How Easy is It To Learn to Play The Bass

I have often wondered what others thought about how easy it is to learn to play the Bass.

To me it was one of the easiest stringed instruments to learn and I just wanted to know what thoughts others had on this topic.

I really would like the opinions of @John_E and @howard and other beginners that started with no knowledge of the Bass or music theory.

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Very easy instrument to learn and play. Every string is a perfect fourth apart, soo thereā€™s no weird 3rd in the middle like on a guitar to interrupt your scale runs, arpeggios, etc. You donā€™t have to learn ā€œcomplicated chord fingeringsā€ like on guitar. Unlike piano, you wonā€™t be expected to play two different parts with both hands.

Being a bassist, on the other hand? Thatā€™s hard.

(slap is also hard imo :eyes:)

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I had quite a bit of knowledge of music and theory before starting bass (bass is my fourth or fifth instrument, if you count recorder and melodica in grade school :slight_smile: )

So Iā€™m a bad example.

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Thanks for the reply.

Iā€™m in that same boat and that was one of the main reasons I asked about the ease of learning Bass from a complete beginner point of view.

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Like @howard i have knowledge of music and notation before picking up the bass. Iā€™ve already had my timing down and understood the roll if low end part of music. My first song was Yes ā€œowners of the lonely heartsā€. The grove was easy and I thought that was the easiest songs in the world til I got to the complicated bits it took my 2 months to get all correctly transcribed but it was the most rewarding and best lesson I taught my ear.

Fast forward 30 years I hooked up the cable to my Xbox and play rocksmith pick the song and found out I missed a few fills, lol. Looking back I realized that one song really lay down a solid foundation for a young impressionable bassist. I taught a few kids and tried the same principles a few came back the next day and asked if I have the tab for it, what the?

This day and age of instant gratification does do some harm in the proper development of skills, I wholeheartedly believe.

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IVery easy.
Coming from the sax world, which is ever so complex. Itā€™s easier than trumpet too.

Why?
Because your body (lips, mouth, oral cavity) are not part of the sound production scheme. And you play in tune with a bass. Sax and trumpet, you have to create the in-tune note with your mouth, lips, oral cavity, breath.
Sax fingerings are much more difficult. You canā€™t just move your hands and make the same pattern for a scale and be in the same key. Same for trumpet but sax is more complicated.

The two driving reasons I started bass is I wanted another instrument I could play when my chops were all blown out or late at night, and, that was cheaper than sax, which is incredibly expensive

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All that said, it is still difficult to master many many aspects of bass, just like any instrument.

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Yep, playing piano can be a bee-yatch, for sure, as you must essentially play two different melodies simultaneously. But it becomes second nature with a hell of a lot of practice.

The trickiest and most ubiquitous part of playing bass for me was the thing I didnā€™t have a clue of how to do: alternating plucking.

I absolutely credit Josh and some other great online instructors for de-mystifying the process for me.

So, yeah. Playing piano, especially well, is a right bitch. But playing bass with proper, clean, and effortless-seeming skill is right up there, too!

Good thing for me I love to try. :wink:

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I had started at 50 with zero musical experience. Canā€™t dance, canā€™t sing, canā€™t draw or paint. I was the full not creative guy. But i knew i wanted to try to play.

Learning the mechanical aspect of playing was harder than i assumed. Everyone makes it look so easy. I didnā€™t realize how much work and practice guess into making it look simple like that. Almost a year in, im playing with my eyes looking elsewhere a lot-because i know where my hands are in relation to the music being played now. Im not good, but itā€™s there.

Learning the music theory aspect was harder for me. Iā€™m quite tone dumb to this day. Meaning i may not know what note it is, but i can hear if i play it wrong? Iā€™m still trying to get chords down, because i got sausage fingers. And my bass scale poster is still a little intimidating.

All that being said, every bit of the effort has been worth it. Iā€™ve never had a feeling like i did the first time i completed playing along with a whole song.
I picked a super-easy one-
December by collective soul-
The lack of difficulty isnā€™t whatā€™s important-what matters here is i did it! I started something, found i loved it and really,really wanted to succeed at it. I then set a goal and accomplished it.

2 words-totally worth it.

How easy is it to learn to play bass? Easier every day with some practice.

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Well net expected but definitely want to, like rubbing your tummy and pad your head at the same time.

Massive ditto! My sax career was demanding and tough. I devoted a ton of time and energy to playing my alto and tenor well, and it didnā€™t just come naturally.

It also helped/didnā€™t help that my college sax professor was literally the poster boy for Selmer saxophones, i.e., his mug was actually on the ads for Selmer. He was firm during the private lessons I had with him, but always kind. He always encouraged me to continue, especially when I wanted to just give up.

Yeah, sax is hard. Lots of factors to deal with like reed condition, embouchure, fingering, intonation, etc., all must be wrangled and balanced simultaneously. Oh, and canā€™t forget sightreading, timing, and dynamics. I loved learning sax. And I hated it.

In comparison, I love learning bass. Itā€™s a straightforward instrument and playing it is as easy or complex as you want it to take it.

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no truer wordsā€¦

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Learning bass?ā€¦ā€¦.easy as especially after playing guitar.

Or so I thought.
How wrong was I :joy:

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Iā€™ve heard it said the bass is easy to learn and hard to master. A lot of it depends on how much you put in. If you can keep a rhythm, and serve the song, youā€™ll do okay. Itā€™s about the song.

And thereā€™s personalities that have a hard time sitting back in the pocket. Then itā€™s probably not for you. Itā€™s not for everyone, in that respect, itā€™s hard.

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All instruments are hard to master. Some are just also hard to learn. Luckily bass isnā€™t one of those :slight_smile:

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easy to play. hard to play well.

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Indeed.

They say sax is easy to learn to, but they mean easy to make noises that sound like a note more easily than flute or (the god awful) clarinet

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Yeah, trumpet is really easy to pick up and play as well. But it takes a while to build up the necessary endurance to really hold it together for a full concert. And I never got the technique down to be truly expressive with it.

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Takes a good few months to get the upper register notes too.
I did find it a lot easier than sax, however, sax emboucher is a lot more forgiving than trumpet. Those lip muscles that control trumpet emboucher and ā€˜buzzā€™ are the smallest in the human body.
On missing a day of trumpet practiceā€¦
Miss a dayā€™s practice, God notices
Miss two days practice and I notice
Miss three days practice and the world notices

One of the reasons I switched to sax. I can miss a week and recover in a day.
More than that and it takes a few weeks to get it all back together.

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So much depends on what you want out of it too and your personality plays a part too imo.
Iā€™m unfortunately never 100% happy with how I play which pushes me to keep going

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