Whether you are playing in a band or trying to compose a new piece of music, it is always important to know where your bass is going. This will allow you to provide a backbone and core to the rest of the band. If you are playing the blues, there are certain techniques that you can use to have the right chords in place.
Instructions
1. Start at the root. For every bass note is a foundation note that works off the chord. For bass, this is seen as the first note. If you are reading tab paper or sheet music, you can find the first note by looking at the chord above the line or at the first note.
2. Find the key. If you can't find the foundation note, your reference is the key signature that you are playing in or writing in. This will let you know where to start for the chords.
3. Put in the chord progression. A bass blues progression will always have the same movement through the entire song. This progression will be I, IV, I, IV, I, IV, V. You can find the progression by knowing the scale of the song. For instance, if you start in the key of C, your notes will be: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The I will be C, the IV will be F and the V will be G. The notes correspond with the number that the note is in the key. The I, IV, V at the end of the section is known as the turnaround, and it will lead back to the beginning of the chord progression.
4. Build your chords. Once you have the blues progression, you can build the bass chords on top of it. Typically, this will be the corresponding foundation note, then the intervals above it. The intervals will always be the third and fifth above the root, and sometimes the seventh above the root. To find the intervals, find your root note, then count up 3 notes, counting the first note as 1. Continue counting up from the root note to find the rest. If you have a C chord, the notes will be: C, E, G. For the seventh chord with C, the notes will be: C, E, G, B.
5. Combine the chords and the progression. Once you have your chords, you can build your blues progression for the bass off the notes that you have chosen and the chord progression that is popular for the blues. This will allow you to have the backbone for your entire blues composition.
