"String Skipping" isn't just for lead-work; it's great for chords 'n' "rhythm playing", too. I'll go over some string-skipping two-note "chords"- intervals, to be more accurate- that imply harmony if you stick to notes within the given key, thus dictating whether some suggest either Major or minor tonalities..

Muting and damping with either hand is important here; if you're a beginner or even intermediate player it can seem hard at first, but in time becomes second-nature to the point that you will literally hardly ever think about it, it'll just autopilot for you! Seriously!

And if you work up some pick-and-finger or pick-less fingerstyle technique to pluck the two strings, you've got yet another way to play 'em; choose from a number of approaches to find what best suits the given piece of music.

Wes Montgomery burned through serious runs of octaves picking with his thumb, mostly in downstrokes; he usually did this working his thumb and fingers in an almost pinching, crab-claw motion, with his fingers resting on the guitar's top. He created his own bold new sound playing runs of octaves with that picking technique that everyone's copying to this day, and in the process wore a heart-shaped hole in his favorite guitar where his picking-hand's index and middle finger-tips rubbed against the top (later covered with a little heart-shaped pearl plate). (See below for some octave fingerings.)

That's just one example of technique and approach giving a particular sound and feel; try that, try plucking them simultaneously with fingers and/or nails, try down and/or upstrokes with a pick, try pick-and-fingers... one way will be best for one sound, and another way for yet another sound, etc....


And so, as well as octaves like-
- you can play other sliding 'chord fragment' intervals that skip a string or two to imply (ENFORCE!) harmony, some of which will need to shift one note up or down by a half-step to fit the given key as you motorvate up and down the fretboard with 'em.

For example:

Sliding 6ths (which can imply the 5th and 3rd of a chord, or simply be a melodic-line on top, harmonized by the note underneath)



Take a run of "double-stop" minor and Major 3rds, ending with a 4th / root-5th-root "power chord"-
- but then drop the lower-note of each double-stop down one octave, skipping two strings in between-
- and you've got, Iddunno, maybe sliding #9ths and ##9ths, I guess!

These sound great either briskly strummed with a down-stroke so that the muted strings "click" rhythmically in between the sounded notes, or plucked with thumb and finger or pick-and-fingers in a syncopated rhythm (like "b'DAT b'dat b'dat, b'DAT b'dat b'dat", and so on), and really jump out and kick with a fat but toothy heavy distortion, maybe with some flanger or phaser action; think early Van Halen rhythm-guitar tone on steroids; try the neck-pickup, too. They absolutely KILL with a Foxrox Octron going into a cranked Marshally distortion!

It can also be applied to bass.
On bass I would not recommend this approach of strumming all strings while muting the ones not intended to sound. Too mucky for my ears.
Pick-less fingerstyle works best on bass in my experience.
For simultaneous octaves I typically pluck with two fingers: index on the lower note and middle on the higher note (otherwise I'd have to bend my wrist backwards). On guitar I usually switch to Wes Montgomery "claw style", although I did not realize I was copying him!

The examples work on bass, too, except some require different fretting due to lack of strings (or different tunings). In general the shorter intervals (3rds/5ths) work best on the D and G strings; 3rds may sound muddy unless they are played up the neck. An alternative to 3rds is 10ths (3rd plus an octave); these are easily played using the E and G strings. 11ths are also possible, although for 12ths (5th plus an octave) and above I prefer two-hand tap.

While 99% of the time bass players wouldn't typically play this way -- for example in a standard 4-piece rock band -- it can be nice for covering sonic space in a power trio (especially when the guitarist is soloing) or for solo bass play. (I've arranged a couple of songs for solo bass that use double stops like the ones here for melody/harmony alternating with a bass note plucked with my thumb.)

On guitar I usually play this sort of thing fingerstyle, although I haven't progressed past "thumb plus two fingers" yet. For example, I play "Hey There Delilah" (Plain White T's) this way.

I've tried that song with a pick but it tends to come out a bit sloppier that way for me. YMMV. For some reason picking "Here Comes the Sun" (The Beatles) is easier for me, but it doesn't involve the kind of string skipping technique Caevan talks about here.

I've arranged parts of some songs this way, too, for example "Ring of Fire" (Johnny Cash) to cover the horn parts. (I play a solo bass version of this song using a similar arrangement.)

There's also a bit in George Harrison's vocals-and-guitar recording of "Something" (in A -- The Beatles' version is in C). I'm thinking of the end of the verse when he lands on an open E chord and then moves up on the two middle strings (D & G) from E/G# to F#/A to G#/B. (When I play that I mute the A string with a fretting finger.) I do something similar in a song I wrote (which is why I was able to pick this part up so easily when I got around to learning "Something").

I'm still learning but this approach in general has really opened up my guitar playing recently. Previously I stuck to playing only the standard chord shapes I knew, with a lot of open ("cowboy") and full barre chords. (I see you cringing on the other side of the computer monitor! )