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The bass guitar is a bass stringed instrument played with the fingers either by plucking, slapping, popping, or tapping or using a pick. The bass is similar in appearance and construction like an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and scale length, and usually four strings tuned, one octave lower in pitch than the four lower strings of a guitar.

Materials used for making a bass guitar

The bodies of these special instruments are typically made of wood although other materials such as graphite have also been used. The most common type of wood used for the body is alder, for the neck is maple, and for the fret board is rosewood, though a wide variety of woods may be used to make the body.

Other regularly used woods include mahogany, maple, ash, and poplar for bodies, mahogany for necks, and ebony for fret boards. The choice of body material and shape of these guitars can have a significant impact on the timbre of the completed instrument as well as on aesthetic considerations. Other design options include finishes, such as lacquer, wax and oil along with flat and carved designs. Bass guitar necks, which are longer than regular electric guitar necks, are generally made of maple.

A brief history

In the 1930s, inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington, developed a guitar style electric bass instrument that was fretted and designed to be held and played horizontally. Unfortunately, Tutmarc inventions never caught the public imagination, and little further development of the instrument took place until the 1950s.

In the 1950s, Leo Fender developed the first mass produced electric bass. In the 1950s and 1960s, the term Fender bass was widely used to describe the bass guitars, because of early popularity of Fender in the market for mass produced bass guitars.

Different components of the bass guitar

This kind of guitar uses various components to produce music. Some of these components are strings and its tuning, fret or fretless bass, pickups, amplification and effects.

Frets and fretless bass

Frets are a raised metal strips inserted into the fingerboard that extend across the full width of the neck. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone divisions. The original Fender basses had 20 frets. Fretless basses have a distinct sound, because the absence of frets means that the strings must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard.

Strings and tuning

The standard design for the bass has four strings, tuned E, A, D and G, with the original frequency of the E string set at about 41 Hz, making the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass. This tuning is also the same as the standard tuning on the lower four strings on a 6 string guitar, only an octave lower.

Pickups

Most electric basses use magnetic pickups. The vibrations of the instrument metal strings within the magnetic field of the permanent magnets in magnetic pickups produce small variations in the magnetic flux threading the coils of the pickups.

Amplification and effects

The electric bass is always connected to an amplifier for live performances. Electric bass guitarists use either a combo amplifier, which combines an amplifier and a speaker in a single cabinet, or an amplifier and a separate speaker cabinet.

Playing guitar is an incredibly fun and rewarding hobby that never gets old. And is fun and rewarding, but it is important to pay attention to your wrists and hands to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and other painful conditions. Is a physical and mental skill as well as a creative one, and your body will take time to learn to create the sounds you can hear in your head. Has much about moving to a new position as holding down a chord. It is artwork, you need to practice and perfect the craft.

It is never boring, you can always learn something new. And is actually really easy, which is why it is one of the most popular instruments on the planet. Learn to play the easy way, if you have always wanted to learn to play, or have tried and not been able to get any results you might think is too difficult for you. The true beauty is that every facet of the instrument from the style, the features of the guitar and ultimately, the music you choose, is all about individual preference.

What comes to mind is a feeling of pure joy. However, there are a lot of things I do right handed is one of them. And is not that really what is all about. The main thing is, it has to be FUN, because that is what it is all about. Imagine that you, or someone you know, who does not know a thing about it is banished to a deserted island in order to study guitar sols. Since playing is quite a sensual experience, the more sensitivity the player has the better.

I find that playing guitar is more based on intervals and scale degrees and playing piano is more based on the actual notes in the scale. I am always amazed to hear of people practicing in front of the television, as if it is just some rote mechanical exercise. But I am sure you also agree that it is much more complicated than riding a bike. As you can see it is not the end to your musical career, playing instruments other than a guitar is the way to go to ensure that you are going to be able to get into a band.

