Gsyfuy

Summary: I play electric guitar. My partner plays bass. What is the theory behind playing together as a duet and making it work musically. Please could someone point me to a good resource?

I have been playing guitar for 1.5 years as a hobby. 1 year of acoustic and half a year of electric. I bought a bass guitar a month ago for my partner for us to learn to play together as a duet and we’ve been practising ever since. She now has only a month of experience playing bass.

I’m transcribing songs by The Smiths by ear and figuring out which notes fit the song and therefore which scale fits the song. She is then reading the tab I’ve written so we’re playing together.

I understand that I can play chords and she can play notes which fit those chords. However I’m learning to pluck individual notes using the scale (playing lead?) instead of playing chords so we’re playing the exact same notes at the same time.

This is my strategy for us to both practise together.

I’m really looking for a great book on how to play as a guitar/bass duet but I’ve been unable to find anything so far. Even the guys at the music store couldn’t point me to a good book which covers this.

There's no better approach than learning the bass parts and guitar parts from your favourite songs and trying to play them. Try by ear but also get through all available transcriptions and tutorials for the songs and strive for being as close to the original as you can. Then record yourself from time to time to watch the progress.

At this stage you will learn the most by simply repeating and recreating what has already been done. This way you will naturally understand more about the role of each instrument, about different possibilities and about what works between guitar and bass and what doesn't.

One most important insight might be that even though the guitar and bass sort of operate and can be played the same way, their role and the approach to playing differs a lot - it's a bit like a different mental state to be in. Bass is a part of rhythm section even in an absence of drums, so the focus is on being the perfect timekeeper, creator of pulse, and groove - the rhythmic excitement. That's way it's a good idea to use a metronome until you will feel comfortable with keeping a steady pulse and be tight.

You may need to start digging up transcriptions, depending on the genres of music you are interested in playing. As an extreme example, you could play the Beethoven duets for clarinet and bassoon.

It's not quite clear if you want to play true duets, where both players take the melody line at various times, and/or the melody requires both parts playing the same rhythm to build a chord progressionn, or if you just want to "transcribe" some jazz or rock tunes so that the harmonies are covered with your two instruments. Either way, it'll be helpful to have someone with experience in music theory support the transcriptions.

I understand that I can play chords and she can play notes which fit
those chords. However I’m learning to pluck individual notes using the
scale (playing lead?) instead of playing chords so we’re playing the
exact same notes at the same time.

If you are playing the exact same notes at the same time then you are doing it wrong. The bass guitar almost never plays the tune.

If you go on Youtube you can find many tutorials showing just the bass guitar part for lots of popular songs. Good search terms are

bass guitar cover

bass guitar [name of song]

Here's an example:

and here's a more advanced one: