10ths On Bass - A Guide to Chords On Bass
- Mar 17
- 2 min read
What Are Chords And How Do You Play Them On Bass?
Chords are made by playing more than one note at a time. Which, for us bass players, can be somewhat alien to us, but stick with me, it's not as difficult as you might think.
The problem however is that when we go to play chords on bass, we risk muddying up the low end by playing more than one not at a time.
There are two ways to rectify this:
Playing notes that are far apart from each other.
Playing chords up in the higher register of the bass.
In this lesson, we're going to look at how to space notes far enough away from each other to sound clean, but still keep a foot in the low end.
What Are 10ths?
When we say a 10th, we're talking about the 3rd degree of a scale, pitched up an octave. For example, in the key of C, our 3rd is E. Take your C and pitch your E up an octave. Congrats! You've found your 10th.
The 3rd degree of a scale is important because it tells us the nature of our scale/chord.
It defines whether the chord is Major or Minor. So using 10ths is a fantastic, one note method to get into playing chords.
What Should My Right Hand Do?
I like to use my thumb and my second finger to simultaneously pluck the root and 10th of the chord. You may find it more comfortable to use other finges to pluck the 10th, it's down to preference.
You can also stagger the plucking, this makes for easier distinction of notes for the listener, and can be a more musical way to play chords.
How Do I Know What Chords To Play?
You'll need to understand diatonic chords of a scale, something we won't go into here, but you can download my free workbook to learn how to play them on the bass.
How Do I Get Started With Chords?
The best way to get started with this is to get comfortable with the chord progressions inside the workbook.
Once you're comfortable, start trying to add chords into your bass lines.
My prefered use of these kinds of chords is in quiet sections of songs.
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