Teaching yourself bass

Troxck

I want to learn the bass guitar this Summer and I can't find any lessons near me at all. I was just wondering if it's easy enough to teach myself bass off the internet and books. I play the trumpet so I have knowledge on theory/terms. Would it be possible to teach myself to a decent standard?

Adyx

Have a look at http://www.studybass.com.

I'm self-taught so it is possible. Just watch out that you don't fall into any bad habits which a proper teacher could warn you against. theory will definitely be a big help - it's something I'm sadly lacking.

-=al=-

Yep, just avoid some of the bad habits and should be aok, lots of lessons and resources out there nowadays to help you along

Troxck

Thanks for that, I more so just want a second instrument to have. A teacher would be handy but the only ones I have found are too expensive or too far away.

Rigsby

Yes. It is possible to teach yourself bass to a reasonably high standard, from the Internet or a book The only problem with this method is where to start, and the lack of fluidity in the lessons, i.e. where one lesson builds on the information gleaned from the previous one. With the Internet, the inclination is to dive in anywhere that takes your fancy, thus missing out on the basics.

My advice is to check out right and left hand technique first. Do a search on You Tube. This will help to prevent possible physical problems later on, as well as actually playing to a good standard.

Some books and sites I'd recommend would be :

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Hal-Leonard-Bass-Method-Book-1-Friedland-Ed-/120883749571?pt=Non_Fiction&hash=item1c253ba2c3

There are three volumes of this book. You can get all three in one spiral bound volume at a reasonable price. Each volume comes with it's own CD.

www.studybass.com is an excellent all round bass site.

Another thing I'd recommend, is to simply listen closely to songs and pick out the bass lines in order to get a feel for how the bass "fits" into the music.


Hope this is of some help, and best of luck with it.

Jamie Starr

I've been teaching myself bass for about a year and a half now, I also play guitar. What I can say is that you should find a bassist that you admire, or a number of bassists, and their work should inspire you to learn as much as you can. I think that's the key to teaching yourself: when I stopped listening to guitar as much in songs and started listening to bass lines, it made me appreciate its role in a song. I already like playing bass in a lot of ways more than playing guitar now.

That site, studybass, is excellent by the way, I've never seen it before. Everybody's learning something new!