How to Play Bass Chords

Video Transcript

For this lesson we're going to be talking about how to play chords on bass. When we think about chords what chords are composed of is the first, the third, the fifth and the seventh note of any scale. So for example in our mixolydian that I just showed you starting on G, which is G, A, B, C, D, F and then G, what we're going to do is we're going to pick out the notes that would compose the chord. So we have the G, the B, the D and the F. On bass it's a little more difficult to play the chords because it's not like a piano where we have every single string for every not so we can play very lush full chords. The bass we only have, in my instance five strings, but in most cases four strings so what we need to do is we have to pick the most important notes of the chord and get rid of the ones that aren't so important since we don't have as many options. So for the G mixolydian or G dominant seven chord which is what it's called, we're going to get the first, the third, the fifth and the seventh but we're going to omit the fifth, because it's the least important note of that chord. It's the least defining note. If we look in the major scale, the major scale has a fifth in it. If we look in the minor scale it also has a fifth in it or also in the mixolydian scale which we're covering right now. They all have that fifth, so since they all have it it's the least important note or, the least important interval to define that chord. So what we're going to do is we're going to omit the fifth and we're going to play just the first, the third and the flat seventh. So we get this sound right here. And I'm going to show you on the higher G. Right there is a G seven dominant chord and we're using the first, third and the flat seven. Now this is how you would voice it, and voice means how you would play the notes on the A string on bass. A lot of times we want to play the same chord but voiced using the root on the E string. So to do that, the trick that I do is instead of doing this....which is the same chord an octave lower, since that's a little muddy, I'm going to take this third right here and bring it up an octave. So I have all the same notes, but I'm voicing it differently. So now I have the first, the flat seven and the major third right there and it gets a more clear sound. So again you can play either the G seven here, or you can play it up here, like this. That's how you play a G seven chord on the bass.

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