SweetWaterBlue
Well-known member
I originally typed this in the "What bass do you play thread, but felt like it was too much of a hijack so I am starting a new thread here. I would like to be able to lay down simple bass grooves for backing my ukulele so I am trying to get the basics down.
I recently found what I think is a prettty good buy on a book to learn the rudiments of bass playing. Its one of the Dummy series - "Bass Guitar for Dummies." I normally don't like the Dummie books, but this one is pretty cheap, and kept my interest for a few hours in the library. A couple of things I learned from it may help. First the bass is tuned like the bottom four strings of a regular guitar, only an octave lower. That means you can work out bass lines (grooves) on a regular guitar and they will transfer to the bass directly. Second, many grooves for major scales are developed from the I,III, V and/or VII notes (pentatonic scale?) of the chord being played - see Chapter 6, "Creating the Groove." They usually start with the root note (the I) and most any combination of those notes you can work out that carries the beat will sound ok. Since all the strings are tuned the same, the grooves are also movable up and down the neck, but obviously the chord will change as you do this, just like movable chords on the uke do. There is a lot more meat and practice exercises to this in the book. I am sure the real bass players will jump in and correct this, if it is not right. I know it seems to work when laying down bass grooves on my regular guitar and playing the chords with my uke, and also seems to work fine on the piano, which I also can't play, but can press the keys down on.
Anyway, that is all I know about the bass, which isn't much, but hopefully will help me lay down some simple grooves when I finally get a bass.
I recently found what I think is a prettty good buy on a book to learn the rudiments of bass playing. Its one of the Dummy series - "Bass Guitar for Dummies." I normally don't like the Dummie books, but this one is pretty cheap, and kept my interest for a few hours in the library. A couple of things I learned from it may help. First the bass is tuned like the bottom four strings of a regular guitar, only an octave lower. That means you can work out bass lines (grooves) on a regular guitar and they will transfer to the bass directly. Second, many grooves for major scales are developed from the I,III, V and/or VII notes (pentatonic scale?) of the chord being played - see Chapter 6, "Creating the Groove." They usually start with the root note (the I) and most any combination of those notes you can work out that carries the beat will sound ok. Since all the strings are tuned the same, the grooves are also movable up and down the neck, but obviously the chord will change as you do this, just like movable chords on the uke do. There is a lot more meat and practice exercises to this in the book. I am sure the real bass players will jump in and correct this, if it is not right. I know it seems to work when laying down bass grooves on my regular guitar and playing the chords with my uke, and also seems to work fine on the piano, which I also can't play, but can press the keys down on.
Anyway, that is all I know about the bass, which isn't much, but hopefully will help me lay down some simple grooves when I finally get a bass.
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