I want to learn bass, but don't know where to start.

[Pete528]

I've had a bass for about 2 years now, but I haven't decided to seriously start playing it until this year.

Since I'm only 16 and my job doesn't exactally pull in the big bucks, I can't pay for lessons from a decent bass player.

Therefore, I've just been teaching myself whatever I could for some time. I bought two bass books:

Teach Yourself to Play Bass
http://musicbooksplus.com/teach-your...bass-p-53.html

and

Bass Fitness: An Exercising Handbook
http://www.amazon.com/Bass-Fitness-E.../dp/0793502489

I try to practice every day, but I'm really at a loss of what to do. I play mediocre (I use a pick rather than my fingers... I know that's bad but at this stage does it make a difference?) and I'm alright with what I can do now.

Mostly all I do these days is work from those books I have. I also occasionally learn a Fugazi bassline or something. I also used to jam with some friends, just playing easy basslines, and I also used to be in a crappy emo band which I ended up quitting because I dislike emo music a lot. There really isn't much skill involved, though.

The problem is I don't know how to start again without lessons, which I probably won't be able to take, and I am really interested in playing.

Any tips on how I can begin? thank you very much

[Pruitt]

First, don't concern yourself with the fact you play with a pick. That doesn't matter at all. Lots of bassists play using a pick. Just play however you're most comfortable. especially when you're first starting out.

Second, I can certainly understand the lack of funds at your age. Though it was quite a while ago, I do remember what it was like to be that age. I'll make the suggestion for you to go register at http://www.activebass.com/. It's another bass website, with the difference that it has a very nice, free, Lesson section with thousands of lessons that have been posted by the members there. I'm sure you can find lots to work on there to keep you busy, without having to spend any money.

Other than that, just keep playing. It'll come with time and practice.

Best of luck and have Fun!!

[grovest]

Pete-

If you are 16, maybe you can find some free instruction at your high school. Does your school have a jazz band, a 'pep band', or any kind of music at all? Maybe explain your situation to the leaders of such a group and who knows what can be worked out.

You mention concern about cost for lessons. Maybe you can pay a portion of a private teacher's fee in labor. For instance, if you are good with the web maybe design a webpage for him/her. Maybe you could hang advertising posters for him. Or if he gigs, perhaps help him load in / out and promote some of his acts. It's quite likely someone in your area would take on such a student if that student demonstrated commitment to studying.

Good luck and stick with it.

[K2000]

If you like playing with a pick and the way that sounds, then that's fine. It really depends on what you like and what you want to do, whether playing a pick is right for you.

My advice is to learn songs and play along with records. Search out cool sounding bass lines, and learn them, then play along with the CD. That is a great way to learn in the beginning. Don't just learn the songs you like (although that's a great place to start) also play some Beatles, some Motown, maybe some reggae. Mix it up, you improve and grow when you work on things that are outside your comfort zone. If you like punk, maybe try to learn to play some prog rock like Yes or Rush after you learn the Fugazi catalogue (you get the idea). Expand your horizons, when you practice. You're building a "tool box" of skills that you'll be able to apply to "your" music.

Secondly, you do not have to take lessons every week. See if you can find a good teacher (get recommendations) then contact them and see if you can get monthly lessons. You don't have to have one-lesson-a-week. The teacher should be able to give you homework, based on a once-a-month schedule.

The main thing is to play every day. Shoot for an hour (two hours is better) and you can break that time up into chunks, if that helps (half hour in the morning, half hour before bed) etc. Never go a day without playing at least 15 minutes as a minimum. I don't care how busy you are, everybody has at least 15 minutes. If you totally skip a day, you start losing your skills. 15 minutes is the bare minimum for skill maintenance.

[Gobnoof]

Firstly, I would agree with the advice above and don't worry about playing with a pick. Just go with whatever you're comfortable with.

