Thread: Ask me about bass guitar

Hey I play guitar and sometimes a little bass.
Can you tell me how to play bass better?
Right now I just play the root note of the guitar chord parts.

I prefer to play with my fingers, but you can also use a pick. it's easy. You can slap it, or pluck.

Originally Posted by Quigin

Hey I play guitar and sometimes a little bass.
Can you tell me how to play bass better?
Right now I just play the root note of the guitar chord parts.

Learn some songs I recommend some Flea stuff, like Dani California. (even though the fills are quite hard)

A lot of bass playing does revolve around the root note, but you can always at stuff by octaves and the ocassional fifth. Try and see how it sounds

If the music you play only has root notes in the bass (I call that root bashing), you should pick some other music to play

I mainly play Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and a bit of Led Zeppelin.
I should get my bass fixed (broken neck). At the moment I just play a little at school or on my guitar at home xD.
I'll try play some Red Hot Chili Peppers I love their music.

The Peppers have great stuff, but most of it is quite tough when you get to the fills You can just work on that, though

Good luck!

Any tips on bass-tapping?

Hit it hard or it won't sound good.
hah.

guitarboy is right

Personally, I dislike tapping. To me it's like playing the piano, and as I have a piano directly next to my bass, I don't see any point in it :p

I was mainly just screwing with you with the tapping question. I don't play bass in any serious amount, because my musical partner plays bass way better than I do, so I stick to guitar and singing. He's some kind of musical freak. He picked up bass and was good at it, pretty much instantly. He still doesn't play loud enough, his attack is pretty gentle, but he's working on it. He did the same thing with piano and drums. If his voice wasn't awful, or he had the patience to learn guitar chords, I'd be out of luck.

Actually: Funny bass story ish. For English we had to do a creative project about the book Into The Wild. So my friend, a theory freak, metalhead, guitarist, was like, I'm gonna write a metal song about Chris McCandless and you can play bass. So I said, "Sure." The next day he came in and showed me the bass line, which required pretty much constant bass-sweeping. He seriously expected me, after six months of guitar playing, to be able to sweep. Oy.

You bastard xD
Practice, practice, practice. It's almost always the key

I cannot bass slap at all. Any tips? I have read countless things online and watched a lot of youtube videos that did not help at all.

Originally Posted by eppy

I cannot bass slap at all. Any tips? I have read countless things online and watched a lot of youtube videos that did not help at all.

Ah well. The trick is too keep your thumb relaxed.
Turn your wrist, and let it come back, while having your thumb just dangling around a little bit. If you're doing it right, your thumb should shoot forward, hitting the string.

Try an exercise on the table:
Lay your arm (not all of it, just the lower part) on the table, palm down. Let your fingers relax completely, just how you're comfortable. (Your hand should be more like a fist than stretched out)
Turn your wrist (with your arm still on the table) in a way that turns the palm of your hand to you. The thumb should be on top, like a flagpole. Make sure you keep your hand relaxed!
Finally, turn your wrist back again and let your thumb go loose on the table.

You can do this exercise a lot. I used to do it all the time while sitting in class, just tapping the table using this with my both hands
If you haven't done this often, it might hurt your thumb, but after a while that goes away. Just ask when you have any more questions

Just one word for you: Bolt On Neck.
(ok, maybe that's more than one word.. still and all...)

I've seen That 1 Guy 3 times now and he blows the roof off the dump!

Check him out if you haven't already. Also, don't miss the new Claypool CD Of Fungi And Foe. Goo stuh mang.

Originally Posted by Phydeaux_3

Just one word for you: Bolt On Neck.
(ok, maybe that's more than one word.. still and all...)

I've seen That 1 Guy 3 times now and he blows the roof off the dump!

Check him out if you haven't already. Also, don't miss the new Claypool CD Of Fungi And Foe. Goo stuh mang.

Les Claypool ftw.

So I've wanted to pick up bass for a while, I've played guitar for a few months and it isn't that I don't like it, but I wanna give bass a try. Thing is I don't want to throw a bunch of money on it since I've got a fair amount already invested in guitar...So anyone got any suggestions where I could get a 'functional' bass dirt cheap? I've scoured Ebay with no luck so far.

Dirt cheap as in 150 or as in 50? Try craigslist, then look around amazong for a beginner bass, they're normally around 100-150.

I got a nice used Ibanez bass off of craigslist for $60.
I recommend looking on there.

Yeah, I checked craigslist for my area and the only one around was a $350 Peavey. I may go look around at local pawn shops, worth a shot at least.

Ask me about bass guitar

No, ask ME about bass guitar! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

EDIT: ...well, if you're looking for tips about pickstyle playing, tapping, chords and general "lead bass" type stuff, that is.