Improving your skills

So you want to improve as a bass player? Who doesn’t? There are a couple of ways to build your chops that I would suggest you start with. These ideas are coming from a non-schooled player, so don’t expect anything over your head here.

Scales – I know: boring. But I have found that as I learn to play a few scales, it starts to open up my creativity. Really what I think is happening is that I am building my knowledge of the fretboard, so now when that C-chord comes up, I have an idea of some options I can work with. I use Bass Scale Finder: Easy-to-Use Guide to Over 1,300 Scales 9 inch. x 12 inch. Edition by Chad Johnson to learn scales and patterns and I think you will find it easy to understand and use yourself.
Your favorite songs – Got a song you love? Someone else here in cyberspace loves it too. And someone else loves it enough to put together a chord sheet for it. Maybe someone else loves it enough to put together a tab for it. Either way, If you’ve got the recording and an outline of the chords, you can start mimicking the players you love by trying out the songs that inspire you. I know for myself that when I figure out a McCartney lick, it makes me so happy and my playing improves just trying to keep up with him. I used to put Wings “At The Speed Of Sound” on my stereo and play along with the whole thing – just to figure out what he was doing. Eventually, I could play right along.
Learn Chords – Learning chords and chord rules (major, minor, diminished, augmented…) is a great building block for your playing. Songs are (well, MOSTLY) constructed of chords after all.

So nothing groundbreaking, right? Just common things anyone can do. Clearly, if you can afford a teacher then get one – they will add structure and discipline to your efforts, which will show immediate benefit. Then there’s all the bass resources you’ll find online – including free lessons on YouTube. The bottom line is there are lots of ways to improve your skills and all they will take is a little of your time.

This entry was posted on July 11, 2011 at 5:39 am and is filed under General bass . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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