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Top 7 Mistakes Beginner Bass Players Make

By Jon Brickley

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Published: 15Oct2008
Word count: 657
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There are right ways and not so right ways to play bass. Finding out the right ways will save the new bassist lots of time and energy. Many teach themselves from the bits and pieces they pick up. This creates lots of bad bass playing habits that sabotage their efforts to get better. These bad habits fall into seven basic categories:

1. Not getting the right instruction at the very beginning

Many beginner bass players just wanna jam and have fun. They don't seek out proper bass instruction. A lot of times new players try to piece it together from bass method books and dvd's, and others don't want to be confined by some strict lesson plan. Either way, it slows the ability to grow and have a satisfying increase in skills. This could leave the would be bassist frustrated with the instrument.

2. Making bass playing harder than it is

Bad bass technique will make it much more difficult to play anything on bass. These bad bass habits make you work harder than you need to. The 'right way' is the right way because it's the easiest and simplest.

3. Bad Fretting Hand Setup

Using proper fretting hand setup, a bass player can have much more fretboard mobility. Not knowing the notes around the one being played leaves the player feeling "stuck" in one spot. It's a frustrating, confusing feeling and also totally avoidable. Practicing some basic two octave scale exercises will make it easier for a newer player to see the fretboard from a bigger perspective. Then they can "connect the dots" up and down the fretboard much quicker.

4. Bad Picking Hand Setup

A big part of a bass players overall tone comes directly from the way he/she picks. A novice bass player can immediately improve their tone a thousand percent with the proper picking hand setup. After the mechanical motion is learned, a player can then develop their own personal touch and finesse.

5 No Practice or Uninformed Practice

There's and old saying that goes, "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect". A lot of bass players don't get better is because they don't practice or they practice the wrong things and waste their efforts. That's why the beginner bassist would want an instructor, to guide them as to what to practice and how long to focus on it before moving on. Think of it like a time saver. But instead of saving ten minutes you're saving ten years.

6. Getting Discouraged or Bored

When a bass player doesn't learn proper technique right at the very beginning, they will learn a bunch of bad habits. These take time to unlearn later. All that time of not really getting much better can lead to getting discouraged or bored. It's best to be able to get your basic abilities down as quickly as possible, and blast through to the more intermediate stuff.

7 Not listening

Until a player gets a solid grip on basic skills, it's hard to step back and hear things as a whole. If most of a bass players concentration is spent trying to figure out notes and play them cleanly, chances are they're not aware of their overall sound. It makes it hard to pay attention to what's going on around them and respond to bandmates. The cure for this is to improve basic bass skills and listen closely to recordings of great bass players and study the sound they got.

Learning the right way to play bass saves a lot of time and energy. Playing with the proper technique makes it simpler and easier. When you don't have to think about physical stuff so much it's easier to focus more closely on note choices and interacting with bandmates instead of standing there like a statue staring at the fretboard. If a beginner bassist can avoid these seven mistakes and learn the right way, then they should improve very quickly.

Jon Brickley has developed a series of step by step video tutorials for bass guitar students. Easy to understand lessons teach you bass guitar basics quickly or unlearn bad bass playing habits that are holding you back - Get your copy now for only $7 by clicking here ==> http://www.overnightbassplayer.com

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