Bass Guitars

Being a guitar player, I agree that once you know how to play it will make handling and playing the bass guitar easier. This is because the basics of bass are almost the same with guitar playing. However, bass-playing techniques depart at some point from guitar playing, especially in advanced levels. This is where then you can be able to determine if a musician is a good guitar player or a bass guitar player.

Music sounds lame if it is not complemented with the sound of the bass. In fact, a good bass guitar playing can heighten up the impact of the song just like a lead guitar if the bass player is well trained in his craft. Let’s take for example Flea, the bassist of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. If it weren’t for Flea’s brilliant, crunchy, and mind-blowing bass playing, most probably they’ll just be considered as a run-of-the-mill funk band.

Bass playing employs different styles or techniques in different kinds of music. In funk for example wherein ideally the bass sound is prominent, it usually employs the slapping technique. Slapping is commonly used in bass only. If you want to learn to slap the bass, you must practice by using an octave chord. This means that using your left hand; you are pressing a lower note and a higher note at the same time. To slap, you will be using the side of the right thumb to strike the lower note and alternately plucking the higher note with your other finger. You continue to practice this until you can come up with that crunchy sound. This training will be much easier of you are using a really good bass guitar.

A guitar player can go on and play a song even without knowledge of scaling as long as he knows how to play the proper chords. But this is not applicable if you wish to be a good bass player. Scaling involves knowing the notes corresponding to each fret. A bass player should be knowledgeable in scaling but constantly running through each chord. This will help you become more agile if you are playing a fast paced song. It will also strengthen your grip of the strings.

Everyone is gunning for the lead guitar position if given the opportunity for the belief that it is one of the coolest positions in the band aside from the vocals. The truth of the matter is, bass guitarist is not so bad either. It has the potential to parry with the axe man position if the craft has been mastered well. It takes perseverance to excel and a few people in the world of bass guitar playing had done so despite the common misconception about bassists as a dispensable part of the band. Among them would be Flea of the Red Hot Chili Pepper, Cliff Burton of Metallica, Les Claypool of Primus and Steve Harris of Iron Maiden.

If you are just starting out a band and you have the option to choose between the guitarist and bassist position, I would suggest that you choose the latter. Why? It is a unique job and only few people can do it and is excellent with it. Who knows, you might just become one of them.