| Well you can actually play different types of chords, hear how they sound and get that sound in your head !!
You could also set up a chord as a drone - continuous sustain - and then experiment to see how differnet lines played on your bass, sound against that chord - more or less dissonant etc.
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“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus | 
