Right, well, I did finish school forever, but now I'm at college, so I've got more free time, but its spread out all over the fucking place.

presenting...

Music Composition, Part 4
Written by Matt2Jones
Di-di-di Di-di-di Di-di-di Di-di-di

Part V - Bass Notes

#1. The Bass Clef

Right, you know how to pick out the chords for a melody (last installment), so now I'm gonna show you how to use those to fill out the sound of a peice of music...  Introducing "The Bass Clef"

(I don't have access to a midi program on this computer so I'm gonna have to draw the scores out in paint, apologies...)

Now, the badly drawn curly thing at the right is called a Clef, but this one (unlike the trebel clef), is not called the trebel clef, it's called the bass clef.  Why is it called the bass clef?  Because the notes on the lines and spaces of this clef are lower in pitch then the ones on the trebel clef (think of the settings on your speakers, turn the trebel up and the sound becomes higher, turn the bass up and the sound becomes deepr).  In practice it's best to think of it this way:  The guitar plays notes written on the trebel clef and the bass guitar plays notes written on the bass clef, or similarly: The right hand on a piano plays the notes on the trebel clef, and the left hand plays the notes on the bass clef.

But not only are the notes on the bass clef in a lower octave (and thus lower pitch), they are also differently arranged...  Probably a throw back to the original orchestral bass instruments, but for us its just another stupid annoyance.  When you look at the bass clef the most important thing to note is the line between the two dots.  This line is 'F'.  The rest of the notes fit into place around F the same way as the do in the alphabet, but they happen to be in a lower octave (see previous paragraph, ie. bass).

So the lines on the bass clef, from bottom to top, are:

G,B,D,F,A

And the spaces on the bass clef, from bottom to top, are:

A,C,E,G

#2. Writing Base Notes

Okay, now you know where the notes are on the bass clef, I'm going to show you the simplist way to write a bass line for a melody, just to help you get familiar with it.

Take the Melody:

The Notes in this are:

| C, D, G, E, D, D | E, G, E, D, D, C |

Now, the easiest way to write a bassline for this melody would be to just write exactly the same thing, except on the bass clef!

ie:

(Again, I'm soooo fucking sorry for the horrible graphics.)

But that's also a really bad way of doing things, because it sounds so fucking cheesy (see my post on Pete's board for why I don't like cheesy music)...

So that's why we use chords for harmony.

Back to the original Melody.  Last time we worked out that the best chords to accompany the meldoy would be:

Now, instead of just doubling the melody with the base, we could write any of the notes in these chords in the base and it would sound good (with one or two exceptions I will come to later).

You should be comfortable enough now (or have enough reference material from the articles) to be able to do that correctly yourself, so I'll get right to the exceptions.

#3. Exceptions to the Rule

Take a look at the first beat in the first bar.  On the trebel clef we have a C being played, and on the bass clef we have a C being played, and the chord is CEG.

Now, remember back when we did chords and I told you the first note of a chord is called the root, the next is the third, and the next is the fifth?  Well you need to remember that now.

In this case the trebel clef has the first, and the bass clef also has the first.  This is perfectly acceptable, likewise would be if the trebel clef had the fifth, and the base clef had the fifth, or if the bass clef had the first and the trebel clef had the fifth, or if the trebel clef had the first and the bass clef had the fifth.  Basicly any combination of the first and fifth notes of a chord is fine.

However, take a look at the first beat of the second bar.  The trebel clef has the third, and the bass clef also has the third.  This is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad">bad</a>.  The general rule is YOU CANNOT DOUBLE THE THIRDS.  If you have a third in one clef you must have either the fifth or the third in the other.

End of Exceptions.

#4. Rhythm

When we get on to melodies I'll explain more on how to write rhythm, but for now I just want to point out another rule of thumb.

When there is allot of movement in the trebel clef (ie.  Lots of quavers, semi-quavers, etc) then there is little movement in the bass clef (ie. Lots of minums), and vice-versa.

And this concludes it.

All we have left to do is:
 > Writting Melodies
 > Chord Progressions
 > Cadences

Then you're all educated.

matt.