Thank you. I did, for about 30 years. Back to it now, don't have that much time left to get creative but I'm enjoying what I've got
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Slash chords – optional or not?
- Thread starter zZippy
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Yes, thanks. This is partly my conundrum. Since I’m playing in a situation (church worship team) where we have new songs each time I’m on stage, usually a rotating BL, and perhaps a couple hours of practice at most before Sunday, we don’t have time to discuss every chord. Sometimes you just need to figure out what sounds good considering what the rest of the group is doing.
They'd almost always be Eb, B and F# if he was playing them.
Modern church music seems to use slash chords like C/D a lot, which in that type of song (assuming the key of G) tends to function more as an altered D chord than as a C chord, like an incognito Dsus9.
Context is everything, right? If it's more a folky acoustic sound and the guitarist is playing simple chords the /bass notes may sound funny although still correct. In that case I may just play the root because the context calls for consonance over interesting. If it's a full band there may be room for the more interesting /bass notes. As always let your ear be your guide.
Our job isn’t to play the root notes (although we do thst a lot). Our job is to play the most important notes. When the composer wants to change the mood of things, he or she typically gives us the task - when the change occurs in our register, it’s more onvious thsn if you gave the task to someone else.
When it doubt go low.
You'll find it in decending chord patterns. ... GM7 ///, GM7/F# ///, GM7/E ///, etc.
It's important to view a chord and quickly be able to see how the bass can me used to best move through those changes using passing tones. ... The 1/2 step below the next chord change is often used as an example. ... You can play a desending C major7 scale playing through these four chords, CM7/ A-7/, D-7/ G7/, ... Understanding what terms like "It's the 4 of the 5-chord." mean. That's very important to reading a new chart and playing the best bass line you can quickly that'll make you sound like a pro.
You'll find it in decending chord patterns. ... GM7 ///, GM7/F# ///, GM7/E ///, etc.
It's important to view a chord and quickly be able to see how the bass can me used to best move through those changes using passing tones. ... The 1/2 step below the next chord change is often used as an example. ... You can play a desending C major7 scale playing through these four chords, CM7/ A-7/, D-7/ G7/, ... Understanding what terms like "It's the 4 of the 5-chord." mean. That's very important to reading a new chart and playing the best bass line you can quickly that'll make you sound like a pro.
Sure, if I were putting together a piano arrangement of the song, I'd definitely be playing the B as the lowest note. And I'd probably also play it in the octave the guitar part "sits" in and leave the bass register alone.Nowadays, all guitar magazines/tutorials are pushing the guitar players to play the "slashed" note on the guitar.
Example.
View attachment 3258528
Does it stand out too much that slash note?
Think about the sonority of the chord structure if there was only a piano player accompanying/playing.
The piano player would/should play that "slashed" note as the lowest chord note.
Don't worry. After your learning progresses, you'll get more understanding about those slash chords.
Of course, the lower keys of the piano don't have the same timbre as the bass does. I've had to create bass lines from piano sheet music on the fly before and had to change a lot of things around to make it work.
What I wanted to say originally is that the way Flea plays it on the record (sticking to the root, leaving the B to the guitar) sounds like the right thing to do to me. I tried jamming to the song, also playing the B, and it didn't sound as good. Can someone explain why this is the case here? Maybe it has to do with the dissonance between the F in the bass that is played a bar prior? Here's the RHCP song again:
On a bass chart, 99% of the time play the note on the right of the slash. Keep in mind, if you are working with a keyboardist, more than likely, he is playing that inversion with that note with his left hand in a lower register. Failure do so, especially in the case of a Maj 7th, can cause severe implications, like woofing.
For instance on an E Maj 7 chord you decide to play the root note while your keyboardist dutifully plays the chord as written playing the Eb. To hear what this may sound like let your open E ring while playing an Eb on the A string. Sounds great doesn’t it?
Moral of the story: Play the ink.
We are confusing three different concepts in this discussion:
- Chord charts for group improv performance: The band leader or music director hands everyone a piece of paper with just chord names (or chord names and lyrics). Each musician is expected to improvise a stylistically-appropriate part on their instrument, based on these chord symbols. For beginner bassists, the note after the slash is your safest choice. If you are an expert improviser, then you might think of some other notes to play, too.
