My dream is to learn how to play bass. I know it takes time and money for lessons. Unfortunately I have neither of those. I have tried online lessons, you tube videos and tutorials, lessons on dvd, I have tried picking things out just be hearing them but nothing has worked. I feel like if I could just get a kick start or pointed in the right direction or learn how to play a song, I feel like I could keep my motivation to continue learning instead of throwing my hands up as I have done so many times in the past and said "this will never work, I'm never gonna learn this."
Can anyone help me? PLEASE?!?!?
I'm a part time bass/guitar teacher and have successfully taught young children to older adults. I'm going to give you a free lesson right now. Since I can't interact with you face to face, I can't determine how you learn the best. So, I am going to teach you in a simplified way, like I would a younger child. Ready, here we go....
1) Make sure that your bass is tuned to standard tuning. On a 4 string bass that will be--E for the thickest string, A for the second thickest string, D for the third thickest one, and G for the thinnest.
2) Look up an easy 3 chord song (like a blues/rock song) that you want to learn on the internet, that you can find a free chord chart for. I prefer teaching chord charts first, because you can buy piano "fakebooks" for most music that are similar. Chord charts are easy to read. The letter above the lyrics of the song is the chord that you play....as a bass player, most of the time you're going to start with the root note--which is the letter that you see. Don't worry if it has another designation behind it....like Amin7, etc. you still just play an A note.
3) If you don't know where the notes are on the neck of the bass, you can look that up for free. Learn where the 3 notes that you need for the song are, don't worry about the rest of the notes yet.
4) With bass in hand, chord chart in front of you, and with the song playing....simply try to play the root note only when the chord changes. Don't worry about playing other rhythms yet, just get the chord change down. After a few times of playing through, you should be able to play along to a simple song.
5) Practice the song for a week, then repeat the process with another simple song. After you can play a few, start working on some 4 chord songs. After you can play a few 4 chord ones too, then you can start trying to match rhythms to songs.
*If my students are video game players, I like to recommend a game called Rocksmith. You plug your actually instruments into the game and learn and play along. Though not the best way to learn on your own (it tends to teach some bad habits), it is a great supplement. Also a great way to accelerate your technical ability. And it is fun. My students that incorporate the game tend to progress significantly faster than those that don't. Even the ones that are struggling initially tend to get a big jump in their ability after a couple of weeks. It's actually pretty amazing.
--I hope this post helps. Bass isn't a difficult instrument to get started with (note, I didn't say easy to master). You should be able to at least somewhat play along with simple songs, with 10 to 15 minutes of practice 4 or 5 days a week, if you follow my instructions. Of course more practice would be better.