You do not win at guitar because it is an art of many styles, but you can win against yourself by working on your weak points or struggles. The cornerstone to faking like you are super awesome at player is called the pentatonic scale. Also realize that most great players know that playing guitar is a lifetime project and the better they get, the more they want to get better. The art is on a comeback, however. Made so Simple that total beginners can finally understand what it takes to play If you know the shortcuts, playing guitar is as easy as 1-2-3.
Ronald Firquain is a writer, marketer, entrepreneur, webmaster and has 16 years of computer knowledge. You can download e-books for making money online, building a website, improve your golf game, playing guitar and much more. For more information go to: eBooks Mall

There are two ways you can go about learning chords on guitar. One way is to memorise the chord shapes (where you fret your fingers) from a chord chart. The other way, and the advised way, is to get a real understanding about how these chords are built, and where they essentially “come from”.

Now, you may say “what’s the point? As long as I memorise the chord shape, I’ll know where to put my fingers” - true, and to some extent this is not a wasteful way to learn. However, it’s one of those things that once you do understand how these chords are made up, only then do you fully appreciate having that knowledge. You find it overlaps into other areas of guitar theory, not just chords. So, this article will hopefully get you thinking about the scaffolding that allows us to build what we call “barre chords” and “movable chord shapes”.

Firstly, the word “shape”. We get this from the formation of our fingers on the fretboard when we play a chord. Those 5 main open chords you learn as a beginner are the basis of the 5 barre chord shapes, because the barre chords use these shapes up and down the fretboard.

The E-shape barre - based on the open E chord shape, therefore the lowest root note lies on the low E string.

The A-shape barre - based on the open A chord shape, therefore the lowest root note lies on the A string.

The C-shape barre - based on the (yep, you guessed it!) the open C chord shape, which also has its lowest root note on the A string.

And that leaves the G and D shape chords based around their open chord counter-parts.

So using our index finger as the “barre”, it effectively becomes a nut or capo that allows us to form that familiar open chord shape at fret 1 onwards.

The E-shape barre chord at fret 1 becomes “F”. At fret 5 it becomes “A” - this is because the root note lies on “A”. So once you learn the notes across the fretboard, you’ll know where the root notes lie (on the low E, A and D strings) for each of the 5 main chord shapes!

It’s important to point out that calling them “barre chords” is not always accurate. Sometimes the chord does not include an index finger barre, but is still based on one of the 5 chord shapes. I simply call these “movable chords” or “movable chord shapes”, because you can shift it up and down the guitar neck depending on what key you’re in.

You eventually learn to see these shapes as “descending” or “ascending” shapes. For example, the G-shape descends down the fretboard, whereas the E-shape ascends, yet they can both use exactly the same low E string root note.

By mastering the 5 main movable/barre chord shapes, you effectively now have 5 voicings for any given chord!

For example: A major can be played using the E-shape barre at the 5th fret, but you can get a higher voiced A major by using the D-shape barre at the 7th fret. Furthermore, you can play a G-shape A major chord for yet another voicing.

What makes the voicings different? Well, this is where knowledge of the major scale comes in. The major scale tells us where particular notes lie that make up the chord. Guess what? The major scale can be identified as shapes as well! These shapes coincide with the chord shapes we’ve just been talking about.

For example, the C-shape barre descends down the fretboard from it’s root note, but we can see how the notes of this chord shape are formed from an associated descending major scale shape. The chord shape literally gets superimposed onto the notes from its related major scale shape.

Once you learn the major scale shapes, you see how the formation of the notes that make up each of the chord shapes defines their unique voicing. For example (this may not make much sense right now), the C-shape barre has a lower voiced “3rd” than the A-shape barre, and this is part of what gives it a unique voicing.

It truly is amazing how it all seems to pull together naturally. The relationship between scale shapes and chord shapes is often overlooked, and as a result guitarists end up learning chords parrot fashion. This is not a problem at all… until you come to writing your own music - then, knowing how different voicings work, and more importantly how to finger those voicings, your music is not restricted by what you see on a chord chart!

