Now that we've got the chords down it's time to add our bass line.
In this part of the tutorial we will cover some rules to adding a bass line while comping chords.
There are two main rules to follow.
Rule #1: All bass notes should be quarter notes on a down beat. (beats 1 - 2 - 3 - 4)
Rule #2: Each chord should be approached by half step, even if that note is outside of the key/scale. That mean beat 4 of your bass line should always be a half step away from the next chord.
When it comes to creating our bass line we have a lot of different options.
Here are a few. (Keep in mind; this only includes beats 1, 2, & 3 since beat 4 will be a half step approach)
#1 - play up or down the scale until you reach the next chord (1 - 2 - 3 - half step approach note)
#2 - play the arpeggio of the current chord until you reach the next chord. (1 - 3 - 5 - half step approach note)
#3 - 1 - 5 - 1 - half step approach note
#4 - 1 - half step down - 1 - half step approach
There are a few more but these are the ones we will be utilizing in this tutorial.