Learning the Bass Guitar - Tips for Beginners

There's a huge amount of excitement and a slight nervousness when you buy your first bass guitar, unpack it but you still can't play a thing!

I guess the first consideration is how to tune it ...?

From the lowest (thickest) sounding string the notes are: E(4), A(3), D(2), and G(1).
Each string is also numbered with the highest sounding string being string one.

The next step is to decide if you are going to use a plectrum or pluck the strings with your fingers. If you choose your fingers, you would use an alternate stroke of index and middle fingers.

The other hand, usually the left, is used for pressing the strings down onto the frets. It is good practice to use finger one at fret one, finger two at fret two etc. Spread the fingers out - each over its own fret and use the weaker fingers as often as possible to strengthen them.

Practise playing along to slow songs at first with a simple rhythm. You could play one note on each beat or use the more popular rhythm of dotted crotchet, quaver, crotchet, crotchet.

It is beyond this post to explain more about playing methods, but a good book on learning to play the bass guitar or having a few lessons from a teacher is a good investment.