SongAndDanceMan

But it isn't... Have a listen to Peter Hook's playing with Joy Division and New Order and most of his playing is up in a range that potentially conflicts with chords on a guitar in first position - catch any video of him playing and he's usually somewhere up around the twelfth fret on the top string of his bass. There were reasons of course. Or catch a bit of Stanley Clarke It still sounds different however and that's the nature of the instrument. I came across a fiddle recently that will play in a cello range and the notes are the same but the sound is totally different. The G that you play at the twelfth fret on the top string of a 4 string bass sounds totally different to the open third string on an electric guitar though they are at the same pitch

Right, say I've written a verse. It has the following four chords, played in 1/2 time./ F#m11 E F# G# Now say that plays along, and the bass is playing this: (please don't steal my bass line! - I only wrote it today) 1--------------------|-----------------------|--------------------|-------------------------- 2------------3--2---|----9--11--9----------|-----------3--2----|---------------------------- 3-----3--5----------|---------------11--9---|---3--5------------|------2--3--0------------- 4--------------------|------------------------|--------------------|--3---------------------- So you got four chords and four bars of bass music. I think it sound acceptable - is there something wrong with it? I don't see how the bass line relates to the guitar at all. In fact, they were written with each other only vaguely in mind. This is what I don't understand. I think it sounds alright, but from a technical standpoint, is there something wrong here? *** If it sounds good then play it - on paper it looks a bit strange in that there are some very discordant things there - it may of course be your intention The chords that you are playing suggest some variety of an E scale is at the root of what you are doing - major scale of E has E F# G# A B C# D# as notes. The notes on your tab are C D F E B C# B G# F# C D F E G B C A - so most of the bass notes are outside of the key you seem to be playing in (in bold are the ones that are mostly where I think the key is but i could be wrong), so it either sounds pretty edgy or pretty odd and unresolved. If it's what you want then that's great but it might not be what a bass player might immediately come up with. The last note 'a' against a G# is quite discordant for the last bit of the sequence and leaves it VERY unresolved