Category: Bass Guitar

If you can play the guitar and know how to get it in tune, why do you need to learn how to tune a bass guitar? The answer is in the nature of the sound of the bass guitar. It is so low it is hard for some people to know whether or not the bass is in tune.

There is a wide range of bass guitars with varying numbers of strings and a number of tuning options to widen the range of notes produced. We will stay with the four string bass guitar which is tuned to one octave lower than the standard guitar.

Most guitar players agree that the most effective way to begin tuning a guitar is to start with the strings tuned lower than you need and then tune them up to the right pitch. It is a good idea to start with the strings much lower than they need to be so you do not tighten them too much and break a string.

Let us look at tuning the bass guitar to a piano or keyboard. Find Middle C on the keyboard and go down two octaves and find the E below that. This is your note to tune the fourth string of your bass guitar. Play the open fourth string and the E on your piano at the same time. If you hear a sound like the noise a helicopter makes, your guitar is not in tune. Turn the tuning peg on your bass guitar as you play the guitar and the keyboard together, and listen to the “helicopter” sound. It will become slower as the guitar becomes in tune with the keyboard, and it will eventually vanish. Repeat this for your A D G strings.

Another way of tuning the bass guitar is to get the E string as close to tuned as you can and then tune the rest of the strings. Start by playing the note at the fifth fret of the E string together with the open A string. Once these two notes are the same, play the fifth fret of the A string at the same time as the D string open. When the D string sounds the same as the fifth fret on the A string, play the fifth fret of the D string and tune the open G string to that.

You can also tune the bass guitar to itself using harmonics. Touch your finger lightly on the fifth fret of the E string without pressing down. You will hear a chiming note. Now play this harmonic again but at the same time playing the harmonic at the seventh fret of the A string. Tune the A string until it matches the harmonic of the E string. Next play the fifth fret harmonic of the A string and match the seventh fret harmonic of the D string to that. Finally, match the seventh fret harmonic on the G string with the fifth fret harmonic on the D string.

The simplest way to tune the bass guitar is the electronic tuning method. Electronic tuners have a visual way to tell you when your bass is sounding the right note. For the sake of your progress as a guitarist you should first learn to tune the bass guitar using one or all of the other methods, then check it with an electronic tuner. You can buy an electronic tuner at a music store or online. You can find an online bass guitar tuner here and a versatile bass guitar tuner at get-tuned.com

Here is a video lesson on tuning the bass guitar:

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There is a secret you must know if you want to learn to play bass guitar. It is in the name. The guitar is a musical instrument where you learn notes and melodies and chords and all that musical stuff. A bass guitar plays the same notes but in practice it should be approached as more of a percussion instrument which needs to be felt and interpreted by the body directly to the bodies of your listeners. Right from the very beginning when you are practicing your bass guitar you need to be aware that you are communicating with your audience in almost the same way the drummer is.

So how do you begin to learn to play bass guitar? Just the same as if you were learning the regular guitar. Take lessons for a while. Get the callouses on your fingers and learn the notes on the fretboard. As a bass guitar can be played with either a plectrum or with the right hand fingers you could try learning the rest stroke used by classical guitar players. You should learn all about the basic chords and scales as they are played in rock music, and maybe take a look at the way folk singers play the guitar to accompany themselves singing. This will give you a basic understanding of where the bass notes are in regular guitar playing and how they fit in with the rest of the music.

Once you have a basic understanding of guitar playing you need to choose which type of bass guitar interests you most and how you are going to play it. The four string bass is tuned an octave lower than the six string guitar, with its four strings tuned to E A D G. The five and six string bass guitars can be tuned in many different ways to give a wide range of how you express yourself through your music. Now is not the time to make the decision about which bass guitar you choose, you will find out as you experiment and gain some experience playing in groups.

When you play your bass guitar you will possibly be using a plectrum. Usually this will be one of the heavier picks but they are available in a range of weights to suit the music and the player. If you choose to play the bass guitar with your fingers you will be learning a range of plucking, slapping and snapping techniques using the fingers of your right hand.

The type of bass guitar you choose to play and the technique you use to play your bass will be the methods you use to turn musical notes into bass guitar music. As the bass player you have the job of giving your group the extra thump it takes to get the dancers dancing and the audience swaying. And the great part is you do not have to be a technical virtuoso to do it. You can have fun inventing your own bass lines and making use of chords and arpeggios, but keep it simple. It is an old joke amongst rock and roll musicians that the bass player has the least technical ability, and sometimes there is an element of truth to this, but the rhythm is best expressed by simplicity.

Here is a video featuring that personification of simplicity, Flea, giving a lesson on popping and slapping.

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This little essay on how to play bass guitar is aimed at the guitar player who needs to enter some kind of witness protection program but still maintain a tenuous connection with the world of music. This has proven to be a great way to keep your anonymity while staying in the public eye. The bass guitar player in a rock band maintains the rhythm of the song while the lead guitarist is checking out the chicks in the audience, and the drummer is recalling what decade he is in. To change to this subservient but useful role in a musical group requires a little understanding of the difference between a bass guitar and a real guitar together with some idea of bass guitar playing technique.

Theoretically any guitar player can switch from lead to bass although only one guitarist of note - Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake And Palmer - made a career out of it. It was rumored that he thought it would be a good way to stop attracting women. Actually he constantly switched between lead and bass while maintaining his position as lead singer. Clearly a guy with issues.

Anyway let us get onto the main features of a bass guitar. The standard tuning of a four string bass guitar is E A D G. The tunings are similar on the five string bass except for a low B string, and on a six string except for a high C string. So on a 6 string bass the tuning is B E A D G C. There are also seven string basses with a high F string.
There are several ways you can tune a bass guitar but as they are the same as those used to tune a regular guitar, I will not mention them. As with other guitars you tune the bass guitar by loosening the string and tuning up to the note you are aiming for. Tune each string separately being careful to match the sound of the string to your bass guitar tuner. While we are on the subject of tuning, be sure to do a search for a free online bass guitar tuner.

On the electric bass guitar, the music is made by plucking with the index and middle fingers or with a pick. Early Fender basses had a “thumbrest” attached to the pickguard, below the strings. This was to rest the fingers while the thumb plucked the strings. The common perception is that the pick is used by rock bass players but players of all styles have their own individual techniques, sometimes using thumb, fingers or pick according to the sound they want. The guitar can sound different if all upstrokes, all downstrokes or alternating strokes of the pick are employed.

Some bass players such as Les Claypool and John Entwistle played using their fingernails similar to a classical acoustic guitarist. There is controversy among musical historians over whether bass guitarists who pluck with their fingers are innovators who have explored new horizons or they simply were not told about plectrums.

Playing the bass guitar needs a certain amount of speed and dexterity, and bass guitar music will demand that you develop your own style. For inspiration listen to the most popular and influential bass players of past generations such as Paul McCartney, Pino Palladino - the replacement bass player for John Entwistle in The Who, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jaco Pastorius - called by many musicians the most innovative bass player ever, Mark King - a very fast English bass player, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.

In the meantime, here is a music video clip from Google on how to play a C major scale on bass guitar:

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