Secondly, I would highly recommend this book, "100 Tips For Bass Guitar You Should Have Been Told- by Stuart Clayton." I used it when I was first learning and I still find myself dipping into it now and again 5/6 years later. It covers a wide range of topics from scales, circle of fifths, sight reading, ear training, finger style playing, playing with a pick and slap bass, as well as some other interesting stuff. But what I found most useful his advice on practising and knowing what you want out of playing bass.

For me that's the most importnant thing, knowing what you want from playing bass. Is it just a hobby, a bit of fun, a future career etc. Once you know that, you can give yourself goals to achieve and come up with a practice regime built around achieveing those goals. Hope that helpled and good luck.

[chasfr]

Another book to recommend for a beginner: Bass for Dummies. In spite of the title, it'll give you a good all-round foundation.

And a piece of advice from an old fart who's studied a pretty wide range of performing arts: 1.) Have Fun. That doesn't mean you have to be falling down laughing all the time, or shouldn't be serious about your work. But if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong, especially as a beginner.

Chas

[RiddimKing]

<And a piece of advice from an old fart who's studied a pretty wide range of performing arts: 1.) Have Fun. That doesn't mean you have to be falling down laughing all the time, or shouldn't be serious about your work. But if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong, especially as a beginner.>

+1 on that! I've been on some auditions and (briefly) in a band or two where they'd apparently gotten the idea along the way that playing pop songs was as weighty and serious as curing brain cancer.

[Chipsonfire]

Originally Posted by chasfr

Another book to recommend for a beginner: Bass for Dummies. In spite of the title, it'll give you a good all-round foundation.

+1 I'm currently enjoying that book and it's great. Takes nothing for granted, but at the same time teaches some things that are a bit more complicated (at least I think they are complicated )

[BassSurfer]

an excellent thing to do.. what helped me out back in the 90's ( ipods were not out yet haha ) i used to play along with the song itself put the headphones in.. put the volume of the song and the bass abaout equal the bass a little higher and play along with the song now... now in the 00's.. i play with my ipod... and dont worry about the pick.. if your comfortable with it then go ahead... if you want to develop a finger style sound then go for it.... i have some techniques as well i did that i still do today for warm up... here we go...



Start On the First fret on the E String...

Place your index finger on that string and quickly with your ring finger move to the 3rd fret on the E...

Then do it the same on all the strings..


Like this....


G: 1 3
D: 1 3
A: 1 3
E: 1 3

^ Then come down with it

Then move up a half step and then a whole step so on and fo forth and increase a speed at your own pace... MAY sound simple but hey it worked for me and made me develop a great clean sound and speed...


Next try this to build up your fingers...

G:
D:
A:
E: 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 5 3 4 5 6 4 5 6 7

^ so far and so fourth on each string use a different finger for each note/fret... again may be simple but builds speed and finger strentgh...


Any questions feel free to pm me......

EDIT: the format of the tab got messed up... but you should get the idea!

[Phalex]

Just keep at it. One glorious day the light will pop on, and you'll suddenly realize you get it.

[sir juice]

first of all about the pick thing, go for it if you want to, but you sound a bit guilty about it, if you want to go for fingerstyle, i strongly recommend that you start now.

as far as learning correct technique (whether with a pick or fingerstyle) i'd say it'd be good just to sit down with a friend who's been playing for a while, and get them to tell you what they do. and just constantly watch how other players do things, if it works for them, it could easily work for you.

