The bass guitar
People who are familiar with a guitar can consider the bass guitar as a guitar without the two highest strings (b and e). The remaining four strings (e, a, d, g) are thick strings that give the bass a low sound that’s a few octaves lower than the sound of a regular guitar. The appearance of a bass guitar is thus fairly similar to the appearance of a guitar. The neck of the bass guitar, however, is usually longer. Even though bass guitars often have four strings, there are also bass guitar with four, five or six strings. Some bass guitars even have eight strings.Without using the guitar as a point of reference, the bass guitar is a piece of wood with a neck and four strings. The electric version of the bass guitar has got pickups that pick up the sound that the strings produce and send it to an amplifier. The acoustic version of the bass guitar has got a hollow body that amplifies the sound acoustically. You can play the instrument by either using your fingers or a pick. There are different styles of playing. Examples are plucking, slapping and popping.
Different types of wood lead to different types of sounds. Also, different types of pickups can lead to different types of sounds. Most bass guitars have tone knobs to adjust the tone and thus specific sound of a bass guitar. The sound, however, always remains relatively low and fat, as this is important for the role of the bass in a musical composition.
The role of the bassist
A bass is instrumental to a musical composition. Together with the drums, it carries the other musical instruments to make a coherent and grooving piece of work. Playing a piece of music without a bassist will not get people of their feet to dance and is often highly unattractive to listen to. On the other hand, just listening to a piece of music involving only the bassist is also not really nice as a listening experience. The bass guitar has a role that it needs to play.Still, the bass instrument in its contemporary form is still a relatively young instrument, unlike the piano or guitar. Influential bassists like James Jamerson, Pino Palladino, Marcus Miller and many others have put their stamp on what bass playing is in this day and age, but there is still much to explore.
If you’re playing in a band, as a bassist, you will have to work with the drummer. Where the drummer lays the rhythm down, you are laying the groove down. On top of that the keyboard player and the guitarist play chords or harmonies. The bass player is like the cement that keeps everything together. Beginning bassists should therefore concentrate on keeping it simple and maintaining the groove. Because remember, if you stop playing, the people stop dancing.
Tips for the beginner
One of the absolute basics is tuning your bass guitar. Every bassist should know how to keep the instrument in tune. If you have an extraordinary technique, a great rhythm and brilliant players beside you, but you’re bass is out of tune, then you might as well not play at all. While, an out of tune guitar can be very annoying to listen to, chances are that it might not ruin the entire performance. An out of tune bass will ruin the performance guaranteed. Knowing how to tune your bass guitar is thus a good skill to have and there are several methods.Am I out of tune?
A bass guitar is tuned by using the tuning keys at the end of the neck of the instrument. Turning these will either make your string produce a higher or a lower sound. Putting more tension on it (making the string shorter) gives you a higher sound, while loosening it gives you a lower sound. A regular bass guitar with four strings is tuned like this:G——————————–
D——————————–
A——————————–
E——————————–
The next question might be, how do I know if my bass guitar is tuned like that? Unless you are a bassist with perfect pitch, it might be difficult to know if it is in tune.
How to tune
To tune your bass you can use an electronic tuner, an app or your ear. Or if you are reading this on your computer, just go to this website. All methods should get you where you need to be. The easiest way for a beginning bassist is using an electronic tuner. These little devices allow you to put your cable into the device and by playing your string it lets you know what note you are playing. So if you play the open E-string and it says you are playing a D#, you know you have to tune it up half a note. This means tightening the tuning key a bit. The advantage of using an electronic tuner is that they are reliable and you can use them even if there is a lot of noise around.Another way to tune is to use an application on your smartphone. These apps for iOS or Android are usually free or very cheap and can be extremely helpful. Using the internal microphone they recognize if your string is in tune and accordingly say if you need to tune the bass guitar up or down. The disadvantage is that you have to be in a quiet place to have a reliable result.
The last option is to use your ear. This is the most traditional way, but also the best way to train your musical ear. Also, if you forget your electronic tuner or don’t have any apps, you can always fall back on your ear. An easy way to check if your bass guitar is in tune using your hearing, is to have the keyboard player play you a note. The advantage of an electronic keyboard is that it’s always in tune. Alternatively you could get a perfect note from your tuning app on your smartphone. If you are alone, then there is of course always your bass guitar.
Playing bass guitar
Now you know what a bass guitar is, understand the role it plays and have made sure it is in tune, it’s time for two valuable lessons.Hit the root notes
A regular pop song usually consists of a couple of chords that are played by a guitarist and/or keyboard player. A chord is a set of notes that sound really well together. The role of the bassist is to emphasize each chord by giving it foundation. A metaphor to explain this is the bassist deciding what color a wall should be painted and the guitarist or keyboard player deciding which shade of the color it will be and whether it needs some decoration. To decide upon a ground color or foundation, the bassist should play a note. This is usually the root note of a chord.The root note is often the lowest sounding note in a chord. There are of course some exceptions. What this means for a bass player is that when a guitarist or keyboard player plays a progression of C, Dm, Am and G, the bass player should play the notes C, D, A and G to emphasize the beginning of a new chord in the progression. When playing these notes you will immediately hear that the chord progression gets a small groove. This is the basis of playing the bass guitar.
Keep the rhythm
The next step is keeping rhythm. Whether you are able to play twenty notes during a chord or just play the root note, it’s of vital importance to keep the rhythm. The most basic rhythm is hitting the note at the 1. What this means is that from the moment the song starts, you count till 4 and then start over again. For every time you count the one, you should also play the root note. Try doing this with any song and try to keep the rhythm going. It may become boring after a while, but this is the very foundation of playing the bass guitar: listening to the drummer for the rhythm and listening to the guitarist for the chord. Basically you are connecting the two things using your bass guitar.Of course you can vary at some point. Try filling up the 2,3 and 4 with either the root note or other notes you think sound good. Just make sure you hit the root note on the 1 every time. Filling the other parts up will add some more groove to the song and will enhance your sense or rhythm. And if your goal is to get funky, then most certainly watch how Bootsy Collins does it.
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