Admittingly, it’s hard to explain and hard to take in, but I hope I’ve at least opened up some curiosity in your mind about how these chords work behind the chord chart scenes.

Experiment, explore and enjoy this wonderful instrument!
Mike Beatham runs a free, easy to follow guitar lessons site with backing tracks and exercises to help you develop your own unique style of playing. To learn more about guitar barre chords, visit http://www.fretjam.com/guitar-barre-chords.html

Piano students can improve their progress by making improvements to their practice environment. Making some simple changes to the practice environment can help students learn more, especially young beginning students. Too often students compare themselves to experts they see on television and their teacher without considering what went on behind the scenes to make that happen. Parents can help their beginner gain a more realistic perspective about what needs to go on behind the scenes at home so that students make the progress they want to make and feel good about their lessons.

The practice environment will do one of two things.

1. It will detract from learning; or
2. It will support learning.

Make a list of things in the environment that support learning. Make another list of things in the environment that create distractions. Since kids tend to self-distract a lot, the environment needs to be as helpful as possible. Here are ten examples of factors that detract from the learning environment. You can probably think of more.

Practice Environment Distractions

1. No routine practice time established.
2. Busy running errands with parents so no time is left for practice.
3. Television is on in the piano practice room.
4. Friends coming to play at practice time.
5. Eating snacks at the piano during practice.
6. Music books scattered around the floor, they get lost or “misplaced.”
7. Pets or younger siblings demand student’s attention.
8. No routine practice time established.
9. Busy running errands with parents leaving no time left for practice.
10. Keyboard is moved to student’s bedroom where they isolated during practice.

Supportive Practice Environment

1. The television is turned off during practice.
2. Student is undisturbed during practice, but not isolated.
3. Music books are kept in a piano bag with a lesson assignment book.
4. Student follows teacher’s directions in assignment book, finds appropriate books in their music bag.
5. Student uses a timer at the piano so they don’t have to keep wondering, and stopping lessons to ask how long they’ve been practicing.
6. Parents politely thank their student’s friends for wanting to play and give assurances that after piano practice you will call them, and not during or before.
7. Younger siblings are kept occupied during practice and pets are outside.
8. Parents give positive encouragement and help with basic knowledge, but student is encouraged to practice independently.
9. Parent’s make sure students nailed are kept trimmed so student learns to play with ease.

It’s a good idea to talk about these things with your child and get their input as well. Ask your child to help make a list of what creates distractions during practice and what supports their learning at home. This will make your beginner feel that their opinions are valued and that you trust them to be responsible. Once you have your child’s agreement on the list, it’s a whole lot easier to get them to buy into it because it makes sense to them.
To learn the best way to share the gift of music with children visit Amazon.com for my Piano Bears Musical Stories for Children The exciting Piano Bears Musical Stories for children ages 5 to 11 feature the loveable characters, Mrs. Treble Beary and her new piano student, Albeart Littlebud. Children love following along with Albeart to Mrs. Treble Beary’s piano studio in Musical Acres Forest. Here they learn what piano lessons are all about in a fun way that kids readily understand and appreciate! Piano students laugh and giggle while reading “Little Bear’s Musical Garden” and “Little Bear’s Piano Goals.”

The blues guitar scales are really based off of the pentatonic scales with one extra note added. We call that extra note the “blue note” because it gives the pentatonic scale its obvious “bluesyness.” The only real difference between the scales on the guitar and the same scales on any other instrument is the fact that there is more than one way to play them on a guitar. This is due mostly to the fact that the guitar is a stringed instrument and there are at least 3-5 ways to play any unique note.

The minor pentatonic scale is created using the root (or 1), flatted 3rd, 4th, 5th, and flatted 7th of a major scale. Notice that there is no 2nd or 6th scale tone used. There’s an interesting reason for that but it requires a substantial amount of music theory to explain it and this isn’t really the place for that.

