Traditional country songs all feature strong bass parts, in fact many tunes were recorded with two bass parts, a string bass (upright bass) that duplicated and reinforced the galvanic bass.
Sometimes the galvanic bass was played with a pick to give more definition. Playing with a pick created a brighter sound which produced an audible 'click' a split second before the actual note.
Bass Guitar Parts
On the other hand, some country report producers beloved the galvanic bass player to use a felt pick. Felt picks are normally used for playing ukuleles, any way when used on an galvanic bass can produce a sound similar to that of an upright bass.
Often a guitar player finds himself or herself in a situation where there isn't a backing band to help them present their material, that's when it's handy to be able to generate your own bass part on the guitar.
Here's three tips to help you generate great sounding bass parts on your guitar.
1. Tonic note on first beat
The most leading thing to remember when creating a bass part is to play the tonic note on the first beat. This is an very basic idea, but one that must not be overlooked.
The tonic note is the same name as the chord e.g., if you were playing a 'D' chord the tonic note would be 'D'.
Here is how you would apply this principle, let's say you have a rhythm guitar part that consisted of the following 8 bars:
D/// | D/// | G/// |G/// |A7/// | A7/// | D/// |D/// ||
Simply replace the first strum in each bar with a bass note the same name as the chord, in the instance of A7, use the note 'A'.
Regardless of the chord type e.g., whether it is a major, minor or seventh chord etc., you still play the tonic note i.e., a bass note the same letter name as the chord itself.
2. Learn to generate alternating bass parts
The next step is to generate an alternating bass part, this is done by playing the tonic note on beat one of the bar then playing the fifth of the chord on the third beat.
Again, using 'D' chord as an example: the tonic would be 'D' and the fifth note (the alternating note) would be 'A'.
D, E, F#, G, A
1, 2, 3 , 4, 5
Notice how I had to make the third note F# because the key of D contains two sharps F# and C#.
Using this idea you can really generate professional bass parts for any major, minor or dominant seventh chord.
Here's another example this time using A7: the tonic would be 'A' and the fifth note (the alternating note) would be 'E'.
A, B, C#, D, E
1, 2, 3 , 4, 5
3. Bass patterns in 3/4 time
Country songs in 3/4 time require extra treatment, there's two ways to can advent this challenge.
(a) use exclusively the 'tonic only' on the first beat bass part approach.
(b) when there are two bars of the same chord use alternating bass and when there is only one bar of a chord use 'tonic' on the first beat.
Even if you do play with a bass player the octave inequity between the pitch of the notes on a guitar and bass guitar will make inevitable your bass parts won't get in the way of the bass player, in fact it will sound great especially if you palm mute your bass part on the guitar.
Learn Country Guitar - Three Tips to create expert Bass Parts