“I have been learning the Bass Guitar with Toby’s guidance for almost a year now, he is the simply the best!! Puts amazing effort into understanding how you can best learn and will adopt his style to best suit you. The lessons are always fun, challenging, very structured and all materials available online. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learns the Guitar, The Bass, anything with a string really :):)”
“We’ve only worked together for a short amount of time and I can already pick up the bass and play a few tunes albeit still learning them but I couldn’t do that six months ago. ”
bass guitar
An integral part of any band, the bass guitar provides a drive and fullness to any recording.
The bass guitar has strings one octave lower than a guitar. It supports the rhythm and harmony to a song and is the foundation of any band.
Some traits of the bass guitar are:
Everything is bigger on the bass guitar compared to an electric guitar, this is because the notes are lower and longer strings produce lower notes.
Where guitarists have chords, bass players have triads and play with different rhythms for different songs.
Bass players either use their fingers/thumb or a pick to play notes.
A bass guitar has a similar set-up to an electric guitar, with pickups, volume and tone controls and a solid-wood body.
A bass guitar needs to be plugged into an amplifier to be heard, otherwise it is very quiet.
A bass guitar has the same notes as a double bass, a double bass is a lot bigger however because it is an acoustic instrument and needs a big body to amplify lower-pitched notes. A bass guitar's body can be a lot smaller because it uses pickups.
what’s it like Learning the bass at toby’s music lessons?
Toby’s Music Lessons aims to give you everything you need to become a better, more rounded bass player:
techniques
By practising a combination of tried-and-tested and new and innovative techniques you’ll have your fingers doing exactly what you want them to do in no time!
songs
Learning your favourite songs is a key part of Toby’s Music Lessons, after all, the best part of learning to play the bass is to be able to play your favourite songs! You will always get a printed-out transcription and two mp3s of the song, one full speed and one slowed by 20%. Once you have mastered the song, you will have the opportunity to record it and receive your own mp3!
Jamming is a key component in any bass player’s toolkit. Part of every lesson is dedicated to jamming and during these jams you’ll be learning how to create original bass lines over different chord progressions and different styles of music.
general musicianship
This is everything to do with the bass guitar that isn’t covered by techniques and songs, such as brands of basses and amps, pedals, string changing and maintenance, case studies on the top session bass players, cultures surrounding different genres of music and new products and trends that come out. Learning about this is sure to inspire you and deepen your knowledge of the bass guitar.