Trying to teach myself

[Choking_victim]

So a little background...

I'm a college student who lives with 2 other people. I play drums and love them, but I am limited on when I can play them because of my roomates. I always have an urge to play music so I decided to invest in a bass and I will be recieving it in a few weeks.

I was able to teach myself drums by buying a beginners book and just going from there. Now I've never played a string instrument before so I don't really know anything about bass to begin with. Is there a good beginners book I could order that would give me a good start on learning to play? Also what are some good things I should focus on to begin with?

I have a friend who plays bass/guitar and I plan on having him teach me a few things over christmas break. Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

[samick]

try youtube, there are some instructional videos on there to get you started
for me videos are the easiest way to learn but there's the drawback of knowing nothing about reading music
Good Luck!

[Choking_victim]

Awesome thanks for the quick reply. Yah I've checked out youtube to learn some stuff on drums but it wasn't that helpful because I couldn't actually play along. I'll definately try out youtube for bass though, thanks for the suggestion.

[samick]

no problem

[chasfr]

"Bass Guitar for Dummies." Really. It'll give you all the basics you need to get started, and plenty of pointers for directions you might want to explore. And if you're a drummer, you've got a great head start on bass, cause you already know how the rhythm section's supposed to function.

Have fun!
Chas

[burno70]

Get hold of as many tabs as you can. That's how I started.

Think of one of your favourite bands, whose bass player wouldn't be too challenging to copy and either buy a tab book or download them off the net.

I like rock music but wouldn't go for my faves such as Rage Against the Machine or the Chili Peppers as it would be too steep a learning curve - go for something easy that you will enjoy playing along with even though the bass score may not be all that.

Then get more ambitious as your playing skills increase.

Hope that helps.

[Sarah5string]

I started by listening and playing along to CDs using internet tabs. Then as I got better I started trying more complex stuff before starting to experiment with my own stuff.

[Baryonyx]

Sitting down with records and working slowly on simple passages to train your ears up is invaluable. I cannot stress enough how much of an advantage training your ears to recognize pitches and patterns gives you.

[steve66]

IMO, If you can find it, look for Deluxe Jazz & Rock Method by Vincent Bredice. It is spiral bound. Mel Bey is the publisher.

[barbarbass]

There's a guy on youtube, MarloweDK -- I think he might be on this forum, as well -- who is the bomb. I've been playing for fifteen years (or more?) and I still learn from him. He takes you all the way from the simple stuff (like blues, pentatonic scales) to some truly amazing funk.

[Choking_victim]

All the suggestions are great and I'm sure they will help me out immensely, thanks a lot guys.

What a great forum!

[bassbully]

Originally Posted by Chris2112

Sitting down with records and working slowly on simple passages to train your ears up is invaluable. I cannot stress enough how much of an advantage training your ears to recognize pitches and patterns gives you.

He speaks the truth. This plus learning the fretboard is the quickest key to playing the bass. Tabs IMO are useless unless you get stuck on a part of a song which really shouldnt happen or you cant hear it clearly on the CD. By ear training you hands will know which notes to go to almost automaticly in time...you hear a chord in a key and your hand knows by mind /muscle memory where to go or dang close....tabs teach you to paint by numbers so to speak.
Learn what the position dots are on the neck and what simple chords are...and your friend the octive will help you learn the neck quickly.
Books and DVDs as well as you -tube are great...have fun but stick to easy ear training, learning the fretboard and chords..easy!