Beautiful Saviour (Bass)

By Bass Levite



Only after viewing the recording of myself playing that I discovered I had a bad habit of moving up left hand up and down the neck for no reason, especially when playing open strings. Please bear with me.

Anyway, this is a beautiful song from Planetshakers. Typical of PS worship songs where the bassist plays long root notes most of the time, and then add in fast riffs every now and then. This song also goes through 3 octaves, utilising the low B string quite frequently (common for PS songs) and playing high up the fret during intrusmentals. I won't tab everything out exactly as I've played it or as they've played it. Instead, I'll use this song to teach how to add in extra notes on top of the root notes.


1. Low fifth

A fifth note is literally the 5th note from the root note.

Do (root note), Re, Mi Fah, So (5th note)

For example, if the root note is A, the fifth note is E.

-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
----------------4-5-7(5th note of A)-
-5(root note)-7----------------------

However, usually playing a low fifth note sounds better and more suitable for worship songs.

For example, instead of playing the E on the 7th fret of the A string, you can play the open string E instead. You will see this pattern used as a basic, yet useful way of adding something on top of the root note.


2. Treble chord

Sometimes when you read a chord chart, you'll see chords like E/G#. What this means is that for the piano, the right (treble) hand plays the E chord while the left (bass) hand plays the G# note. The acoustic guitar will play the E chord while the bassist will play the G# note. To improvise this sort of notes, you just add in the treble note. For example, your root note is G#, but you can add in an E for improvisation.


For example, the first three bars of the verse goes:

| A | A E/G# | F#m |

Note that the root note of A and the treble note of E/G# are both E. So you can add in E in between those chords as you get down to F#. This is about 51 seconds into the video.

-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-5-5-0-5-5-4-0-2-

Another place where it happens is about 1 min 38 secs into the video. This time, the chord progression is:

| D | D A/C# | Bm |

Again, both the root note of D and the treble note of A/C# are both A. So you can add in A in between those chords as you get down to B.

-----------------
-----------------
-5-5---5-5-4---2-
-----5-------5---


Special Riffs in Beautiful Saviour

1. 5 secs

--------------------------
--------------------------
-7s12-12-11-----------7s9-
------------12-9-12-9-----

2. 41 secs

----------------------------
----------------------------
----------------------------
-5-5-5-5--5-5-5-5h7-5-4-----
------------------------7-5-

3. 1 min 32 secs

-----------2---
-------2-4---4-
-----4---------
-2-2-----------

4. 2 min 5 secs

Similar to (2.) except played one octave up.

--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
-12-12-12-12-----12-12-12-12h14-12-11-------
--------------12----------------------14-12-


Bridge/Free worship of Beautiful Saviour



Basically just play A chord all the way, with some improvisations chucked in every now and then of course or else it'll be boring. There's a special riff too at 28 secs into the video.

-----------------------
-----------------------
-12-12-12-12---------9-
-------------9-10-12---

-----------------------
-----------------7-----
-12h14-14-12-7h9---7---
---------------------5-

I also added in my own improvisation at 11 secs, by adding in 3rd, 4th and 5th notes on top of the root note.

----------------------
----------11-12-12h14-
-12-12-12-------------
----------------------