Imprisoned by roots

 
Hi I' ve just recently joined a band in which we write our own material one of the songs we do our vocalist came up with a very basic bass line the chord progression is C,G,A,F The guitarist's expanded on that and have harmonies and such and I' ve been told that i have to stick with the (C,C,G,G,A,A,F,F) which i find incredably boring and i have to play all the way through the song i want to expand on this I' ve been told i can but im cant get any help but i don't know where to start i don't know what scale to use and if its not to the vocalists likening then i cant use im in desperate need of advice what scale would i use? and any advice for expanding on this little riff?

Please E-mail me back soon

J. W.

Dear J.W.,
I don't know how fast the chords go by or in what specific rhythm, but let's say we are in 4/4 time and each chord is for one bar (i.e. C/// G/// A/// F///).  Further, let's say we're in the key of C major and the chord QUALITIES are actually Cmaj, G7, Amin, and Fmaj.  In this case you can use the C major scale (CDEFGABC) and build a line around the chord tones of each chord, which are all in the scale.
Cmaj = C, E and G
G7 = G, B, D, F
Amin = A, C, E, G
Fmaj = F, A, C

Hope this helps,
Andrew Pfaff
http://www.andrewpfaff.net