Chris's Blog

Are you serious about wanting to improve you bass guitar playing? If you are, then one of the most productive things you can do is work on your scales. It has even been said that the level of your scale playing pretty much determines the level of your bass playing overall! I have designed these exercises to help you to develop a more accurate sense of rhythm and to improve the speed and agility of your bass guitar scales.

Bass practice with fretboard patterns should include things such as the use of sweep picking with the 3 note per string pentatonic scale in the rock or blues bass style. You want to be able to practice with many different scales patterns as possible so that you are able to execute the runs and licks and lead lines of a wide variety of bass players and style of music that you personally are interested in.

There is little that proves more daunting for young bass players than realizing just how physically demanding it is to play bass. As novices watching our favorite bassists on video we think, “That doesn’t look so hard! I can do that!”

Advanced players must have some command of scale, chord and arpeggio patterns, to be advanced, yet often they get real fast and efficient with enough patterns to impress others and get by, but they realize how extremely limited they still are, and how they are not really as advanced as they would like to be because of their insufficient scope and grasp of a complete mastery of the fretboard with the current patterns that they already know, as well as the theoretical aspect behind the patterns and their use.

When you hear the term learn slap bass, what it refers to is learning how to play certain techniques on the bass guitar. No matter what the other instruments in a band sound like, the bass guitar is crucial and is really the glue that holds the whole thing together. Slap bass is a way of playing the bass guitar.

Unfortunately, it turns out to be harder than it looks. Here’s why: The muscles that move your hands and fingers across the neck and strings are rarely used for other tasks. The fine motor skills needed to play a stringed instrument require that the small muscles of the hands be strengthened. So when you take up the bass, you’re like a baby learning to walk: Not only do you have no idea of what you’re doing, you don’t even have the muscles to do it.

Use your left thumb as a pivot, keeping your elbow out from your body so that it can swing back and forth freely. Curve the fingers of your left hand out over the neck to reach notes on the thicker strings; as your thumb pivots. Play the notes on the thinner strings with your fingers flattened more against the neck, your elbow pulled back, and your left thumb standing almost out straight from the neck.

A bass guitarist/bassist is like the anchor of a band. He/she outlines the harmony of the music being performed, while simultaneously indicating the rhythmic pulse of it. The bass guitarist is like the lifeblood of any band, and the bass guitar is his/her tool of choice, used to mesmerize audiences. A bass guitar is a bass stringed instrument that is played with the fingers.

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So, you want to play bass and you’ll do a search over the web for knowing the first step. There are several bass oriented sites all over the internet and all of them will do this statement for start: get yourself a bass tutor.

Bass Lessons are available in all kinds of formats these days audio, video, book and even on-line. No matter what type of media you choose to start your journey to learning how to play slap bass you must always concentrate on the fundamentals no matter what your skill level. Even a professional like Tiger Woods has a teacher or a coach that makes sure he never loses site of the foundations that built his golf game to what it is today.

If one grasps the notes of a regular guitar through his ears, a bass player grabs the notes of a bass guitar through his chest. The bass guitar pounds on the heart and gives it feelings through the depth of the music. Learn the notes (single chords) on a regular guitar.

Online bass lessons also will offer you the chance of explore all the techniques available. The sites that are offered in all the teaching sites, generally comprehends from the basics to most advanced topics. And slap bass lessons is one of them, be sure that you’ll get one that cover slapping, because it is a fundamental bass technique.

Besides, this will give you a chance to expand your instrument sound range, giving it more depth and compression. There are different variations of slapping the string. Slap bass techniques are commonly found in all types of music, but most notably in the funk, Latin and pop styles.

Now that you already know the really basic stuff, you should take a quick peek on other important topics. Scales, techniques, learning songs and lines is the next step for a starter.

Time spent practicing is rapidly rewarded in the early stages of learning an instrument. And the electric bass is not as difficult to get a sound from as many other instruments (provided of course, that you have an amplifier!).

Hope that this helps you take the first steps in learning bass. You should be able to express yourself, of course. But without this information, there are no elements available for expressing yourself!

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Ok, so now you are an artist. Think in the way artists traditionally do. If we could watch a sculptor work on a new sculpture carved from marble, stone or wood, what do you think we would see? (Think about the last sentence before reading any further – its important.)

