Playing along with a guitar

[tye2k3]

When your palying bass with other instuments, mainly a guitar, do you play the same chord that their playing or is their some other way to know what you should be playing?

[bassist4ever]

generally in stuff like rock and metal the bass and guitar play the same thing. but in jazz and blues, country etc... not generally.

but as usual i could be wrong.. let one of the more experienced people answer if i be wrong.

[tye2k3]

When I start playing moer, I'll be palying mostly rock and country, I'll look into the different styles now. Thanks

[Bass_Pounder]

In general yes, you are playing somewhat what the guitar is playing in rock and metal. You will be playing the tonic or root notes. However, this does not always hold true.

There will be times when the guitar player is making changes, and you will not, just like there will be times that you change and the guitar does not (I know this probably makes no sense). Yet, there are times in my bands music when as the guitar player changes, myself and the keys will go elsewhere. By doing this, we build a chord with all the instruments.

[tye2k3]

So it depends, I'll just stick with playing the root, it seems to sound ok, well I'll play like that for now.

[Bass_Pounder]

Originally posted by tye2k3
So it depends, I'll just stick with playing the root, it seems to sound ok, well I'll play like that for now.

Sometimes it simply comes down to "what sounds right for the song". Alot of times less is more, but there are other times when you can just feel by the song that you need to be filling in some of the gaps. Good Luck