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Movable Chords 4 string Bass?

B

BassBron

Oct 30, 2011
116
16
#1
Hello everybody,

New to the 4 string Bass.

Are there movable chord (usable) shapes that work over the bottom or top three strings or even four strings all the way up the fretboard?

I think in guitar and ukuleles it is the CAGFED system?

Hoping to find common ground. Thank you
 
#4
BassBron said:
Hello everybody,
New to the 4 string Bass. Are there movable chord (usable) shapes that work over the bottom or top three strings or even four strings all the way up the fretboard?

I think in guitar and ukuleles it is the CAGFED system?
Hoping to find common ground. Thank you
Click to expand...
Common ground........
Yes there are movable chord shapes on our 4 string, but, as mentioned in the other posts they really do not sound right, if we strum. The shapes are there, however, we sound the notes one note at a time. In rhythm to the beat. So learning finger placement as we did on the 6 string guitar, becomes second to learning where the individual notes of the chord (chord tones) are on the fretboard. Thank goodness this is not a steep learning curve.
Code: 
Major Scale Box. 
G|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string

The box is movable on the 3rd and 4th string.......
C @ 3rd string 3rd fret or 4th string 8th fret.

Major triad - sound the R-3-5 -- C chord play the R-3-5, F chord play the R-3-5. Just move the R over a C note or the F note and play the box pattern. The 3 and 5 will always be in their spot waiting on you.
Minor triad - sound the R-b3-5 To get the b3, yep it's a flatted 3 so move one fret toward the nut.
Diminished - sound the R-b3-b5 ....... one note at a time.

So forget about strumming. But, everything you learned on the 6 string will flow right into your bass, we just play the chords or scales one note at a time.

Neat thing about our fretboard. Remember the ole I IV V chord progression?
Link Removed
Song is using the C-F-G chords. Find the C note on the 3rd string. Where is your F & G? Is that neat, or what. Now you still have the C note on the 4th string (8th fret) and the V (5) note with this pattern will always be up a string and over two frets.

Another neat thing about the box. The 2 note of the scale is always - in relation to the root - up two frets (same string). The 3rd is always up a string and back a fret. The 6 is always up a string from the 3 (same fret). I found the box to be a friend. If you liked CAGE(F)D you will love the BOX.

Welcome to the bottom end.
 
#6
Thank you everybody for your replies. The question I posed works, in that, when you fret a chord on a guitar or a uke, you can pick each individual string in a pattern of your choice, and it sounds fine when accompanying in a group of musicians playing a number.

The videos of Havic 5 are good, and as he discusses that striking a chord on a bass guitar has more cons than pros.

My line of thinking would be to fret the chord, and play each string individually and thereby harmonizing / accompanying the melody?

Is this possible or done, or should I steer away from this line of thinking, because it works on the other instruments ?
 
#7
Arpeggiating the chords (as you're suggesting - playing them one note at a time) is a great idea for certain applications. I've also attached a set of chord voicings that I developed. I use them primarily on the A, D, and G strings because they sound a bit cleaner, but you could play most of these on the E, A, and D strings.
 

Attachments

#9
FretlessMainly said:
Arpeggiating the chords (as you're suggesting - playing them one note at a time) is a great idea for certain applications. I've also attached a set of chord voicings that I developed. I use them primarily on the A, D, and G strings because they sound a bit cleaner, but you could play most of these on the E, A, and D strings.
Click to expand...

Where are the basic 1,3,5 and 1.b3,5 triads?
You think they don't sound good even in the second octave of a typical 4 string?
Too hard to finger?
 
#10
I don't generally think in terms of triads; to me, chords are built on roots, 3rds, 5ths and 7ths. But, it's pretty hard to close-voice a four note chord on a 4-string bass, so my chords are generally, as you can see, of the three-note variety. The often-adhered to priority of notes being 3rd > 7th > root > 5th, although I do have root and 5th in a couple of those, and the #5 example doesn't really need the b7 to function strongly to the ear.

As for basic 1,3,5; well, my purpose in developing these voicings wasn't to sound "basic," it was to sound a bit different from what the ear normally expects.
 
#11
BassBron said:
Thank you everybody for your replies. The question I posed works, in that, when you fret a chord on a guitar or a uke, you can pick each individual string in a pattern of your choice, and it sounds fine when accompanying in a group of musicians playing a number.

