Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost360  No he just gave me tabs. Can you tell the chords by looking at the tab? I've noticed in most metal the bass plays pretty much the same thing as the guitar, except for when he plays chords, then the bass just plays the individual notes. I get that part, but what about when he's not playing multiple strings like I have above |
Several things here.
Looks like from the tabs given to you the guitar player gave you the melody notes, i.e. looks like he is play lead guitar not rhythm guitar. Yes you can figure out what chords go with that tab, however, when I saw that this is melody tab and tab other than standard tuning, and it looks like it had not "traveled" intact I did not try and find out what chord would be used with that tab. Trying to move on to the important issue - what chords - I asked can the guitar give you the chords.
Second part of the above question. When the guitar is playing single notes he is playing some kind of a scale, let's just call it melody. A song is made of melody, harmony and rhythm. That's the three main parts of a song. Normally one person plays, or sings, the melody and the other guys harmonize that melody by play chord accompaniment during his melody. Now the guitar or bass can play both melody or harmony, but, not both at the same time. So when he is playing melody you play chords. When he passes the melody to you then you play melody and he augments your melody with chords, i.e. he harmonizes your melody by playing chord under what you are doing.
Quote:
|
And how do you tell what the root note and what chord he's playing from what I put up above? I know like, a major chord is the root, major 3rd and 5th. This is all kind of confusing, and if somebody could explain it it would be helpful
|
To tell what
chord would harmonize that tab I'd have to write down all the notes, cross out all duplications, put them into alphabetical order and then see if I could figure out what chord could be made from them. I chose not to do that and asked if the guitar could furnish you with a chord chart.
Quote:
|
But I thought that if it's in a key you can't use any notes besides what is in that scale( according to you melodic d minor). There is no f# in melodic d minor but there is in that section. The key stays the same the whole song right?
|
It would be great if they did, but, they don't. In the real World songs go in and out of key. A song may go out for a few notes and then come back in and some songs modulate to new keys, i.e. have more than one key in the song. Now most dirt simple Pop, Rock or Country songs do have one key and stay with that key through out the song, but, if the songwriter wants to go out and it sounds good they do. I know this drove me crazy when I was first starting out.
Back to your OP.
Quote:
|
........After the opens, what could I write to that. It's metal by the way, should I just play the same thing? Or just a few notes? I need a little more explanation on what to play
|
He is playing melody you need to play the harmony. You do that by playing chords. So back to where we started you need a chord chart on the music and then from that you play the notes of the chord one note at a time. How many notes? Normally we play songs that are in 4/4 time, i.e. four quarter notes per measure. So if the song's tempo (rhythm) calls for quarter notes we would sound four notes per measure. But, here enter rest notes, and things like that, so again there is not a cut and dried answer to your question. Normally for us mortals you can rely upon one bass note per lyric word, but, that too is not exact. It boils down to feel. Listen to the music and feel how many notes are needed, would two half notes work best or is this song best served with 1/8 notes.
Long story short - see if the guitar can give you a chord chart on the music. Once you have the chord chart then we can get into how to play from that .
Bass Guitarist 
