Can bass notes be played with guitar chords?

[MusicPebbles]

Hello all. My question is, lets say i have a guitar chord which is A-Em-G-C.
So i play the bass notes A-E-G-C? I meant 2 questions here, 1) Can bass be played with the root notes of guitar chords? 2) Minor chords are played as major in bass? becoz i dun noe wheres minor notes. sry i'm noob.
advices pls thANKS!

 

[shinobi]

you got to understand what scales are. i dunno how to explain a scale.... well let me try... you know DO RE MI? THATS a scale. a major scale for example has 7 distinct notes, that can be expressed as "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti"

when 3 notes or more from a scale is played in a beat, it is called a chord.

i wont go into detail about chord construction, my theory sucks and if you really want to learn you can read it up

i think your confusion stems from the fact that a "C chord" is implied to be a C major chord, while a C note is just a note. why it is like this, i really don't know, you got to ask those lazy guitar mofos

in the C major scale, there are (or rather, happens to be) no flats or sharps. so a C major scale would consist of the notes C, D, E, F, G, A and B. in a minor scale, lets say C minor, the notes are C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab and Bb.

why it is like that, is up to you to find out

in both the C major and C minor scales, C is the root note. for simplicity's sake let's just call it the 'first' note. all the notes that come after it depend on which scale it is.

there are tons of scales, major, natural/harmonic/melodic minor, pentatonic major/minor, blues, bebop etc.

 

[schmuardian]

Hi Musicpebbles,

to reply specifically to your questions...

1. Yes. you can jst thump away on the root note of each chord and it won't sound wrong. just boring. the root note is normally just the chord name i.e. C/Cm/C7/C# chord = C (3rd fret 3rd (A) String)

2. Yes and No. Minor can be played like a major, if you just play the root notes, or other notes that coincide. Or if you know what you are doing, and the song/melody allows it, you can play a major scale on a minor chord. However, if just starting out, just refer to answer above and just play the root note.. As you progress though, you'd want to learn about minor scales, so you can accentuate the minor chord by playing the minor notes.

jst keep in mind that sometimes less is more. it's really up to the songs, and sometimes it's better to just play the root note than to shred away.