Find out what inspires you and soak yourself in that. For me, going to concerts to see great players or bands inspires me to practice more. Listening to great singers inspired me to refine my vibrato and phrasing.

The point is athletes with great abilities have them usually in one area. For example, Michael Jorden (arguably the world’s greatest basketball player of all time) was not very successful when he tried to play baseball (or golf for that matter). Think about athletes in the olympics, they are specialists. They have found their natural ability and developed it to its greatest potential, but that natural ability is usually limited to one skill.

Beethoven probably had no natural ability known to himself for along time. He didn’t even begin composing much until around the age of 30! He was not a child prodigy like Mozart and Chopin were.

Listen to more music. Find more of the same music you already like. There is a lot of music out there that you haven’t heard.

Define your purpose. What is your definite purpose? Do you really know what it is? If I were standing in front of you right now and asked you this question, could you give me specific answers and explanations? Can you write it on paper in specific terms?

This is critical to setting goals, planning strategy and monitoring the results, etc. When all the enemies of progress start to creep into your mind, you will need to bring your definite purpose to the forefront of your thinking. I have seen procrastination, fear of failure, self doubt, lack of motivation, temporary setbacks, and other negative things bring people with great potential to a halt. Knowing your definite purpose and reminding yourself of it when a negative thought comes into your mind will help you overcome it.

To be GREAT means I have to be BETTER than everybody else. We already touched on this one above, but it is worth mentioning again here. What matters is reaching YOUR goals, not someone else’s goals. Who cares if you are or are not better than someone else? This is not the olympics. Music is the art of expression (or for some people, the science of entertainment).

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Like you probably have done, I have read a ton of interviews with great players and articles written by many of these same players. I often found it frustrating whenever the subject of learning to play guitar came up or when advice was offered on improving one’s playing. With a small number of exceptions, very little time and space was offered on this.

Despite the fact that many successful don’t really talk much about this, you can find some that do. Believe me, becoming successful is a lot more than just practicing and luck! REMEMBER that their strategies won’t necessarily work for you because your goals may be different than theirs were. Still you can learn from it.

But no matter how good you get, there will always be something you can learn from someone else. Seek out those people, get to know them, jam with them, discuss music and guitar with them. Be willing to give as much (or more) as you want to take. If you are fortunate enough to be above the level of other guitarists in your area, seek out great bassists, pianists, violinists, drummers, etc. You can learn from them as well. (Even if you are not better than your guitar player friends, seek out musicians that play other instruments as well anyway).

The only time one needs to learn lots of different styles of music is because your goals REQUIRE it. If you truly love a lot of styles and want to learn them all, then go ahead and do that. If you want to be a studio musician or a jobber, then you will need that versatility. Its very hard to be REALLY good at many styles.

Ultimately you should work backwards. State your ultimate goals (on paper) then make a bunch of short and medium range goals. Think of reaching your goals as a relay race, NOT as a marathon. Each short term and medium term goal is the end of one segment of your plan and the beginning of the next segment (just like a relay race.) There are many benefits of looking at things this way as you will discover for yourself in your own way.

I notice the finger responsible for playing that note is the third finger. It is not getting to the note because it is going up in the air in reaction to the second finger being used right before it in that particular scale passage. In other words, it is tensing in reaction to the movement of it’s neighboring finger, and I have not been paying attention to it. I realize this is a bad habit that pervades my playing, a third finger that tenses up in reaction to the use of the second finger.

What I didn’t know was that even though I was learning to keep up with these chord changes, I had so much muscle tension in my arms and other parts of my body, that I was locking in tensions that didn’t have to be there, and would come back to haunt me a few years later as I attempted the classical repertoire, where you don’t really get away with things like that. As the years went by, and especially in teaching others, I realized that it doesn’t have to be that way for anybody! There is a way of going about it that doesn’t create or allow this situation.

Think about the masters of music. Mozart was probably most naturally gifted in only three of the musical areas: technical skill, a great ear (perfect pitch), a great musical memory. But he had to work hard at all the other areas of music just like everybody else.

