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How To Play Bass Guitar
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Ricky_Sharples]Ricky Sharples

This little essay on how to play bass guitar is aimed at the guitar player who needs to enter some kind of witness protection program but still maintain a tenuous connection with the world of music. This has proven to be a great way to keep your anonymity while staying in the public eye. The bass guitar player in a rock band maintains the rhythm of the song while the lead guitarist is checking out the chicks in the audience, and the drummer is recalling what decade he is in. To change to this subservient but useful role in a musical group requires a little understanding of the difference between a bass guitar and a real guitar together with some idea of bass guitar playing technique.

Theoretically any guitar player can switch from lead to bass although only one guitarist of note - Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake And Palmer - made a career out of it. It was rumored that he thought it would be a good way to stop attracting women. Actually he constantly switched between lead and bass while maintaining his position as lead singer. Clearly a guy with issues.

Anyway let us get onto the main features of a bass guitar. The standard tuning of a four string bass guitar is E A D G. The tunings are similar on the five string bass except for a low B string, and on a six string except for a high C string. So on a 6 string bass the tuning is B E A D G C. There are also seven string basses with a high F string.
There are several ways you can tune a bass guitar but as they are the same as those used to tune a regular guitar, I will not mention them. As with other guitars you tune the bass guitar by loosening the string and tuning up to the note you are aiming for. Tune each string separately being careful to match the sound of the string to your bass guitar tuner. While we are on the subject of tuning, be sure to do a search for a free online bass guitar tuner.

On the electric bass guitar, the music is made by plucking with the index and middle fingers or with a pick. Early Fender basses had a "thumbrest" attached to the pickguard, below the strings. This was to rest the fingers while the thumb plucked the strings. The common perception is that the pick is used by rock bass players but players of all styles have their own individual techniques, sometimes using thumb, fingers or pick according to the sound they want. The guitar can sound different if all upstrokes, all downstrokes or alternating strokes of the pick are employed.

Some bass players such as Les Claypool and John Entwistle played using their fingernails similar to a classical acoustic guitarist. There is controversy among musical historians over whether bass guitarists who pluck with their fingers are innovators who have explored new horizons or they simply were not told about plectrums.

Playing the bass guitar needs a certain amount of speed and dexterity, and bass guitar music will demand that you develop your own style. For inspiration listen to the most popular and influential bass players of past generations such as Paul McCartney, Pino Palladino - the replacement bass player for John Entwistle in The Who, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jaco Pastorius - called by many musicians the most innovative bass player ever, Mark King - a very fast English bass player, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.

Ricky Sharples has been playing guitar his whole life, and is presently engaged in building a blog called [http://playaguitarforfree.com/ ]Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free Ricky's blog features free tools, lessons and resources for guitarists of all ages and stages. Ricky updates the blog regularly so if you are interested in learning to play guitar there will be an enormous variety of tip, tools and tutorials for you.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ricky_Sharples http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Play-Bass-Guitar&id=1206373

Learn To Play Guitar Fast
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Ricky_Sharples]Ricky Sharples

When you watch somebody play fast on the guitar do you always wonder if you could learn to do that? Let us look at what resources we need to increase our own guitar playing speed on a regular basis.

The very first thing you are going to need is a metronome. You can buy one from your local music store, steal one from a maiden aunt or download one for free on the internet. If you choose to steal one, then I am afraid you will not make much progress in your quest to play guitar fast because shortcuts just do not work. Most of us look for the quickest and most painless way to do things, and that is why most of us are not playing guitar at the speed of light.

Okay, you have your metronome and an attitude adjustment. You are ready to begin. The next thing you need is something to practice. It can be a solo passage from a song. It can be an exercise, like a series of arpeggios or a picking exercise. You need to choose your material carefully because you will need to know exactly how fast you want to play in terms of the settings on your metronome. You may or may not need to spend time learning your passage from scratch as some familiarity with the piece is necessary to start increasing how fast you play it. By familiarity I mean the muscles in your fingers, hands and arms need to be able to play your piece without hesitation.

So that is the next thing you need. In order to play guitar fast you need to be able to play slowly. The exercise you have chosen to play should not be too easy, but at the same time it should not have too many tricky bits. That is why you are using an exercise or an isolated passage rather than a song or long solo.

Now you are starting to see the way ahead. If you have your practice passage ready, check it with your metronome. Make sure you know what your present speed is. The next thing is to take a metronome setting not too far above your present one and make that your goal.

Let us now talk about something you do not need. Muscular tension. You need to practice playing guitar fast without building a level of tension in the muscles that will work against your goal. In order to escape the possibility of too much tension you need to forget about time frames. You have your goal in the metronome setting. Leave the time open ended. The idea is not to actually PLAY guitar faster at sometime in the future, but to WORK A LITTLE BIT ON PLAYING FAST every day.

So if you choose a passage to practice in order to play fast, and you devote some time every day to practicing, your guitar playing speed will begin to increase. Once you have reached a level of skill on one exercise, choose another one with a couple more challenges. But remember to begin again from the beginning. Ascertain where you are now and decide on a realistic goal for your next step.

Ricky Sharples has been playing guitar his whole life, and is presently engaged in building a blog called [http://playaguitarforfree.com/ ]Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free Ricky's blog features free tools, lessons and resources for guitarists of all ages and stages. Ricky updates the blog regularly so if you are interested in learning to play guitar there will be an enormous variety of tip, tools and tutorials for you.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ricky_Sharples http://EzineArticles.com/?Learn-To-Play-Guitar-Fast&id=1206357