This is part one in my lesson for beginner bass players. In this series I will go through some basic tecniques, theories and patterns. If you are starting to play bass guitar or are a beginner, you've come to the right place. It may take you years of practicing to become a very good bass player, but this lesson should be a good place to start and a solid foundation that you can build your skills and knowledge of the bass guitar, tecniques and tehory.
Part 1 - The basics:
Well start of with the series with just the basics of bass playing. You will learn how to hold the bass, how to pluck and how to do the fretting. Aslo I've described some basic exercises for plucking and fretting.
Holding the bass:
This might seem like a unecessary part of the lesson, but how you are holding your bass is important to your playing. If you hold your bass wrong it will negatively influence the other bass tecniques. Do not underestimate t he importance of holding your bass right!
- Use a strap: You should use a guitar strap when you are playing bass guitar, even when sitting. The strap itself is a vital part of the tecnique. The strap should hold the bass for you so that your hands can be free to play with. Your hands shouldn't be doing any of the balancing or holding of the bass.
- Height of the bass: Adjust your strap so that the bass falls at a comfortable level across your chest. The strap should comfortably hold your bass somewhere above your hips and below your collarbone.
- Posture: Your posture is important. Always keep your back straight while playing bass.
- Angle of the bass: Hold your bass guitar at like a 30-degree angle. This will help you straigthen out your wrists, streigtening your back and leveling your shoulders. This will prevent injuries.
Plucking:
There are many ways to pluck the bass. First of all you have to decide of you are going to use fingers or a pick. In this lesson, I am going to focues on using the fingers.
- It is important that you keep your wrist straight. This will prevent hand injuries! It is also important taht you keep your plucking hand relaxed.
- Hold your thumb on the side of the pickup that is closest to the neck. The thumb will then work as a stabilator for the plucking hand.
- I would recommend you to pluck with two fingers; Index (1) and middle (2).
- Try alternating between the two fingers like this: 2 1 2 1 Do this until you get a clean sound and develop some strenght in your fingers.
- When you are comfortable playing on one string, try to play on all four (or five, six, eight..whatever) strings and alternate between them.
Fretting:
Fretting basically means that you are holding down the different strings on different part of the fretboard, so when you pluck, you will here different tones.
- Keep your hand relaxed (I know this is hard in the beginning) and place your thumb on the middle of the back of the neck between the index and the middle finger. Your thumb should point up, dont move it to the sides.
- Remember to keep your wrist straight and dont let your palm touch the underside of the neck. there should be some room between your palm and the underside of the neck. This way you will prevent injuries and not mute the highest strings.
- It is important to assing 1 finger per fret, so the fingers should span four frets. So for the frets 1,2,3,4, you should use index fingfor fret 1, middle finger for fret 2, ring finger for fret 3 and the pinky finger for fret 4. This will make it easier to play in the long run. I know this will be hard in the beginning, but after a while it is going to feel natural.
- When you press down the strings, press down as closely to the fret itself without being on it. Also try to press as lightly as you can, but still get a smooth sound.
- Start with playing through frets 1 2 3 4 up and down all the strings. If that is too hard, just play it on some higher frets, but remember to assign 1 finger fret.
- You can also do some variations like playing 1 3 2 4, 1 4 2 3, 3 2 1 4 etc.
That concludes the first part of the learn to play bass for beginners series. I will soon post a new article where I will teach you to play some scales.