BASS THEORY QUESTION

[lestblight]

hi all. Im new here and had a beginner question.

So im teaching myself some music theory but have a problem.
ps- hope all is well man.

its regarding major and minor chords.

Lets take c as the root.

A C MAJOR is made up of C EG and C MINOR is made up of C E flat G

lets say i am using this in a song.

Cmajor and cminor. What bass notes on bass guitar would be harmonically correct.

Lets say my melody is 4 chords

CMAJOR. CMAJOR, CMINOR, CMINOR

How would i compliment this on bass guitar?

I would imagine i would go with a C note and and a c flat? on the bass?

not sure what the rules. are-

thanks in advance,.

[Daley83]

<a href="http://www.studybass.com/lessons/bass-chord-patterns/">Study Bass- Chord patterns</a>

This covers the basic chord patterns and applications on a bass. As a noob I've found that website very useful. Hope it helps a little.

**edit- Why don't hyperlinks work for me? what am i missing?

[MonetBass]

Study Bass - Chord Patterns

Try this. (You have to use the 'Add Link' button in the reply page. )

Anyway, to answer the OP's immediate question: you've already answered it yourself. You know which notes go with the chords you're playing.
CM = C E G
Cm = C Eb G
Based on that Cb (or B) wouldn't work with the Cm chord. Definitely check out the above link for more info.

Enjoy!

[MarkTAW]

The rules are really just guidelines.

Taking a step back, what you want to learn about are Keys. If you're in the KEY of C major, what chords work within the key?

Key is "greater" than chords. Keys contain chords. A song is in a Key. "This song is in the key of C major."

Chords are greater than notes. Chords contain notes. There will be several chords in a song. "The chorus is C major, A minor."

What to play in the Key of C
If you're in the Key of C major several chords work in that key.
1. C major [C E G]
2. D minor [D F A]
3. E minor [E G B
4. F major [F A C]
5. G major [G B D]
6. A minor [A C E]
7. B diminished (flat 5th) [B D F]

If you examine all these chords you'll notice that they're all made up of the same 7 notes.

As you can see, you wouldn't normally have both C major and C minor in the same key, but you may have C major and A minor in the same key.

What to play in the C Major Chord
If you're playing a C major chord, several notes work in that chord.
C
E
G

The bass is the foundation, so you want to emphasize the root of the chord - C.

A common note to play is the 5th note in the scale (key). C - G. It adds little color, but increases the feeling of tension a bit.

Expanding from there, you can play any note in the chord - C E G.

Expanding from there, you can play any note in the scale, especially C E G A B.

I would start on C, and expand from there. When the chord changes to C, play C, and then experiment with other notes in the chord/key you're playing in.

[mutedeity]

Basically the question you are asking is both very simple and very difficult to answer. If you are looking to solve this in the most simple terms you would just play the notes of the respective chords melodically over the chords themselves. {C,E,G} over CMaj and {C,Eb,G} over Cmin. To make this more interesting you could play through different inversions of those chords too.

On the other hand if you are looking for a bigger sonic picture in terms of what scale or so on to use then you have to look beyond which chord fits over which mode in a diatonic sense. One obvious application of CMaj to cmin would be where you are playing the bVI - bvi of E (harmonic) minor. So effectively playing E harmonic minor or its 6th mode which is C lydian(#2) would work well over that. The notes of E harmonic minor are {E,F#,G,A,B,C,D#}. The notes of C lydian(#2) are {C,D#,E,F#,G,A,B}. However, there are many other applications and scales you could use. If you are a beginner this is probably a little confusing though.