Easy to Play Sets for Leading on Bass

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Permalink Reply by Wulf Forrester-Barker on September 29, 2012 at 11:03am

It depends what kind of basslines you are trying to play but my observation is that most of the songs I can think of by the artists mentioned above can be carried off with pretty simple basslines that, if anything, are easier than trying to co-ordinate four fingers to form chords across six strings on an acoustic guitar.

If you haven't got any other instruments then the pitch range covered by guitar, the extra padding given by chords in that range and plain congregational familiarity probably do make guitar an easier choice but, given at least one additional musician to work with, bass should fit in well.

Can you identify particular things you have problems with in the songs you classify as not easy?

Permalink Reply by Ryan Green on October 1, 2012 at 8:31pm

I guess, what I mean is something with some pretty easy chord progressions that I don't have to concentrate too much.  After looking through some of the songs on our church song listing, I realize, if I can transpose some of them down a bit, I get them into less #'s and flats. which seemed to help. 

Permalink Reply by Wulf Forrester-Barker on October 1, 2012 at 9:22pm

There are so many songs that just revolve around variants of a I IV V vi progression. In the key of G (a popular choice), that would give you G C D Em. If you move to a key like D# (no, I don't why you'd want to - I've only seen it when the leader was a capo-happy guitarist), the chords would be D#, G#, A# and B#m. That looks a bit more scary but is actually just the same pattern of movements once you've found your starting note.

Don't get phased by sharps and flats - identify the underlying patterns and you can groove in any key.