So, for each scale (you're calling them chords, but to me, as a bass player, I don't think of them as chords, but as the "key" that particular bar is written in). Eventually, you'll learn the intervals that make up all the various chords - which is way easier than memorizing 100 plus chords individually.

I think there are way more than 139 guitar chords, btw. Sometimes in the back of jazz "fake" books, there are charts of the most common - but again, learning the intervals that are in the chords is way easier.

maj7, min7, min, maj are just the beginning - but the root and V for all of those are the same - it's what else you put in the bar that makes it sound more like the full chord.

To start - make sure you know the intervals for a major and a minor chord. I bet we could all help you more if we knew how you were approaching your transition into the fun and exciting world of reading jazz charts! Or if you are thinking in terms of intervals at all - I know that a lot of sight readers learn the fretboard by thinking "notes" instead of intervals...if that makes sense.

[JTE]

They aren't guitar chords. They're chords. Anytme you have three or more notes sounded at the same time, it's a chord. So if you play a C, the singer is singing a G, the flute is playing an E, and the harmonica is playing a Bb, it's a C7 chord.

You need to learn some basic chordal theory. You need to learn what notes are in the main chords and be able to find them in any key. At a minimum you need to understand a major chord, minor chord, dominant 7, diminished, and augmented.

Learn that a major chord is 1, 3, and 5 of the major scale of the root- that means that a C chord is C, E, and G.

A minor is 1, b3, and 5 so that's C, Eb, and G. And that a dominant 7 chord (generally just called a 7th) is 1, 3, 5, b7 so that's C, E, G, Bb.

Get a basic harmony theory book to learn this stuff. For now, and to get this quickly, ignore anything it says about modes- you want to be able to see a chord chart and know what it means when it says something like

|Amin7 |D9 | Gmaj7 | or ||:C |A7| Dmin7 G9| F F# G7| C C#dim G7:||

jte