Hi GC! I am an avid drummer, and during a jam session 3 days ago I picked up my friends bass while he jumped on the drumkit. I realized that I greatly enjoyed playing bass (and could pluck the strings in rhythm which is a start), so I decided to take it up as an instrument. So far I can play smoke on the water, twinkle twinkle little star, and money by pink floyd on the bass... If any of you have ANY -Tips -Hints -Strategies -Exercises -Easy Tabs -Words of Encouragement -Help in anyway Then it would be hugely hugely appreciated. Thanks so much! Anything that can help would be lovely
my brother is a sick bassist, the only thing i can think of to help is that he said that to learn slap he would slap his knuckles to help with hitting the strings
That's pretty sick man....I don't have any advice for you, but bass is cool, I wanna learn someday but I'm learning guitar atm....literally I'm dinking around on my guitar right now
Hey man, bass player here for just over 1 year now. I don't have the most experience out there but I'll tell ya a couple things that will def help you along the way. Don't use tabs, play by ear. I know tabs are soo much more convinient and quicker but in the long run you'll become a much better player if you play by ear. At first you might get discouraged and impatient with earing out songs but trust me, after doing it a lot, it becomes more of an automatic thing. I used to get so frustrated and stop playing for a while, but now when I listen to a lick I can usually pick it up after hearing it a few times. Learn scales. I know they're boring but they can help you come up with your own bass licks as well as making you more familiar with notes on the fretboard(where to find them, octaves, harmonics, etc). Last thing I want to say is experiment with different types of picking. Fingers, picks, slapping/popping. This will make you a more diverse player and you'll be able to get the right sound you want, when you want.
The same thing sort of happened to me, I was chosen at the last second to play the bass in my friends' band, after looking at some tabs I was able to play Scar Tissue by RHCP, Paranoid by black sabbath, Message in a bottle, and some other stuff. If anything you should look up RHCP, it might be a little tough at first but their bass-lines are pretty sick. BTW, I also agree with propane, try and play by ear, it's a little frustrating at first but it's totally worth it, you'll get good at it in no time.
Well I'm a guitar player so I can't make any suggestions on how to play technically, but in regards to theory - the most important thing should be understanding the notes on the fretboard and their relationship in position with other notes. It makes it much easier when you're jamming and can look and KNOW what note you're moving to next. And then of course you're gonna want to learn your scales. Understanding the intervals between notes is an important thing too (very important imo)
I'm actually going in the opposite direction of you, I've been playing bass for 6 years now, and have recently really wanted to switch over to drums as my main instrument. Tips I would have for you, are to learn as many songs as you can by your favorite artists, by any means necessary. Probably using tabs at first for a guideline, (if you havent played an other instrument that involves reading music), but NEVER trust them to be right, and always use your ear to make sure you get the song down correctly. When I started playing, I did this for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and learned almost EVERY song by them. After doing this, I got myself into a band that would play their covers, and taught myself theory along the way. To me, the chops came first, and then once I was good with the frets and timing, (from playing along with songs soooooo much) learning the theory and scales were very easy to pick up after getting the finger dexterity and strength. I learned bass in a different way than the conventional player, but it worked for me, and by freshman year I was easily playing as well as, if not better, than the bassists that were seniors in bands, because I PLAYED AND PLAYED AND PLAYED in the way that I wanted to. Practice makes perfect my friend, and if you can take one thing out of this long post, learn in your own way, and for the reasons you want. One tip though, do NOT learn on a pick first, use your fingers, like a real bass player, and then move onto the pick later if you want to use it for certain sounds. There is nothing worse than a bass player that can ONLY play with a pick because it will only hold you back when you try to move onto bigger and better things
Learn the E minor pentatonic scale in every position. Everything will take off from there, especially if you're playing rock.
ive been playin bass for about 7 years now, my advice is youtube 'bass lessons' and learn as much of em as u can, take your time and have paitence, also start listenin to more bass driven music such as funk and reggae
my personal advice concerning scales is (which i learned from victor wooten) only concern urself with the chromatic scale (which is every note) youtube victor wooten bass workshop