[CraigD30]

I had a bass for 4 years, and would just sit with it in my room doing scales and little melodic lines. I had no idea what the hell I was doing until I hooked up with a band. Then I had to learn songs . I realized that was what I needed to be doing. Even after the band fell apart, I kept on going. I practice like BassSurfer said. I'll put a tune on the stereo, and play along with it , rewinding it where I need to work on parts. Tabs helped me out when I first started, hell, I still use them as a crutch every so often (and I know many of you have strong feelings about tabs, please don't hate on me. I work in an emergency room, and if I get upset, someone you know and care for may suffer. If you know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, I mean I'll hurt them . I'm trying to help the kid out.), but if you really don't have the cash for lessons, and don't have a strong grasp of music theory, just trying to match up a tab with a song can be good practice. It may even help develop your ear for notes. If you can get to the point where you can play a song all the way through, without looking at the tab, you are on your way. Try to start small too. Pick some fairly straight forward songs. There's a reason most teachers start people off with Twinkle, Twinkle and Mary Had a Little Lamb. I also just bought the Bass Tab White Pages, for about 15$ on amazon, it's got around 200 songs in it, tabbed out (although it may be a little hard to follow if you've never seen codas, repeats, and figures before). It's been a year and a half since I started learning songs, and now I'm up to about 60 tunes I can play all the way through from memory. It gets easier the more you learn. I'm still a little sloppy, and not as technical or quick as I need to be, but I'm working on it. That's where practicing scales, arpeggios and finger exercises will help. You have to start somewhere. Learn some complete songs. Good luck, and don't lose hope.

[Belgand]

Not sure how helpful this will be, but I'm in about the same boat. I just started teaching myself to play and while I've got some books on the way they're sure taking their sweet time getting here (grr... with free shipping Amazon is actually waiting a full week to ship, but cited that they'd be able to ship everything the day after ordering if I'd paid for shipping) so I've been trying to scour the web for tips, lessons, techniques and so on to get a good practice routine going.

So far this is what I've been doing:

First I start with about 10 to 15 minutes of warm-ups and exercises. I've read a bunch of various warm-up techniques and exercises, but with the benefit of that book (which I've been considering myself) you should have plenty more to choose from. But otherwise, just some basic things to start:

Starting at the 1st fret on the E string fret the note, pluck (since you're going slow especially try to achieve a good, clean tone even though it's not the focus of the exercise), and hold the note for a slow ten-count then move on to the next fret. Keep repeating this up to the 5th fret (or the 10th, 12th, or even the entire neck if you want) and then move on to the next string. Repeat as long as desired, but if your arm starts to hurt know when to back off. The goal is to increase finger strength.

The above listed dexterity exercise (1234/2345/3456/4567...) also seems to be working, but honestly I have serious trouble reaching across four frets at this point until I get pretty high on the neck. Still, I'm presuming that this will definitely help get my hand in better shape.

Ok, now that you're warmed up let's move on to some slightly more boring, but necessary theory and learning work. This is a bit more flexible, but I'll generally spend anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes on this depending on what I'm working on and how much time I have.

Right now I'm spending about 5-10 minutes or so working on learning the fretboard. I usually work my way up the E string and back playing the natural notes and singing the name of the note as I go. I should probably go further, but I'm only working up to the 12th fret at the moment. Up and back, up and back. After a maybe a dozen or so iterations I'll start quizzing myself either calling out a note and trying to accurately play it (and, of course, checking that I'm right first by working it out on the board in steps and then double-checking against a chart) or fretting a note and challenging myself to name it.

Once I feel I have the E string more or less down I'll try mixing it up by working from that knowledge to play the D string (keeping in mind that the same note is two strings up and two frets up). This also helps to quiz me on how well I'm progressing on E at the same time. Once I feel more confident on E and D I plan to move on with the same technique to A and G.

Once I feel a bit more comfortable with knowing the notes I want to start trying to incorporate reading notation. I should be doing this now most likely, but well... I don't have any good excuses why I'm not.

The rest of the fundamentals time I usually devote to basic scales. Right now I'm working on the C major, but every so often I'll put in a little time on something else to switch it up like the minor pentatonic in A or the blues scale (both suggested by Wheat's BassBook in the Scales 101 section).

Sure it's not as much fun, but it's basic, fundamental knowledge and from everything I've read working on scales is also a helpful way to build dexterity, proper tone, ear training, and other vital skills.

