I'm post #44, so you may have gotten what you needed and moved on, but in case not, my 2-cents worth is that, for now, as a beginner, think in terms of arpeggios. Our job as bassists is to outline the chord. You really need to the whole chicken to be truly great at your craft, but just for now, to get you some immediate success, here are some "McNuggets". Stick with this to the end. I promise I am answering your question...
In the event someone is playing a C chord, obviously a C-Note is ok to play. You can find C at the 3rd fret of the A string, as well as a few other places. For now, just locate and play that.
if you go down one fret and over one string to the 2nd fret of the D-string, that's E. It would be pretty ok to play while a guitarist is playing a C chord. The last one I'm going to give you is G. Play that one as the the G that is located on the 5th fret of the D string. That would be extremely ok to play when a guitarist is playing a C chord.
That's just 3 notes, but they are important, and part of a scale; the C major scale to be specific.
This is getting into more than I thought it would, but hang in there.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C D E F G A B
C= 1 (also called the root) , E = 3 , G = 5
That's a C-Major Chord.
Those notes I gave you? They make a kind of a shape on your bass. the C is where it is. The D is one fret down and one string over. The G is two frets down and one string over. It makes a little shape if you look at it.
BONUS info.
There is another "5" right next to the C (root) if you go down a string to the E and play the G on the 3rd fret, that's a (lower) 5th. Oh, and if you go the other 5th I showed you originally, and go up a string to the 5th fret on the G string, that's a C too. It counts as a root, and in this context, would be known as an "octave".
If you can keep all the spots I just outlined in mind and think of them as a "shape", you can move it around on your bass neck and the all the notes will work in terms of a major scale, that you can play over a major chord.
If you go the E, 7th fret of the A string and make the E the root, the 3rd, octave and both 5ths I showed you will be just where they are for the C, but higher up. It works for any major. The minor I will leave to you as "homework".
If you think about it, playing these notes like this,really IS playing the chord, just like the guitar player, just one note at a time. That's what we do as the bassist. We do that, in the most interesting and musical way we can.
That's why it's important for us to know some scales as bassists.
More homework, Lean the C pentatonic scale from the C on the 3rd fret of the A we started with. Notes are
1 2 3 5 6
C D E G A
That will get you started, and hopefully make it feel easy, and also help you to understand why scales are important.