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Have you considered online bass guitar lessons? What usually gets people started with bass guitar is the desire to form a band, or to be a part of a band. Maybe you already know how to play guitar, and your friends play guitar too–but you all can’t be the lead guitarist or the rhythm guitarist. Someone needs to play bass. Maybe that someone is you.

The bass student will find more reward in learning the varied methods, namings, visualizing and thinking of chord, scale, and arpeggio patterns on the fretboard. In some ways, the differences are minor, but often they can be very obvious and the benefit of learning them can easily result in transitioning around the fretboard easily.

As such, the bodies of bass guitars need to be made of lightweight materials so that the weight is manageable. If a bass guitar was made of metal, chances are that a lot of guitarists would find it difficult or even impossible to play it. The preferred materials are wood and graphite, and different kinds of wood may be used, including maple, alder, mahogany, rosewood, etc. The strings are usually made of steel.

Identify the parts of the bass guitar. There are typically four strings, and the components are very similar to a guitar. The thickest string is the E (the topmost), followed by A, D, and G, and are also referred to as 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. On the neck of the guitar forming a grid-like pattern with the strings are metal strips called frets that make the notes produced higher as it goes farther from you.

Feel the beat, playing the bass guitar differs primarily from playing a regular guitar because it entails an emphasis on the beat of the music. One can compare the bass guitar into a drum or percussion set that is made into a guitar. Beats are very important in playing bass guitar because this type of guitar gives depth and timing to any song.

Set the metronome for 60 beats per minute. Choose a scale (pentatonic minor is a good one to begin with) and play the scale all the way through TWICE using eighth notes. This means that you play 2 notes for every metronome beat.

Make yourself a jam track and practice soloing. Learn little trick that you know you can rely on to make a cool lick on the spot. Remember, practice makes perfect! So go show those guitar players that they need to up there game because now they have the bass guitar right behind them ready to take the spotlight

With all these in mind, strum your way to mastering how to play the bass guitar and be a rock star in your own right.

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Are you serious about wanting to improve you bass guitar playing? If you are, then one of the most productive things you can do is work on your scales. It has even been said that the level of your scale playing pretty much determines the level of your bass playing overall! I have designed these exercises to help you to develop a more accurate sense of rhythm and to improve the speed and agility of your bass guitar scales.

Getting a guitar strap can help your hands focus on playing instead of carrying the instrument. It is advisable to keep your fingernails trimmed so that they do not interfere with the sound. Blisters signify the first signs of learning. They hurt a lot, but eventually you will get used to them and eventually calluses will develop to protect you from the sting.

If your strings ever break mysteriously at the bridge, check your saddles. If there are any string “bite” marks, snags or burrs on the saddles, it means that they are wearing down your strings and the constant vibration of the strings makes the burrs act like little saws on the windings of the string. Eventually the core gives in – and POW, there goes a string – and possibly an eyeball.

With your thumb in position as described under the Hand Positioning section strike the low E string with the middle knuckle of your thumb and hit it pretty hard to get that classic “thump’ sound and then immediately release.

Advanced players must have some command of scale, chord and arpeggio patterns, to be advanced, yet often they get real fast and efficient with enough patterns to impress others and get by, but they realize how extremely limited they still are, and how they are not really as advanced as they would like to be because of their insufficient scope and grasp of a complete mastery of the fretboard with the current patterns that they already know, as well as the theoretical aspect behind the patterns and their use.

NEVER SING if you feel uncomfortable about it. NEVER HARMONIZE if you’re not sure what notes to hit with the lead singer. Avoid “falsetto vocals” if at all possible. Falsetto only belongs when you are driving in the car, ALONE, and with your favorite CD playing

This means that in the future you may feel the benefits from experiencing some different styles of playing bass guitar in your development period. This means that bass lessons can be invaluable at any stage of your playing career as there is always time to learn new skills and styles. People should always try to evolve and develop new skills and even their musical preferences can change over time.

Feel the beat, playing the bass guitar differs primarily from playing a regular guitar because it entails an emphasis on the beat of the music. One can compare the bass guitar into a drum or percussion set that is made into a guitar. Beats are very important in playing bass guitar because this type of guitar gives depth and timing to any song.

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Make sure you are practicing efficiently. Do you really know how to practice the guitar? Are you focused on setting daily and weekly objectives and then practicing in such a way that you will be working towards those goals?

