Bassline Question.

[Bushfire]

My guitarist has come up with the intro, to what will most
probably end up being a punk-worship song (what? you can mix the two together!), played on a steel string acoustic:

E-------------------------------------------------------------------
B-------------------------------------------------------------------
G-------1-----------------1------------------1----------------1----
D----2-----2----------2-------2----------2------2---------2-------2
A-2---------------2------------------0----------------0------------
E-------------------------------------------------------------------

All of the notes are quarter notes, and the line is played twice.

Now I'm relatively new to this (Bass Playing) and don't have a lot of tools to work with, but how do I get out of using whole note root notes? when I try anything other than roots it just sounds wrong because all he's doing is playing quarters (with no drums by the way.) and anything I do sounds 'incorrect'. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
-Bernard.

[JimK]

The 1st 4 notes(+ the 2nd group of 4 notes) looks like an E Major chord(B-E-G#).
...have you tried playing an OPEN "E"?

I'm assuming you tried playing "B" because that's the guitar's 1st note(?).
Think of it like a pianist...the guitar part is the Right Hand, your Bass note is the Left Hand.

The next group of notes could be an E Major w/ an "A" as the bass note(A-E-G#).

Since you mentioned a this as a "Punk" tune-
In addition to hammering out the Roots...think/try to add(maybe) the 3rd or 5th.
Try something like this(all 1/8th notes for you...if this sounds 'busy', try something else)
lEE EE EE EElG#G# G#G# G#G# G#G#lAA AA AA AAlBB BB BB BBl

Or-
lEE BE EE BElEE BE EE G#G#lAA C#C# BB C#C#lAA BB GG F#F#l etc

[Bushfire]

Gee thanks, I'll have to try that.

But is the only way to learn that kinda stuff, to learn
a lot of chords off by heart?

Uuuhhh, but I don't quite understand your diagram, why two E's? (as in "EE") and why are some of them in those line thingies?

Sorry for being such an idiot....

[Zebra]

I think his diagram is intedned to be divided into bars (the lines) and each bar has 8 eigth notes. He's grouped them togeather, I think, to show separation of each beat.
It's not really memorizing a bunch of chords, there's only three central patterns. Just know how they expand into all the weird form you run into, which isn't too difficult. There are some odd ones, but dominant, major, and minor chords should get you far.

[Bushfire]

Oh I see.....

I made a midi file using the second bassline he provided, (plus some other stuff) and just sent to my guitarist, and I'll see what he thinks of it.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Zebra

I think his diagram is intedned to be divided into bars (the lines) and each bar has 8 eigth notes. He's grouped them together, I think, to show separation of each beat.

Exactly.

[lemur821]

I'd call it an E major chord without its root to the same chord with the fourth rather than the fifth. I like the suggestion to play an E and then a G#, but I'd probably play E, G#, E, G#, repeat, using all whole notes. I'd play it as gently and roundly as possible too, but it would be firm. It's hard to say whose suggestion will lead into the rest of the song best without hearing the rest of the song, but it sounds like a softy song to me.