Kamis, 22 November 2012

Playing Guitar Chords With Bass Notes Makes Better Music

Every guitar chord has a bass note and including them in your playing will make you sound great and improve your musicianship. A solid bass line (which can be simply one note per chord) is an important part of making great guitar music. There three different ways you can add this new technique to your playing.

The first technique is simply playing the bass note by itself then strumming the remaining strings of the chord. In other words, let the bass note ring while you strum the rest of the strings. In the case of an Em chord, play the sixth string (the thickest string and the one that's closest to you as you look down at the guitar in your lap) then strum the remaining five strings. For Am, play the fifth string followed by the last four strings (letting that fifth string). You may be surprised how much better your chords will sound using this simple technique.

Finger Style Guitar

To include the bass note when playing finger style (finger picking), make sure you play the note with your thumb on the first beat of each measure. A finger picking pattern should always start with the bass note (sometimes pinched with another string) as this makes the chord more recognizable and musical. Taking this further, you can also play that note latter in the pattern or play it every time you change chords. This will help "introduce" the chord and make song work better.

Alternate Bass Notes

Just as each chord has a bass note, it also has an alternate. Using an Am chord as an example, the fifth string is the bass and the sixth string is the alternate. A simple strum would be to play the fifth string (bass) followed by a strum then the sixth string (alternate) followed by a strum. This will sound much like a bass player in a band and add a nice steady rhythm to your music.

Slash Chords on Guitar

You have probably seen chords such as G/F# or C/B. These are called slash chords and they mean to play a certain chord with a different bass note. To play the C/B chord, you would play the C chord as you normally do but you would play the fifth string at the 2nd fret rather than the 3rd. This changes the bass of the C chord to the note B. Typically, such a change only lasts for one beat followed by a new chord. In other words, this new note becomes a "passing" note that helps move the music along.

Along with chords, melody and rhythm, including bass notes in your guitar playing makes for great music and will make you a better guitar player. Getting in the habit of including bass notes ensures that everything you play will be more musical and your audience (even if it's just your cat) will appreciate the effort.

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1 komentar:

  1. To install the new strings on a Guitar, pass them through the tailpiece (according to the kind of bridge, wheter it's tune o matic, a floyd rose, a Gibraltar.

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