Q&A: How long does it take to learn bass guitar?

Question by Lucy: How long does it take to learn bass guitar?
I’m a grade 2 on piano already.
How long would you need to play to be able to cover the bass of a rock band?
And how hard is it compared to piano?

Best answer:

Answer by OnTheRock
Having not played a string instrument before, it will take you a bit of time to build up your fingers and dexterity for playing bass guitar. Your piano knowledge will help some, but honestly, most rock bassists don’t read the bass line from music or anything like you would a piano score. They typically know and understand their scales and chord theory and improvise the bass line around the chord structure of the song.

Compared to piano though, I think you’ll find bass pretty easy. You have 4 strings (E A D G from thickest to thinnest). Each fret is a half step, so the first fret on the E string would be F, 2nd fret is F#, 3rd is G, etc). The easiest way to get going on bass is to look at a chord chart of the song (has the chord names above the lyrics) and just play the root note of each chord on the bass, so if you see a C chord you play a C on the bass, if you see a G chord you play a G on the bass. If there is an alternate bass note (ie. D/F#) you’d play the note to the right of the / (the F# in this case). The tricky part is getting your rhythm down. Typically you’d play whole notes, 1/4 notes, or 1/8 notes depending on the dynamics of the song. Really not that difficult to do a passable job on bass, but there’s way more you can do with it with enough practice and musical knowledge.

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