I prefer to be wise like the Buddha, and take the Middle Path. This is the one I have chosen, and I will describe it for you.

The greatest source of inspiration has been my own personal experiences in life and within myself. The desire to express that was (and still is) a constant burning desire and powerful force that thrusts my desire to improve forward. Know what truly inspires you, seek it out, surround yourself with it and soak and soak there.

If self expression is the pinnacle of art (or if you at least agree it is very important) and if you desire (and attempt) to express yourself in art (music), you are an artist. In the past, I would not have used the label “Artist” to describe anyone that was not already great at creating genuine art. I typically reserved the words, art, artist and musician for only the highest levels of excellence. But as a teacher of music composition, songwriting, and self expression I have changed my use of these terms for the benefit of all students.

They started to feel like that song by Al Yankovich, “Everything You Know Is Wrong”. They realize that even though they may have been playing for 25 years, there are certain really fundamental things they have never known, and if they did know them from the beginning, everything would have gone differently for them in their growth as guitarists.

I remember when I first learned them. It was the “tough” school, the school of hard knocks. The school of “here is where to put your fingers, I know it feels impossible, you’re not getting most of the notes out, but if you stay with it long enough, you’ll be able to do it.”

To be GREAT means I have to be BETTER than everybody else. We already touched on this one above, but it is worth mentioning again here. What matters is reaching YOUR goals, not someone else’s goals. Who cares if you are or are not better than someone else? This is not the olympics. Music is the art of expression (or for some people, the science of entertainment).

Now I know I have to work on something very fundamental. I have to work on the behavior of my third finger, and change the way it reacts to it’s neighbor being used, the second finger. If I can get down to the matter with that degree of specificity, that degree of clarity and focus, I am in a position to cause major Vertical Growth. If I can change the way that finger is behaving in that situation, I will see many playing problems I am having in other pieces of music begin to “melt”, and eventually disappear.

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After you decide the path you want to take to learn (online, self-taught ect..) there’s nothing wrong with dabbling in other paths too just to broaden your knowledge and learn a new tip or trick here and there. There are also guitar lessons for beginners online to consider that will usually start you out for free and are a great way to get started. These are great because they’re build by well educated instructors and your lesson is there waiting for you each time you log onto your course.

The first thing I will say to you is this: Unless you are practicing to be a professional, don’t pick up the guitar unless you actually want to. The most valuable part of a practice session is that you actually enjoy it. If you want to be in a band, or want to play on the jam circuit, then I would recommend picking up your guitar once a day and spending at least an hour with it.

There are also songs that maybe should not be played. “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Smoke On The Water” by Deep Purple and “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles are contenders for this list but that probably only applies if your audience is sober.

We want a healthy regular 6 string practicing lifestyle that will create healthy practice habits. Avoid the get quick fix guitar diet of always hungering for the next “learn to play fast musical diet.” You will find that by making a healthy commitment to learn your guitar on a regular basis will lead to a healthy normal part of life that includes practicing your instrument the right way and for the long term, rather than just for a little while.

Yet. If you are one of the lucky few (like me), who can just pick up a guitar and start to jam, I guarantee you will still have bad habits that will actually restrict you from becoming better than you actually are. Remember that there are pros in the world who are only pros because of the hours, days and months spent refining and perfecting their technique. To give you one example, I play for 2 hours a day where I can, and I know that I am still far from perfect.

In the brick and mortar world, you might want to turn to one on one lessons if you really are intent at improving your ability to play guitar. While these types of guitar lessons can cost you more than other types of guitar lesson options, for many people one on one lessons are ideal ways to learn guitar initially and then to master the instrument to a greater degree on down the road.

Chances are though, you already have a guitar. It’s the weapon of choice of the heart broken isn’t it? You probably GOT a guitar because you were sad about something. Nothing like a six string box to pour your heart through. Something about the twang of the strings just tells you, yeah, I feel your pain.

A little tip for you here: If a string breaks on your guitar, I would recommend you change the whole set, other wise you will end up with spare strings lying around everywhere, and for some reason, I always find there is a difference in quality of sound when I only change one string. Maybe I’m just a perfectionist, who knows? As far as practice is concerned, there are a couple of ways to approach it.

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