Chords for How to play bass (for guitarists)

Look, you don't have the weak womanly fingers of a guitar princess.
You my friend have the muscular stumps of a bass man.
[Bb] _ _ [A] _ _ _
BASS MAN!
[Eb] _ _ [Bm] _ _ [Bb] _ _
[D] _ _ [G] Before we get into it, I want to frame this discussion of this list of the things that
you can do in order to sound more like a bass player with a quote from [E] the great [G] American
sage Ashton Kutcher.
I'm continually trying to make choices that [E] put me against my own comfort zones.
As long as you're uncomfortable, it means you're growing.
You [Ab] know how to play guitar, and it's only natural to try and bring [F] all the idiosyncrasies
of guitar [Em] playing to bass playing because they're so similar on a physical level.
[Gb] In order to truly grow as a musician, you need to throw away those idiosyncrasies and
learn what it means to be a bass player and fit the bass [Gm] playing role into your musical vocabulary.
How do you do that exactly?
[N] Well, one, don't use a pick.
Ah, that's so stupid!
You're being racist against pick players!
Ah!
Ah!
Oh yeah!
I know, [Gb] I know, I know.
Playing with a pick is great, but this is much more of a psychological trick than purely
a musical one.
[Em] When you play fingerstyle, otherwise known as pizzicato, it [G] immediately forces you into
a different mindset from which you are accustomed to as a guitarist.
All of [E] the fancy patterns that you're used to playing are now a lot harder to play.
Bass is foundational, so you really want to just [Gb] focus on what is strictly necessary.
When you play fingerstyle, don't think of plucking the string.
That's a little bit of a misnomer.
[D] Rather, you should sort of think about pushing through the string, if that makes any sense.
So your finger lands on the string above it.
[G] In classical terminology, this [Bb] is known as a rest stroke.
Most [E] fingerstyle guitar players use something [Em] called a free stroke, where the finger doesn't
land on the string above it.
Listen [Ab] carefully to the difference between rest stroke and free stroke on bass [A] guitar.
_ _ [E] _
[Eb] _ _ _ [C] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] In most circumstances, bass players prefer the sound and the feel of the rest stroke
because of that thump.
Getting used to the [Abm] feel of that thump and the rest stroke will make you sound a lot
[D] more like a professional bass player.
Two, only use one finger to pluck.
Just one finger?
I thought bass players use [G] two fingers.
Yeah, that's true, but this suggestion, like the previous one, is [Gb] a little bit more of
a psychological one.
Playing with one finger is very similar to playing with all down strokes on guitar.
Physically limiting, yes, but it lends itself to a very particular style of playing.
This style of limited [G] bass playing is actually fairly useful for bass [Ab] players because it
makes everything sound [D] very even [Gm] and controlled.
One of the greatest bass players of all time, James Jamerson of Motown fame, only used one finger.
He called it his [E] hook.
And he was able to play some pretty incredibly intricate bass lines with just [D] one finger.
Definitely check out his bass line to For Once in My Life.
When you do decide to start messing around with two finger technique, like most bass
players use, make sure that you strictly alternate between your index [G] finger and your middle finger.
Not all bass players do this, granted, but it can be great to have a system through which
you can focus your practice.
Three, don't use your third finger.
One of the big things to get used to when you're playing bass is that bass is a lot
bigger than guitar.
It has a longer scale [E] length.
This means that stretching a full four frets with your hand can cause [Dbm] a lot of unnecessary
[Ab] stress in the lower positions.
Most of the time bass players adopt a three fret stretch in the [Em] lower positions of the
bass because it more naturally accommodates the contours of the hand.
This [G] usually means that the third finger is not used.
We sometimes call this the Samandel method after the 19th century bass player who adopted
this approach to double bass.
The place where this is the most obvious is octaves.
[E] Using your third finger for an octave in the lower [Fm] positions feels [G] very [C] awkward and is
quite frankly a dead giveaway for a guitarist who has switched to [Gb] bass.
Look at how much more [F] relaxed my hand is [C] when I play that upper octave with my fourth finger
instead of my third finger.
[G] A lot of bass playing can just be reduced to playing with the index finger and [D] the pinky finger.
You can [Am] practice a more natural approach to [E] bass playing fingering by taping your second,
third, and fourth fingers together.
This really might force you out of your comfort zone but honestly it will make you sound more
like a bass player.
[C] _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ [G] _
[D] _ _ [Gb] So, so far, this list has been a bunch of tips to help you remove extraneous movement
from your playing so that you might not be tempted to play more guitar-based [G] sorts of
things in your bass playing.
Okay, that's great.
Yeah, play less, play less, whatever.
