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i'm a guitarist, but i'm always interested in bass. my question is: in a song, should the bass follow the guitar, or does it not matter, or what?

one reason i'm asking is because i've heard songs where the bass and guitar both play the same thing, and others where they each play something different

Either way really, the bass usually follows the guitar part on palm muted parts to add that extra "oomph" to it, but just depends on if your bass line fits into the actual song

In bands The Offspring, Blink182, BFS, the bass just follow the guitar and that's not so good. I love these bands but all the time the bass is too much simple ! It would be really better if they'll do like sum 41 (especially in aknf), green day, the clash... they have good bass line !

If the guitar is making a wall of distorted noise, there's no point playing a funky bassline cuz it won't fit. If you're playing a clean/overdriven guitar sparingly, then the bass gets a bit more headroom. Music shouldn't be messy.

^^Agreed

But also the bass is not based solely on the guitar it's based on the actual chord played,

for example if the guitar is playing a C Major chord and bass could use notes like [C] [E] [G] and can use accidentals if they fit,

Hope I helped

not neccessarily.
i hate playing songs where the bass line is just the same 4 notes over and over.
now, im not suggesting that every song you play has to sound like flea, but maybe spice up the bassline a bit. add in a few extra notes here and there, use different rhythms and playing styles for different parts of the song.

it really depends wut kind of song it is. but i would rather there be a kool bass part which differs from the guitar.

boniboyblue wrote:^^Agreed

But also the bass is not based solely on the guitar it's based on the actual chord played,

for example if the guitar is playing a C Major chord and bass could use notes like [C] [E] [G] and can use accidentals if they fit,

Hope I helped

You mean stay within the key of the song? The bass can stray away from the root note of the chord once in a while but if it just plays foreign stuff from the entire chord progression (lets say the chord progression is Emin, C, G, D and the bass picks out entirely different notes from that ) the whole song is going to sound a bit weird.

Especially in punk music, the bass isn't going to make the entire song or have a hook. Obviously, this isn't a strict rule but doing this actually helps the song - creates a really strong crisp wall of noise. Its a formula that's been adopted by many bands and countless more songs.