To create the minor blues scale we take the minor pentatonic scale and add a flatted 5th (or sharp 4) to it. In the key of A, this creates a scale with the notes A, C, D, Eb, E, and G in it. Some people don’t differentiate between the minor and the major blues scales. If someone calls a scale a blues scale, assume they mean the minor version.

A major pentatonic scale is created with the 1st (root,) 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th tone of a major scale. In C that would be C, D, E, G, and A. To make it a major blues scale you add a flatted 3rd which gives you C, D, Eb, E, G, and A in the key of C.

Notice that the rule governing relative major and minor keys/scales is also in effect here. If you look at the keys of A minor and C major, which are relative, meaning they contain the same notes, you’ll see the same group of notes.

The A minor blues scale is A, C, D, Eb, E, and G. The C major blues scale is C, D, Eb, E, G, and A. Same notes, different starting point. This sort of thing happens all the time in music. This is of particular interest if you’re playing blues lead guitar because you can see that your blues guitar scales really do double duty. Once you learn one pattern, it’s really useful for 2 keys, one major and one minor.

So how to we apply this scale to a standard 12 bar blues chord progression? What’s cool is that the simplest approach is really simple. Whatever the first chord of the chord progression is, let’s say it’s A7, use that minor blues scale to solo over the song. There’s no need to change scales at any time.

Keep in mind that this is only one possible approach, and in many cases it’s not the best approach. There are several ways to play over a 12 bar progression, or any other kind of chord progression. Many of these approaches use some combination of major and minor blues scales.

It is easy to find the 5 “boxes” or patterns of the blues scale on the internet. A simple search should turn up hundreds of choices. Once you learn the blues scales and have them under your fingers. You’ll want to start jamming with them and learning how to make the sounds you want to hear.

If you want to learn how to play acoustic guitar there are some things that you need to know right from the start. Believe me when I say that they will save you a great deal of frustration.

Here are some great tips that should help:

1# Because you will need to practice often (and sometimes you wont want to)-, playing along to a favorite song can be a great motivator. Even if you are a raw beginner you will be surprised at how many songs you can play along to.

“Google” your favorite song and see if there’s a result that offers chord charts for them. Study the charts to find a song you know that has a simple chord progression, these will be chords that you can already play or would like to learn. Download the chord charts and start practicing. You’ll be amazed at how good you will feel when you are playing along to your well loved songs.

2# Make sure that your guitar is tuned properly. You may not believe this but I’ve met people who wanted to know how to play acoustic guitar that didn’t know that each string on a guitar had to be tuned to a specific pith!. It’s not a case of getting the tuning nearly right either, you need to get it “spot on” why? because you will judge your playing by the way you sound and if just one string is slightly of pitch, your “sound” wont be as good as you would like or indeed would have been had your guitar been in tune.

To make sure your guitar is in tune you can use a set of inexpensive pitch pipes. Learn to tune from string to string. Use an electronic guitar tuner or tune from a piano or another guitar. To save room in this article I wont go into detail but you can find some excellent information here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar/Setting_up_the_Guitar

3# Decide on what type of pick (plectrum)you want to use. This is one of the most overlooked pieces of equipment. Picks come in various gauges. A very thin pick will give a much softer sound than a thick one so try experimenting and choose the pick that achieves the sound you want. Some guitarist wear a pick on there thumb and some guitarists just use their fingers. It’s all a matter of choice and something you do need to be aware of.

4# Now you’ll have to excuse me here as I’m going to use a word that some people find quite upsetting. Are you ready? The word is “practice”. I’m sorry but it just had to be said. Of course, we all promise we will practice but there’s always a good film on or the big game just about to start and a hundred other excuses. I’m no different, so here my suggestion.