Based on what I've read I'd also add in more time here to focus on learning new skills, but right now everything is a new skill so I'm starting at the bottom. In the future though, after you're warmed up and have put in some practice on what you already new it would seem to be the ideal place to put in new things that you want to learn. Work on a walking line, practice arpeggios, learn new scales and modes. Maybe try to slowly increase the tempo of parts you're comfortable with as well as a transition before you go straight into the newer material you're still working on. Just don't ignore both aspects. After all practice is as much about honing and keeping current on what you already know as it is about learning new things.

Ok, now that I've got that out of the way I'll move on to some simple songs. Right now I've been working on the opening riff of Money by Pink Floyd because, well, it's a song I know really, really well, I've got it cued up in my CD changer almost all the time anyhow, it starts with an isolated bass riff that's easy to follow along with, and I happened to stumble over it on Guitar Noise.

I usually try to switch up at least two songs or so that highlight different things. Money is giving me a good workout on fingering and tempo. I spotted some dead-simple tab for Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol and the main riff is a basic two-string, three note line built around playing eighth notes at the root of the chord so it's giving me an appreciation for bass line construction as well as keeping one of the simplest and most fundamental rhythms. I just started Pachelbel's Canon in D because, well, it's a simple four bar pattern of half-notes repeated endlessly so it's a basic song (that you hear everywhere) where I can actually play the entire bass line while being slow enough to work on actually playing at speed.

One thing to keep in mind throughout all of this is to be certain to look up whatever you don't understand to constantly increase your knowledge. I was always reading about thirds and fifths and had no idea what was going on, but a little bit of study later and I have a greater understanding of simple music theory, the major scale, the circle of fifths and so on. The lesson on Money talks about "swing eighths" without discussing what they are (likely due to being an excerpt from book) so I had to search that down and while my knowledge is still shaky I'm also learning a bit about triplets and tuplets now.

Depending on how I'm feeling about things and what's going on I might keep working on songs from 15 minutes to 45.

So, yeah, I know what you mean. I have little idea where to start or how to progress either. I just cobbled together some basics from reading tons and tons of websites, online lessons, excerpts from books, tips, message board postings and just about anything else I could find online. Whenever I didn't understand something I'd try to look it up and learn it and if it seemed like something that I should probably be practicing then it got added in.

Yes, I'd like to find a good teacher or even a patient, accomplished friend who can help me to develop good technique and point out mistakes that could lead to bad habits in the future, but just like you I'm pretty dead broke (graduated from college about two years ago and still looking for a job...) and it's not something I can afford right now.

Once my books show up I plan to add that into the regimen as well, but I think I have some solid ideas here right now and I'm slowly noticing my own improvements over the past week or so.

Ultimately though, keep in mind that I've only been playing for a very, very short while myself. I'm not sure whether I'm doing things right or not, but this might help give you a few ideas on how to get started at least.

Oh, and before I forget, there's an excellent article on practicing over here at ActiveBass. It's not so much what specifically to practice, but a general guide to the theory of practicing and how to develop a good system by setting goals.

[ROON]

Hey mate,

I started bass two years ago and I am actually pretty good. I'm completely self taught. I learnt by playing along with songs that I learned using tabs, but don't get TOO dependent on them. Learn just enough songs with tabs so you are familiar with how a bass sounds, where certain notes are on the fretboard and just get the overall feel for the instrument, then I would recommend learning songs by ear. While learning your first 4 or 5 songs by ear may be painstakingly hard and boring, believe me it helps, lots. I play with a pick too and I love it, I don't really like playing with my fingers, I prefer the sharper attack a pick offers.

My Grandfather, a very talented and moderately famous (used to play on Australian television, radio and recorded with many high profile artists at the time) bassist from around the 40's and 50's told one thing to all new bassists who came seeking lessons,

"I will not teach you now, play your bass by yourself for a few months, get to know YOUR bass. Come back to me, and then I will teach you how to play."

Just an interesting bit of advice... I'd go by it.