Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot) bass line

[Minotauros]

I just want to see if I got this right, or am missing something.

I know tabs are the devils' own work, but sometimes ya gotta do it. I found just about the only bass tab on the interwebz for Sundown. I was playing with my own but it didn't come out right at all wrt the recording.

Near as I can tell, Sundown is in A... E A D with an E7 in the intro and one B7 in each verse (I can't quite figure out why except for a momentary key change).

Anyway, the tab I found is this (partially)...


tempo 104
|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|
|--------------------------------|------------------------2---3---|
|--------------------------------|--------------------4-----------|
|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|


|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|
|4-----------4-----------2---3---|4-----------4-----------4---2---|
|----------------4---4-----------|----------------4---4-----------|
|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|


|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|
|4-----------4-----------2---3---|4-----------4---------------2---|
|----------------4---4-----------|----------------4---4---2-------|
|--------------------------------|--------------------------------|

After all that out of the way, we have a C# E F F# as the bass line over the Emaj chord. I know we have C# as the third in the key of A. I thought that you'd only the notes of that particular chord, but the first four notes are just what are on the recording.

So am I missing something by thinking you can use only the notes of the chord being played, or you can use any of the notes in the scale at any point in the bass line?

Did I make sense?

[onlyclave]

You can use whatever notes you want, regardless if they are part of the chord. Those are called Non-Harmonic Tones and they can be used with great effect. What's in your example is a passing tone, but other NHT's you'll run into are upper neighbors, lower neighbors, appogiaturas, suspensions, retardations, etc.

They help add motion and interest to music.

[Minotauros]

I went further and read Nonchord tone (redirect from Non-harmonic tone). I know people are skeptical of Wikipedia, but it seemed to make sense wrt to your explanation. We learn something new every day. Thanks!