The videos of Havic 5 are good, and as he discusses that striking a chord on a bass guitar has more cons than pros.

My line of thinking would be to fret the chord, and play each string individually and thereby harmonizing / accompanying the melody?

Is this possible or done, or should I steer away from this line of thinking, because it works on the other instruments ?
Click to expand...

Yes I suppose you can do this, and when I first went over to the bass I too gave this some thought. Once I started using the major scale box and thinking in scale degrees, i.e. C7 = R-3-5-b7 I found the box and scale degrees fit what we do the best. What happens in all this is the music may not give you time for more than the root. Like you may not have time for more than one strum, then other times you can get the root and the 5 in before the music goes off and leaves you. Rhythm guitar on the 6 string most of the time we did one down strum for one lyric word then an up strum for the next lyric word. I now (on bass) do this with the chord tones - one scale degree per lyric word. Hap-py gets two notes as does birth-day then to and you only get one note each.
....................R----5-- R----5---R--R
Count it out - Hap-py birth-day to you. If in the key of C when you get to the word "you" that is a chord change word and you start using G roots here.

Which ever way you want, I like the box and have moved on to that method. What ever lifts your kilt.
 
#12
#14
The terms scale degrees and lower case b3 or b5 are new to me, so I had to read over that a few times, which will probably tell you how bright green I am to this....

I understand that the music determines the short spaces of time afforded to one, to perhaps only strike one note at a time.... Very realistic explanation to ween someone off the idea of fingering a chord on the bass guitar. Thank you Malcolm Amos

@Fretless Mainly: (a) the word "voicings" can I substitute that with finger pattern, which work up and down the fretboard, as determined by the key in which the song is played? (b) your pdf shows these patterns / voicings, however some of your diagrams do not show which one the root is. I am not familiar with this notation, and am assuming that the number means with which finger you should fret, and does the #1 finger position always start on the root note?

@TrblWidTrebels: From your reply the expression the "2nd octave" is the lower one down the neck of the instrument?
 
#15
BassBron said:
The terms scale degrees and lower case b3 or b5 are new to me, so I had to read over that a few times, which will probably tell you how bright green I am to this....

I understand that the music determines the short spaces of time afforded to one, to perhaps only strike one note at a time.... Very realistic explanation to ween someone off the idea of fingering a chord on the bass guitar. Thank you Malcolm Amos

@Fretless Mainly: (a) the word "voicings" can I substitute that with finger pattern, which work up and down the fretboard, as determined by the key in which the song is played? (b) your pdf shows these patterns / voicings, however some of your diagrams do not show which one the root is. I am not familiar with this notation, and am assuming that the number means with which finger you should fret, and does the #1 finger position always start on the root note?

@TrblWidTrebels: From your reply the expression the "2nd octave" is the lower one down the neck of the instrument?
Click to expand...

I struggle with this also but I'm pretty sure standard terminology is that "higher" on the neck means higher pitch so 12th fret is higher than 1st fret.

My idea of 'second octave' means the second octave of pitches that the instrument is capable of making. On bass there is usually a many to one relationship between string/fret combinations and actual pitch. So the first note in the second octave, E, is at the e string 12th fret AND at the A string 7th fret AND at the D string 2nd fret.

I often think of the second octave on bass as the 'guitar notes' because they are the lowest notes available on standard guitar. If you're forming chords from guitar notes then they should sound ok. Makes sense to me anyway.


As I read fretless' diagrams the number inside the circle is finger and outside the circle is a notation of scale degree. root, third, sharp 5th, FLAT FLAT SEVENTH(!!) etc. Some are inversions(root is not the lowest note)
 
#16
Octave - we have three octaves on our bass. And there are note duplication all over our fretboard. Took me awhile to get it all sorted out.

Code: 
Major Scale Box. 

G|---9/2-|-------|-10/3--|-11/4--| 1st string
D|---6---|-------|---7---|--8/R--|
A|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string

The box has almost two octaves within it's pattern 8, 9, 10 and 11 are the beginning notes in the second octave. For the rest of them and then the third octave just go on up (toward the sound hole) on the 1st string.

Go to http://www.studybass.com/lessons/reading-music/bass-clef-fretboard-notes/ and then click on Bass Clef notes on the fretboard for a chart that will go into more detail.
 
