Popular bass chords

[northman]

Howdy,

 

Can anyone tell me how to produce that famous 2 chord bass sound that is so popular at the end of many songs, tv commercials, etc? I hear it all the time but for the life of me I can't recall a particular tune that has it. It almost sounds like a root-2nd to root-3rd kind of thing but I can't quite figure out the proper chords.

 

Any help is appreciated. I'll scan through my music library and see if I can find a specific example.

 

-AJ

[Davo-London]

Root, major 3rd (octave above ie 10th) may well the sound you are referring to.

 

Other favs are:

 

Root, maj 7th, maj 3rd (10th)- above 12th fret.

Root, 7th, minor 3rd (10th)- above 12th fret.

 

Davo

[Eric VB]

For a IV7 I7 ending it's an easy one-fret slide.

 

For the IV7 voice it as the major 3rd on bottom and dominant 7th on top.

 

When you slide this up one fret the bottom note becomes the dominant 7th and the top note becomes the major 3rd of the I7.

 

For example, 11th fret of the D string (pointer finger) and 12th fret of the G string (middle finger) gives you C# and G from an A7.

 

Slide this up and you get 12th fret D string (D) and 13th fret G string (G#) from an E7.

 

Sometimes it's just a simple minor 3rd to major 3rd change a la the major blues scale. This is voiced as Davo points out: b10 to 10. For example play the open E (root) and G (b10) strings and then hammer on to a G# (10).

[Cthulhu Fhtagn]

Something as simple as root/octave, especially if ending in a major chord. It's light, it's uplifting, it's public domain!

[SteveC]

I use 10ths all the time.

[Gruuve]

If you're up on higher strings, moving from a partial major chord (root + major 3rd) to a sus4 (root + 4th) sounds quite nice. The beginning of Mr. Big's "Green Tinted Sixties Mind" immediately comes to mind for me. You can also lower the root an octave, and it still has the same vibe to it...this would technically be a 10th chord to an 11th chord, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Some other easy-to-reach partial chords would be a major or minor 7th chord (root + maj/min 3rd + dom 7th) or a major 7th chord (root + maj/min 3rd + maj 7th).

 

As a side note here, Steve Bailey executes chords in an interesting way...he thumb plucks the root, and does artificial harmonics on the other chord tones. This sounds really good IMO...check out his video on the BassPlayer.tv site.

 

Dave

 

[DC Ross]

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, but for bass, I'm partial to very simple chords, maj3, min3, sus4, etc...

[Phil W]

northman,

Give us some examples of what you're looking for!

[alexclaber]

I'm a chordal addict, to the point that I get really bothered by the lack of frets and annoying heel block on more traditional basses.

 

One great thing about the bass is that there is so much fullness to every note that you can get really nice sounds from just two or three notes at once - the downside is that as you add more notes things can get quite muddy. I play a lot of inversions and also leave the fifth out of more complex chords to get the required clarity.

 

Alex

[oscarr111111]

I'm a chordal addict, to the point that I get really bothered by the lack of frets and annoying heel block on more traditional basses.

 

One great thing about the bass is that there is so much fullness to every note that you can get really nice sounds from just two or three notes at once - the downside is that as you add more notes things can get quite muddy. I play a lot of inversions and also leave the fifth out of more complex chords to get the required clarity.

 

Alex

 

You don't have to play all the notes at the same time .

 

Most chord sequences sound much better when semi-arpeggiated or arpeggiated melodically.