Going Beyond Bass Scales

Some teachers would have you learn chords first, or some bass scales but either way you have got to go beyond bass scales and 3 note chords if you really want to be a quality bass player.  People who play guitar tend to think that bass playing is simple and easy. In their mind it’s just playing one root note under their chord. In fact, most guitar players think they can play bass because they’ve learn a few intervals or 3 note runs. I’m not one of those guitar players.

When I studied guitar I learned every bit of music theory information I could get my hands on, even learned classical guitar and then promptly forgot it all and got back to just playing. When I was sought after to play bass in a very booked working band I had never picked up a bass before.  Within 3 weeks I’m playing bass onstage.

The reason I was able to make that transition so quickly was because of all the music theory and scale work I had done on guitar previously. When you play bass, knowing music theory, chord structure, bass scales and modes is vital to your ability to adapt to any style of music. Playing bass turned out to be much more technical and challenging experience for me. So much so that I now find playing guitar rather boring by comparison.

You need to know more than 3 note chords. You need to know more than pentatonic bass scales. Understanding how 4 and 5 note chords are built and how modes are developed from scales are essential skills every bass player needs to know. In addition to that, the physical act of playing your bass can be approached from so many more angles than guitar in my opinion: use a pick or not, popping, slapping, the list goes on.

So how do you master all this. Well unlike guitar, which I completely taught myself (other than few theory books) I found that to really delve into hardcore serious bass playing the fastest route is some sort of organized instruction. Even though I was able to get onstage with bass very quickly, the advance techniques I later learned would have taken me much longer to learn, if ever, on my own.

I was very fortunate to have found an extremely advanced bass player to learn from, but you may not know someone like. If that’s the case my recommendation is that you do not waste your money on local private lessons, but rather get the most for your dollar by purchasing a solid bass lesson instructional video/Ebook course. You will advance much faster learning through one of these bass guitar courses than taking private lessons.