I recently started the BassBuzz course. My background is in acoustic guitar; I picked it back up after a long break due to a hand condition. I never progressed very far before, but I always enjoyed it.
Right now, I’m practicing both bass and acoustic guitar, and I’d love for the time I spend on one to benefit the other. Since the tuning overlaps, I’m curious about how much technique can transfer back and forth. I don’t want to force something that doesn’t make sense, but I imagine there’s plenty that does.
For example, scales and fretboard knowledge obviously overlap. But I’m thinking more about technique: could learning fingerstyle on guitar translate directly to bass? Or would I need to modify how I play bass to make it work? And other techniques or approaches.
Has anyone here consciously worked on making guitar and bass techniques transferable? I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.
The techniques work on both instruments, some with more success than others - I can’t imagine slapping a guitar for example because of string spacing, but it comes down to the sound you want to make. The attack on bass is generally different because of the desired tone.
that being said here’s a good example of a bassist using a more guitar like fingering style
I think lead guitar is more directly transferable. I tend to not play right on my fingertips on bass the way you have to playing chords. Lead is a bit more one note at a time like bass. I also find that I hold the guitar neck differently. I try to keep my hand in a more neutral position with my thumb right on the spine on bass, where on guitar it tends to wrap around the neck more (could be me playing guitar wrong). Generally though, playing any stringed instrument is going to make learning another one easier. It’s like learning a romance language, once you learn Spanish, Italian is a lot easier to pick up.
I currently am learning guitar and banjo, and keeping up with sax and bass, albeit not every day and not as much as I would like (dear retirement fairy, please come tap me with your wand - or better yet, hit me hard!).
Every one of those instruments informs the other, from sight reading to theory to fretting to ear training to fingers doing what you actually want them to do to hand/eye/ear coordination. Of course specific techniques like a banjo roll doesn’t help much on guitar or sax, etc. but any music playing helps the other.
Hit me with your rhythm stick.
Hit me slowly, hit me quick.
Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!
Careful what you ask for. The retirement fairy hit me when I was 53 when the original Motorola puked its guts out and split up into pieces. I was the first exec to be shown the door and got a really good package. I did a couple of minimum wage jobs to have something to do, but got super tired, super quick of working for snot-nosed 20-something little dictators, and then just decided f’ it and retired permanently. That’s when I picked up the bass again, after a 45 year hiatus. I never regretted that decision.