What would you do with this chord sequence?

[julietgreen]

Someone I know has written a pop song with chords along these lines:

 

E        Aadd9/E    Emaj7sus2    Esus4 (x2)

E            Esus4    ,    E      Esus4

Aadd9/E          E              Emaj7sus2

 

So, essentially, it could be open E string throughout! I'm not sure what I would do with it. Put in those voicings? Create an ostinato bass riff? Is there a trick here that I'm not seeing? What would you do, given it's a basic pop style, guitar led song?

[paul_5]

Tomorrow Never Knows is very similar to this; nothing wrong with playing (mostly) one chord for 4 minutes at all.

[julietgreen]

2 minutes ago, paul_5 said:

Tomorrow Never Knows is very similar to this; nothing wrong with playing (mostly) one chord for 4 minutes at all.

Hmm... OK, cool. I'll have a listen to that one. It would certainly make remembering it easy. By 'one chord' do you mean one note? That's the thing...

[paul_5]

Basically it's a tape loop of Ringo's drums and a C chord over the top. I think occasionally it has a Bb chord over a C in the bass, all with a liberal helping of Sir George Martin's genius.

 

It's an amazing track, and I recommend it to everyone. 

 

The Chemical Brothers did some similar stuff with Noel Gallagher in the 90s - I think it was "let Forever Be' or something like that.

 

 

[Doddy]

It's hard to say what to play without knowing things like the time signature, the feel, or the melody. All of those things should guide you in what to play.

Note wise, yes you could play an open E through all of it if you wanted, but you could also play E's in different octaves too (if you wanted to stay on just the root). Alternatively, do you know the notes that are in all of those chords? If you do, that gives you a lot of options of where you can take your bassline.

[julietgreen]

On 05/09/2022 at 22:44, Doddy said:

It's hard to say what to play without knowing things like the time signature, the feel, or the melody. All of those things should guide you in what to play.

Note wise, yes you could play an open E through all of it if you wanted, but you could also play E's in different octaves too (if you wanted to stay on just the root). Alternatively, do you know the notes that are in all of those chords? If you do, that gives you a lot of options of where you can take your bassline.

Hi Doddy

 

Yes, I know the notes in those chords, so I was wondering whether other bassists would voice them. I realise the feel of the piece would contribute to the decision.

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 05/09/2022 at 23:44, Doddy said:

It's hard to say what to play without knowing things like the time signature, the feel, or the melody. All of those things should guide you in what to play.

Note wise, yes you could play an open E through all of it if you wanted, but you could also play E's in different octaves too (if you wanted to stay on just the root). Alternatively, do you know the notes that are in all of those chords? If you do, that gives you a lot of options of where you can take your bassline.

Yeah, really hard to know, you would want to play something completely different depending of if it's a slow droning kind of atmospheric ethereal song or an upbeat peppy tune, having parts that encompass both, something in between, or something entirely different, add to that not least also depending on what the guitar and other instruments are playing and how they do it as well as the vocal melody and style, all in all making is totally impossible to come with any general guidelines that would make any kind of sense.

 

Depending the right thing could be just droning on an open E all way through, chord arpeggios following the chord changes, a melodic bass line that ties it all together, or some kind of mixture of all that.

 

The only general guideline I could possibly give you that actually makes sense without me actually knowing/hearing the song would be play whatever serves the song best, and if you need to experiment your way to that (which as far as i am concerned is the only real way to really learn and get better at this kind of thing, if you don't already know how to), then that's what you would need to do, I am sure you'll recognize and know when you get there. 

 

It takes much much more than a list of chords to make a song.

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[Geek99]

I would do something around E (duh) and A and bring in the two kinds of sus note as they appear in the sequence 

[Waddo Soqable]

Personally I'd jam long with the guitarist ( or whoever) and come up with something that works rather than worrying looking at chords written down on paper... 

[3below]

Is there a melody / vocal line?  If so it might help.  @Waddo Soqable @Doddy & @Baloney Balderdash have the way forward.  Put a recording on here, get more bass line ideas than you can shake a stick at