Online Bass Guitar Lessons: Private Lessons At Home

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.

But will you be learning the proper techniques, the proper fingering? You best hire yourself a tutor. If you want to learn slap bass, it’s the ultimate way to go. And it’s also a great way of improving your music skills.

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.

The mathematics of this exercise work out so that you must play the scale through 3 times before the accent will again fall on the beginning note. That is one reason why this exercise is so beneficial. Be patient and practice this exercise until you can play it all the way through the three repetitions without mistakes.

Never play in a club where there’s a “house soundman.” Guaranteed - they will get paid more than the band, in most cases, and the probably have a standard sound for all the basses, without knowing your playing style. He probably eq your bass with an insane volume range.

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