- Chord charts for musical analysis: It is a good music-theory skill to be able to study a composition and understand the "harmonic road map." This type of chord chart works best in my opinion when it focuses on the big picture, and doesn't try to account for every single passing note, non-chord tone, or chord voicing. (Example: You are transcribing a Ron Carter walking bass line. The chord is Dmaj7 but Carter plays F# on the 1st beat. You don't have to call this Dmaj7/F#; it can still be Dmaj7 for theory-analysis purposes.) You wouldn't necessarily be able to perform the composition using only this type of chart, but it is a useful study tool.
- Chord charts for the guitarist: Sometimes (especially when using sources like "Christmas Favorites Sing-Along Songbook") there will be an extra set of chord charts above the sheet music. For example, you might see a three-staff arrangement with the vocals on one staff, two staves for the right- and left-hand piano, and then an additional set of chord symbols above the vocal staff. In this type of arrangement, the chords are only for the guitarist. Our best choice as bassists is often to play the left-hand piano part. (Perhaps transposing by an octave, since bass is a transposing instrument.)
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Your poll has an issue so I didn't vote, but I play the notated bass note(which isn't the root). There's a reason it is notated.
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This really should be written on staff, this kind of "chart" is pretty abysmal. I can't tell if they are supposed to be inversions or doubled up chord changes instead of whatever the mystery meter is. Looks like it was written by a guitarist who plays solo acoustic gigs at an Applebee's.
Wait until the drums enter, he sticks to a repeating vamp in the low register with the G on bar 3 after that.
like anything this depends on context.
in certain situation, it is required and leaving out a particular note as the bass note would be incorrect. Other times they're optional. sometimes they sound downright ridiculous and make no sense and most people with good ears/knowledge would instinctively leave them out.
there is definitely no one right answer to this, but it will always depend on context. the reality is, a lot of charts are poorly written / misleading. some are dead on accurate and when followed carefully make the best result.
in certain situation, it is required and leaving out a particular note as the bass note would be incorrect. Other times they're optional. sometimes they sound downright ridiculous and make no sense and most people with good ears/knowledge would instinctively leave them out.
there is definitely no one right answer to this, but it will always depend on context. the reality is, a lot of charts are poorly written / misleading. some are dead on accurate and when followed carefully make the best result.
This is a really excellent point, and I'm glad you brought it up.
In improvised music, it is taken for granted that guitarists (and keyboardists, or any other chord instrument) have a lot of leeway in how they "voice" the chords. For example, a lot of jazz guitarists wouldn't even play the root at all!
One person's "good ear" is another person's "dumbing the music down." It does depend on context; if you're in a situation where there's a lot of improvisation going on, you'll find yourself with more freedom to choose what you're going to play. But if you want the music to sound as it's written, you will probably play those bass notes that might not sound "right" to someone who isn't used to those kinds of sounds. It probably sounded right to the composer and will sound right to the majority of listeners who know the music.
88 posts down the rabbit hole and mighty few of them (these ^^^ are among the few) take any notice that we’re probably playing in ensembles, i.e. duets, trios or bands. When you get a chart it’s likely one size fits all: there aren’t separate bass parts, keyboard parts, guitar parts, etc. so you’re all looking at that inversion. If you all play the inversion it’ll sound goofy. The inversion doesn’t belong to the bass just because the bass note is specified. It’s a good bet that the inversion is intended for the keys or guitar (or accordion?) and the bass is simply placed on notice that there’s a harmony “thing” coming. The obligation is on you to use your skill and judgement to play what fits and sounds good. Serve the song! A novel idea: assuming you aren’t reading it cold, talk about the arrangement with the other musicians before the downbeat.
If the context is establishing the correctness or otherwise of the notation, then it may depend, but once the requested bass note has been found to be correct, there is no debate. What might be debated is who plays the lowest pitch - bass, piano, trombone, etc - but whoever gets it is bound to it in the same way as everyone else needs to play higher.
My assumption is typically that the bass will play the inversion, unless specifically agreed otherwise.
The spirit of my previous comment was: guitarist/pianist have a lot of leeway in how they voice the chord, because the bassist is defining the harmony.
If the bassist deviates from the written harmony, then at that point, the guitarist and pianist lose their "safety net" and must adjust accordingly.
Example: If the chord is G/B and the bassist is playing B as the lowest note, then the guitarist can play any voicing of a Gmaj chord, and it will "work." They can put G, B, or D in the bottom. They can double up on certain notes, or omit certain notes altogether. They might even sneak in some extra notes like the 9th (A) or 13th (E). This all "works" because the bassist is strongly defining the harmony by playing B.
