Old Guitar Player, New Bass Player

[Hillcapper]

I suspect my story may be pretty familiar. 40 year or so guitar player (started around 16) but have always loved the bass. Mostly an acoustic rhythm player; gospel, bluegrass, country primarily. Group I play with in and out of church needs a bass player....so I stepped up. Just got a 1995 Yamaha RBX250 in really good condition. I’ve figured out the root, 5th, octave lines quickly but I know there is so much more. Have a ton of questions but will do a lot of searching in the forum first. Thanks in advance for the patience!

 

[Malcolm35]

A lot of us came over from rhythm guitar. Yes R-5-8-5 will keep the guys asking you back.

We old rhythm guys seem to understand chords and chord progression as that is what we used all the time. Rhythm kinda comes naturally from our strumming.

But now it is chord tones and chord spellings, i.e. one note at a time. I'm messing around with the keyboard now days and one the easy things I've been doing is a 1-5 in the left hand and the 3-7 in the right hand. Follow the chords and the left hand stays with the 1-5 and the right hand will use the 3-7 or 7-3. Basic dirt simple stuff.

My point. Expanding your basic dirt simple chord tone spelling can be a lot of fun.

Happy trails.