But is there anything more specific [Gbm] that you can give us besides, you know, [N] _ feel the groove,
man?
Listen, young padawan, for now I get to the things that are really [Em] important in bass playing.
Four, listen to the [D] kick drum.
For a lot of guitarists, [Ebm] drums are kind of like those loud [B] things behind you that keep
time for you when you lose your spot in the music when you're [Ebm] taking a long, obnoxious solo.
For bass players, [Bb] a good drummer is a piece of your eternal soul.
[Ebm] In most situations, what your [C] drummer does with their kick [D] drum is your most important
point of focus as a bass player.
The combination of the punch and the [Ebm] attack of a kick [Eb] drum with the sustained nature of
the [C] bass guitar is what helps give rhythm sections their [Dbm]
[Ab] groove.
You don't necessarily have to [D] follow the kick drum slavishly.
In fact, for certain styles of music, it might not [Dbm] actually be the right [Ab] choice.
But the more that you do, the more locked in you will [G] feel.
It also definitely helps to listen [D] to what the snare drum does.
A great technique for [A] creating that locked in feeling is to cut off your bass [Bb] notes in
[D] time with a snare backbeat.
[G] _ _ [D] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [A] _
_ [G] _ _ [A] _ _ _ [G] _ _
[C] _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
Five, EQ your bass properly.
As a [G] guitarist, you're probably [C] aware that tone is [D] king.
And the same definitely [Ab] applies to bass guitar.
Just as [A] you might cringe [E] when newbie metal [D] guitarists go immediately [Abm] for the smiley face
EQ that cuts out all [D] the mids, I cringe when bass players do the same.
But mids suck!
Yeah, not really though.
[Dbm] The fundamental frequencies [Ab] of all the notes on the bass [G] guitar generally lie between [Am] 50Hz
and [Dbm] 200Hz on the frequency [D] spectrum. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [N] _ This is roughly the same sonic space that the kick drum occupies.
This presents a little bit of a problem to us.
How do we lock into the kick drum if the frequencies clash?
Well, the fundamentals might clash, but generally speaking, we hear the first harmonics on bass
guitar way more clearly than the fundamentals.
These first harmonics are an octave higher, and they generally fall in between 100Hz and
400Hz.
[C] _
_ _ _ [G] _ [F] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ This frequency band is generally controlled by the low-mid knob on a lot of bass [Gb] guitar amplifiers.
[C] This is what you want to boost slightly if you want to be heard in the mix, and also
to have [G] a strong and robust bass guitar tone.
You might even want to turn down the bass a little bit on your amplifier, because some
[Ab] audio engineers actually do a high pass at 75Hz so that the [Gb] frequencies from the bass
guitar don't [F] interfere with the lower frequencies from the kick drum.
6.
Hear in [E] your head what you are going to play before you play it.
In other [Ab] words, AUDIO-ATE what it is that you are going to play.
_ [A]
This is a big one, and it's probably something you should be doing anyway if you're playing
guitar, but maybe it takes switching to bass to actually play with some purpose.
You have less notes to choose from, so you're much [N] more exposed, and you really have to
make the notes that you do play count.
In the beginning, this will mean that you [C] will play less, [Gb] or should play less, because
you will have less headspace and less experience with the bass [N] guitar.
Eventually you will be able to hear more and more complicated lines, which is fantastic,
but remember, just because you can physically play something does not necessarily mean that
it is musically appropriate, or you will have the experience in order to place that within
a musically appropriate situation.
This is why it is so easy to spot a guitarist who has just picked up bass.
They play a lot of notes with very little conviction.
Too many notes, your majesty.
Exactly, very well put.
Too many notes.
In order to play bass well, you need to be very calm, steady, and confident with your
musical choices on the bass guitar, not the toy one.
[Bb] Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed [Gb] this lesson.
If you're new to my channel, this is what my lessons [Db] used to be like, talking [B] a lot
about bass guitar rather [F] than general music stuff, [Gb] so I'm sorry if you aren't a bass player,
[G] but I thought that this might be interesting anyway for people who are [Gb] switching to bass
from guitar and [Bm] other instruments, and I [C] hope you got something out of it anyway, because
[E] I did throw in a lot of general musical [C] knowledge and all that stuff.
[Ab] So if you like what I do, [F] definitely, you know, leave a [G] comment and say like, hey Adam,
I like what you do, and leave a question, because that's awesome, I [B] answer them in question
and answer videos all the time.
[G] If you like what I do, also please [E] consider [Ab]
joining my [E] Patreon.
These are my Patreon subscribers, you can get cool like background [Eb] stuff, I post [Bm] additional
content to my Patreon feed all the time, and until [Gb] next time, _ _ _ [B]