Do the musician playing the 'head', playing the same chords the bass players is playing?

Question

i want to improvise playing the head part. all the info i have is the chord of the base player.

now assuming that the head player and the bass player are playing in the same chord, all i have to do is what? just play as i want with all the notes that constitutes the chord in play?

and give them some rythm to it?

Answer 1

I take it by your wording that you play guitar or piano?

The chords are the same for all the instruments (of course, trumpets, sax etc will transpose) meaning that the bassist will be playing the same chords as any other instrument in C.

As David S said, don't play all the notes in the chord - it's quite boring and leads to muddy chords; plus if you have a chord like C13b5 you might well run out of fingers! If you're looking for something simple to play then just play the 3rd and 7th from each chord. These are two most important notes of the chord other than the root. Try to stay away from the root note (it's the bass players job to play them) and the fifth (as these aren't really needed).

Therefore if you had a chord progression of Dm7 G7 CΔ (Δ means major seven - so not flattened like normal 7) then you'd play F and C for Dm F and B for G7 and E and B for CΔ. As you can see you hardly have to move your fingers at all.

If you had a more complex chord progression like Bb13 Ab13 G7 Db9(#11) then you could start off by playing Ab and D for Bb13, Gb and C for Ab13, F and B for G7 and F and B for Db9(#11). If you wanted to play some other notes, play the extensions (the 13 or whatever) rather than the root or the fifth. Therefore you could play Ab D G for Bb13, Gb C F for Ab13, F B for G7 and F B Eb G for Db9(#11).

Answer 2

That's close.

You're right that the bass player should be playing from the same chords as the rest of the group.

Instead of playing all the notes in the chord, however, someone comping (playing rhythmic accompaniment) usually only plays some of the notes in the chord so that it doesn't get too muddy.

for a Cmaj7 (C E G B), someone would probably only play 3 of those notes. C E B, or G B C, or E G B, etc.