I notice that people here refer to a “normal” bass notation/score and that it is lower than piano score. I don’t know what a “normal” bass score is and wonder where to see one. How is it different from a bass clef piano score? Also, the singers in my group hand out sheet music for piano which has the bass clef and which mostly chords. Do I play the lowest note which should be the root note (forget about inversions)? Seems logical but my logic doesn’t always work out in real life. Any clarification or resources?
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Piano can go as low as a bass and if the piece is typically played without a bass it may very well be in the same register. It’s probably going to depend on the genre you’re covering, but in gospel/hymns the bass almost always follows the melody of the vocals. You probably can’t go wrong with straight 4s or 8s and Root/upper or lowers 5ths with some walking
Edit: whenever you have inversions or slash chords, always play the key on the right of the slash on bass
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The sheet music you will get for a bass is notated an octave higher than it would be on a piano grand staff. The bass guitar starts at E1 for the open E string, but this is notated at E2 for its lowest note on a bass score. So, for a piano score, you need to realize that the notes are an octave higher than you would normally think on a bass score.
One problem that you might run in to, though, is that the bass part of a piano score is usually not the bassline of the song, but rather a different arrangement for piano.
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What is the group, Paula?
If you’re working with vocal parts, generally speaking - if you play the lowest note in the bass clef on your bass, it will work great.
If you’re working from a piano score, it can be trickier, and it can be easier to just play the root note of the chord that the piano is outlining. That takes a lot more know how to analyze and figure out.
Not sure if this helps the scenario, but if you take a photo and post it, I could give better help.
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This is also true for guitar, of course. In short, guitar and bass imply the notation of “lower octave” since it would basically be written every time.
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Thank you everybody. I have followed your clues and see that I do have music that has a treble clef melody noted, no chords and then a treble clef and bass clef staffs with chords and single notes. So what I must be looking at is the vocal and piano notation. So I plan to look at the bass clef chords and the few single notes to suggest a bass line and generally use the lowest note of the bass clef chord. That would make sense and given whatever key, I could figure out the chord progression and find root notes. It’s not easy to teach yourself music! I appreciate being able to ask basic questions here. Let me know if I’m off the track.
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