What to practice for the bass beginner?

[johnny1978]

Well I played some guitar and started with basic chords and scales. Is bass going be the same, as far as scales and finger fretting exercises?
I will try to get lessons, but I work too much and have a newborn son, time is my enemy these days. I can practice at home but really cant get to lesson in the next town over with my current schedule.

I have found scales, but there are so many I dont know where to begin. I have almost 6 years as a drummer, and I know time signatures and groove. Is there that "basic 4/4" measure for bass, or the FIRST thing you should learn. Boring stuff that everything else is built on later, regardless of what genre you want to play. I just need to be pointed in the right direction of where and what to begin.

Thanks in advance.

[LowDownUnder]

I came to playing bass about 18 months ago from guitar. As opposed to you with a drumming background, I had to learn more about rhythm and groove. My experience is that bass is more reliant on an understanding of arpeggios and chord form than guitar. I tend to feel octaves are useful for accents. You can also use the 5th and 3rd of a chord as ways to create movement and also tension within a bar underneath a chord. Prefacing a chord change with one of these is effective. I think learning arpeggios is a way to expand out of simply playing roots. Also, bass lines by players like John Paul Jones and Jack Bruce tend to be pentatonic in nature, so learning the fingering for that scale may be useful.

[AlphaMale]

The most important for theory is the major scale, learn it in all 12 keys.
Then the Minor, you'll probably play on that a lot. All 12 keys.
Pentatonic all 12 keys
Blues All 12 keys
Harmonic minor All 12 keys


These scales will handle about 95% of the music you're going to encounter.
Also try learning basic triad arpeggios and how to play them different ways.