Chord Patterns on the Bass

The bass guitar is a musical instrument used to create the harmony framework for a song.

Very seldomly musicians play full chords on a bass; not that is not possible, but it is very unusual.

Most of the time, bass musicians alternate between playing the root and the fifth notes of a chord.

The root is the origin of a chord, and the fifth provides a useful alternative, usually making it ready to move to another chord.

Sometimes bass musicians play a sequence of notes, as an arpeggio, using the notes from a chord, and other times they move along the notes of a scale.

The DG Bass Chord Patterns Android application facilitates the learning of chord patterns on the bass, by displaying all the notes and intervals in a chord, on any position along the fretboard.

To produce notes of a chord, you must play only notes from the chord.

For example, say you want to produce bass notes for a Edim7 chord.

The Edim7 chord is based on the following notes: E, G, Bb/A#, Db/C#.

Suppose you want to play this chord starting from the 5th fret of the bass, and onwards.

• 1st string is G, but when pressed on the 6th fret, it produces a C#/Db;
• 2nd string is D, but when pressed on the 5th fret, it produces a G, and on the 8th fret it produces an A#/Bb;
• 3rd string is A, but when pressed on the 7th fret, it produces an E.
• 4th string is E, but when pressed on the 6th fret, it produces an A#/Bb.

The following image shows this chord pattern on the 5th fret:

Next, you need to know the intervals, to be able to tell which is the root, and its relationship to the other notes in the chord.

By tapping on the fretboard of the DG Bass Chord Patterns Android application, it reveals the note intervals, as shown below:

This way you know which is the root, and that there are two diminished 5ths nearby, in case you want to alternate and use them.

This application will help you understand the intervals behind the chord formulas, and will help you produce fine music with your bass guitar.

We recommend you learn by memory the basic major, minor, and seventh chord patterns. The rest comes with practice as you need them.