Learn to play bass guitar

learn to play bass guitar

I can't believe I agreed to learn to play bass guitar. This is in addition to being Head of Music in an International School, keeping this website up and running (after not doing much to it for a year) and going back to my Essential Music Theory website to build it up… When we were looking for a bass player for a new band (I was going to play keyboards and sax) and didn't find one, it seemed a good idea (at the time) to say "Why don't I play bass? I can learn. It will be good to have a new challenge!" It was one of those experiences where youhear your mouth saying something while your brain tries to figure out how it managed to lose control of your speaking! Anyway, that was it.. I was the bass player and so my journey of how to learn to play bass guitar began.



The importance of reading music

Of course, I can already read music (although I find TAB difficult) so that should be an advantage…and I really do know how to practice! There was a spare bass in the music room at school, I already knew where the notes were on the neck, having sat in and played bass a few times with bands, once at school when a German band came on an exchange and needed a bass player (Another Brick in the WallAll My Loving and Wonderful Tonight), once with a staff band at a leaving party (Brown Eyed Girl, Couple of 12 bar blues in A and of course,Leaving on a Jet Plane) and once with a jazz band from Germany who came to play in Jeddah when I was working there. Their bass player had injured himself the day before he left, leaving me only 48 hours to approximate some bass lines (lots of root notes, not much walking). Luckily the piano player took some of the more difficult lines with his left hand while I stayed off stage breathing a sigh of relief)… so I knew some tunes even before I started learning bass guitar officially!



What will I gain if I
learn to play bass guitar?

I hope that by learning an (almost) new instrument I will be able to test out my practice theories further as a student, and see how easy it is to stick to practice plans etc. I will be posting my experiences as I learn to play bass guitar here. If you want to follow me on this journey of learning bass please make sure to click on the RSS feed button below the navigation bar on the left to find out each time I update. Please also feel free to comment on any post… especially if you are a bass player yourself and see me going horribly wrong, or know of better ways of doing things.

Thank you
Simon

Expert Practice Secrets


practice makes perfect by simon horsey

Frustrated with your practice? Read Practice Makes Perfect and hack the 10,000 hour rule. Cut your practice time by up to 25%! Make faster progress, learn pieces and scales faster, memorize more easily, and much more. "If you play an instrument you need this book!"




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Learning to play bass guitar
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Fortunately I had a head start when learning to play bass guitar as I could already read music and knew roughly where the notes were on the neck, having …



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