Don’t promise yourself that you will practice for an hour every day. Make that a promise of twenty minutes everyday. Little and often is best I find. Have your guitar and chord books or tabs to hand if you’re watching TV, that way you can have five minutes practice during the commercial break (and sometimes longer). I find that this works really well as it’s sort of unplanned (and far more enjoyable than most of the commercials).

I hope that these tips will help you on your way to becoming a great guitarist.

Practice, Practice, Practice. That’s how to play acoustic guitar.

Play On.

Learning how to play the keyboard has several advantages over learning how to play the piano. Although you might think learning one is as simple as the other, the keyboard as an instrument is superior in many ways.

With a piano, you only have one type of instrument that you can play…the piano itself. Electronic keyboards allow you to mimic the sounds of dozens of different instruments. Some more expensive models can mimic the sounds of hundreds of instruments and allow your to lay tracks…right on the keyboard!

When you learn how to play the keyboard, you are learning all of those instruments without having to take additional lessons. Sounds can include:

Many types of pianos (grand piano, electronic, etc.)
Percussion instruments
Organs of all kinds (even harmonica!)
Stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, contrabass)
Brass instruments (trumpet, tuba, trombone)
All of the Woodwinds (clarinet, flute, saxophone)
Sitar
Banjo
Bag Pipe

The piano sounds that come from a keyboard can include grand piano, electric piano, honky-tonk and many, many more! There may even be special effects available like bird noises, telephone rings and other novelty sounds.

When you learn how to play the keyboard, you’ll also get to choose from a variety of background sounds that can accompany your main melody. You can normally choose from one of the following:

Pop
Dance
Rock
Jazz
Latin
Hip-hop

More advanced keyboard models may have more choices.

Learning play the keyboard is perfect for beginning music students. There are keyboard models that will show you each note that needs to be played next. It is an easy method of learning that guides students into a better understanding of music.

Playing with a keyboard is also more portable than playing a piano. A keyboard, if it is small enough, can go anywhere with you. This makes it easy to practice in different environments. Keyboards are easy to find. While pianos can cost thousands of dollars, you can find a keyboard for as low as in the classified ads.

There are more complex keyboards that cost much, much more. But for a small investment you can decide if playing the keyboard is really right for you. In the future, you can upgrade your keyboard choice to a more featured model.

Learning play the keyboard is one of the easiest and most fun ways to get into music. There are plenty of songs available for the keyboard, and with practice there is no limit to what you can play! You can experiment a lot with the keyboard; and even create your own one-man band, complete with drums, piano, horns, string instruments and possibly even your own voice. Who knows? You may even produce a demo that you could send to a music executive. The possibilities can be endless!
Claim your free Piano Lessons eBook! Get ready to add a new dimension to your life. Everything you need to learn piano is right here. And new articles are added each week, so keep coming back for all the free tips, lessons and and helpful advice you can handle!

One of the easiest ways to learn how to play a guitar quickly is by reading guitar tablature. This is commonly called tab and learning how to read guitar tabs is very easy.

Guitar tab resembles sheet music. The difference is that guitar tabs have six lines while sheet music has five lines. The six lines represent the strings of the guitar with the bottom line being the thickest string. Here is an example of how a tab will look.

E————————–Thinnest string

B————————–Next thinnest string

G————————-Next thinnest string

D————————-Next thinnest string

A————————-Next thinnest string

E————————-Thickest string

Numbers are placed on the lines. These numbers tell which fret to play on that string. A number “1″ would mean 1st fret, a “2″ would mean 2nd fret and so on. If you see a “0″ it means the string is played “open” or with no fingers positioned on the neck. An “X” means the string is not played at all.

For instance, to play a “G” on the thickest string, the tab would look like this.

E————————-

B————————-

G————————-

D————————-

A————————-

E—-3———————

Assuming that you are a complete beginner AND that you are right handed, let’s make sure you know what a fret is.

As you hold the guitar, your right hand is the picking hand. The other hand holds the neck (also called the fret board) and is the one you will use to finger notes. If you look at the neck, you will notice that there are bars that run across the neck. There are usually 22 (some guitars have more) of them and they get closer together as you move up the neck closer to the body.