#17
FretlessMainly said:
Just to be clear, 10ths aren't chords, they are an interval/dyad. Indeed they sound good almost anywhere on bass, but they ain't chords.
Click to expand...

yeah, i'm aware of this. the reason i diddnt say dyad is because thats limiting it to a two-note thing (witch your right, if you say "10ths on a bass" you mean the two note entity we all play all the time) but, you can always add the 5th or double the root, and then the same 10th is part of a chord. either way the 10ths sound great.

but yeah, im glad someone caught that, 10ths alone arent chords.
 
#18
trblWthTrebles said:
Where are the basic 1,3,5 and 1.b3,5 triads?
You think they don't sound good even in the second octave of a typical 4 string?
Too hard to finger?
Click to expand...

These move. The numbers are arbitrary, in fact hard to play and muddy where I have them listed. The numbers are of course fret numbers.

Major, root on A string:

G---1---(fifth)
D---3---(third)
A---4---(root)

Major, root on D string:

G---1---(third)
D---2---(root)
A---2---(fifth)

Major, root on G string:

G---1---(root)
D---1---(fifth)
A---3---(third)

Minor, root on A string:

G---1---(fifth)
D---2---(third)
A---4---(root)

Minor, root on D string:

G---1---(third)
D---3---(root)
A---3---(fifth)

Minor, root on G string:

G---1---(root)
D---1---(fifth)
A---2---(third)

Simple and handy.

KO
 
#19
Assume we make the purely musical decision that a given bass line bar will be quarter notes - root, third, fifth, flat seventh.

A keyboardist probably WOULD finger the 4 note chord and sort of roll through it.

On bass it is trivial even for a hack like me to play the 4 notes in a box pattern on THREE STRINGS. To finger the full four note chord in order on a standard tuned bass would be close to impossible.

You could change(re-voice?) the chord to 1,5,b7,10(3) to make it more playable but then your arpeggio would be different. Maybe good but definitely different.

Even if you used a guitar and an 'octave-down' box the chord voicings probably wouldn't be what you wanted for bass-lines most of the time. The typical guitar chords are NOT 1,3,5,7,octave,tenth etc in order, they nearly always 'skip' some scale degrees just to be playable on an instrument tuned in 4ths(and the one third on guitar)
 
#20
BassBron said:
@Fretless Mainly: (a) the word "voicings" can I substitute that with finger pattern, which work up and down the fretboard, as determined by the key in which the song is played? (b) your pdf shows these patterns / voicings, however some of your diagrams do not show which one the root is. I am not familiar with this notation, and am assuming that the number means with which finger you should fret, and does the #1 finger position always start on the root note?
Click to expand...

trblWthTrebles said:
As I read fretless' diagrams the number inside the circle is finger and outside the circle is a notation of scale degree. root, third, sharp 5th, FLAT FLAT SEVENTH(!!) etc. Some are inversions(root is not the lowest note)
Click to expand...

tWT is correct here. Many of the patterns are indeed inversions, so the root is not always the lowest note. In fact, you'll see that the root is completely omitted in one or two of my examples. While normally the root is critical to bass playing, when playing chords on bass, especially in the context of a strong, standard musical resolution, such as:

| Dmin7 | G7 | CMaj7 |

the ear doesn't necessarily need the root in the CMaj7. Sure, it doesn't hurt to have it, but you don't need it. The brain fills it in almost automatically.

There are two primary reasons why I voiced the chords as I did (and yes, BassBron, voicing just means how the notes are arranged relative to one another, which could be described as "finger pattern"):

1. If you play around a bit with these, you'll see that it isn't that easy to construct three-note voicings all within 3 frets and 3 adjacent strings. The voicings I present just fall out of what can be done within those limitations.

2. I like the sound of close-position voicings that leave space (i.e., they are missing at least one note of the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th structure) and I like it when chords move a short distance and are expressed in different inversions -

root position is root, 3rd, 5th, 7th
first inversion is 3rd, 5th, 7th, root
second inversion is 5th, 7th, root, 3rd

and so forth. By voicing with only three pitches, it leaves a bit of room for the ear to fill in. The result is musically correct without sounding "cookie cutter, " if you will.

Of course, this is all just a starting point. You could create new voicings using all four strings and possibly a four-fret spread, but there are limits...
 

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