In the tab above, you would place your third finger of your left hand just behind the third fret of the thickest string and pick the string with the right hand.

CONGRATULATIONS!! You just played your first note on the guitar! Wasn’t that easy?

Now let’s look at a tab for a group of notes. We’ll start with the lowest string (E) and go up to the highest string (G).

E———————————————————————————0—-1—-3————-

B—————————————————————0—-1—-3——————————-

G—————————————————-0—-2———————————————–

D———————————–0—-2—-3———————————————————–

A——————-0—-2—-3—————————————————————————

E—-0—-1—-3——————————————————————————————-

Now here is the same tab with the names of the notes instead of numbers.

E———————————————————————————E—-F—-G————-

B—————————————————————B—-C—-D——————————-

G—————————————————-G—-A———————————————–

D———————————–D—-E—-F———————————————————–

A——————-A—-B—-C—————————————————————————

E—-E—-F—-G——————————————————————————————-

OK. Now you know how to read single notes in guitar tab, so let’s see how to tab out a chord. By definition, a chord is at least three notes played together and sound harmonious together.

The tablature rules remain the same except that the numbers will be stacked together. When you see this, you will play all the strings at the same time.

For our purpose here we will look at a “C” chord tab. Here I will name the notes next to the number tabs for convenience.

E——0——–E—————————————————————————————-

B——1——–C—————————————————————————————-

G——0——–G—————————————————————————————-

D——2——–E—————————————————————————————-

A——3——–C—————————————————————————————-

E——X————————————————————————————————-

In the example above, you would strum the C chord once. Each time you see the chord tabbed, strum it. For instance, a tab that tells you to strum the chord four times would look like this.

E——0—–0——0——0———————————————————————————

B——1—–1——1——1———————————————————————————

G——0—–0——0——0———————————————————————————

D——2—–2——2——2———————————————————————————

A——3—–3——3——3———————————————————————————

E——X—–X——X——X———————————————————————————

As you can see, guitar tabs are an easy way to learn to play quickly. The one shortcoming is that tabs don’t really give you a rhythm pattern or timing or note/chord durations. While some tab writers try to represent these things, tabs aren’t meant to replace sheet music, but just reference how and where to play the note/chord on the guitar.

If you want to learn a song using tabs, I have two suggestions for you.

1. Listen to a song and get an idea of how it should sound. Then go to the tab and replicate the song the same way.

2. Use written music that has the tab under the sheet music. While you can read the music off of the sheet, you can also reference the position on the guitar with the tab. This is a great tool and very powerful.

There are quite a few notations that can be made as well. Things like bends, slides, hammer ons and pull offs are quite common. Here are a few of the most common notations you should make it a point to learn.

b=Bend

r=Release bend

h=Hammer on

p=Pull off

/=Slide up as in 5/7

-Slide down as in 7/5

PM=Palm mute

T=Tap

There are lots more, but these will get you started for the time being. These notations are written in guitar tab as follows.

E—5b—-9r7————————————————————————————————-

B——————–12h14—7p5—————————————————————————

G—5/7—-7/5————————————————————————————————

D—————————————————————————————————————

A——PM5—————————————————————————————————-

E————————-6t7———————————————————————————-

The above is not any song that I know of. It is simply a random presentation of the notations.

By combining the knowledge of reading music with reading guitar tabs, you can virtually learn any song. All you need is an idea of how the song should sound, a decent guitar, a little initiative and some practice. In no time at all, you will be amazing your friends with the ability to play songs they have heard on the radio.

Teaching yourself how to read guitar tabs is fun and easy. Once you learn this skill, you will be unstoppable… a virtual musical juggernaut.

Go ahead. Get started. Time’s wasting.
Johnny Stall is passionate about playing guitar and has created a web site for beginner guitarists at http://www.teach-yourself-guitar.com