Howcast https://howcast.com The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides. Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:23:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://howcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cropped-305991373_448685880636965_5438840228078552196_n-32x32.png Howcast https://howcast.com 32 32 How to Write a Bass Line on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497939-how-to-write-a-bass-line-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:23:27 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497939-how-to-write-a-bass-line-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Writing a Bass line involves incorporating all the knowledge that we have talked about before. We want to use everything we have available to us, all the notes that we know, all the rhythms that we know, good time fill, everything that is just part of being a good musician. So, when you are in a situation, when you’re gonna be playing music, whether it is with your friends, and professional situation or just making music on our own. You want to give yourself certain options that you can always depend on to be there for making Bass lines. If you’re playing on a song that has two chords, may be the song alternates between D and G, you could start by just practicing playing the root notes of those two chords in time, may be we will start with quarter notes. You could play. And may be that is perfect for the situation. May be you can add a couple other notes as you hear that. Keep it simple. May be then, it might even be just appropriate to just play a rhythm, you can still play the root notes. Or may be you don’t have to play all the beats. Or may be it is perfect to play something more like melodic longer tones. Or may be just something shorter. Sometimes less is more. So, basically you can provide a whole set of options for yourself, may be three or four things you really like to do, and if you have those in your back pocket you can try them and if none of them work may be one of them will lead you to hearing something brand new that you have never done before. May be that will become one of your basics. But the principle is get somethings under your belt that you really know how to do, so that, when you are in a situation where some one requires you to be a bass player, play a bass line, you wanna be supportive, you wanted be strong and you want to feel really secure with what you are doing.Bass guitar lesson

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How to Play a B Major Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497936-how-to-play-a-b-major-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:21:42 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497936-how-to-play-a-b-major-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

I’m going to show you a really strong fingering to play B Major Scale on Bass Guitar. It starts on the second fret on the A string, the note B. We’re going to play the fourth fret on the same string, C sharp, skip to the first fret on the D string, D sharp. The second fret is E on the same string. Skip one, to the fourth fret, F sharp. The first fret on the G string is G sharp. The third fret is A sharp, and that brings us back to fourth fret, B. So it sounds like this.

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How to Play a Major 7th Chord on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497935-how-to-play-a-major-7th-chord-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:08:16 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497935-how-to-play-a-major-7th-chord-bass-guitar/

Transcript

The major 7th chord uses four notes that come from the major scale. In this case, we’re gonna play “G”. So the G-Major 7th chord is “G”, “B”, “D” and F-Sharp. Those notes are the root, the 3rd, the 5th and the 7th scale tones. So even though we’re only playing four notes, we still call them root, 3rd, 5th and 7th. So now we can practice two octaves of the G-Major 7th chord. And that’s how you play a major 7th chord on the bass guitar.

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How to Play an F Major Triad on the Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497934-how-to-play-an-f-major-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:07:25 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497934-how-to-play-an-f-major-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here’s how to play F major triad on bass guitar. We’re gonna take our 3 notes from the F-major scale. The root, the 3rd note from the scale, and the 5th note from the scale. Our root in this case is F. Our 3rd note from the scale is A, and our 5th note from the scale is C. Our root is gonna be F, first fret on the E string. Our 3rd is gonna be the open A string, our 5th will be C, 3rd fret on the A string. Our next F, we’re gonna play 8th fret on the A string. The A is right next to it, 7th fret on the D string. C is 10th fret on the D string, and our high F is right next to it, 10th fret on the G string. Here’s the 2 octave, F major triad. And that’s the F major triad on the electric bass.

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How to Play an E Minor Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497932-how-to-play-an-e-minor-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:04:43 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497932-how-to-play-an-e-minor-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

E minor is made up of three notes:: E, G and B. Those notes are our root, our third and our fifth, and they get their names from their position in the E minor scale. In the case of E we have our low E, our third will be G, third fret on the E string, and then B, second fret on the A string. The second octave of our E minor triad will be E, second fret on the D string, open G, B on the D string ninth fret, and right next to it, E on the ninth fret of the G string. Here’s our two octave E minor triad.

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How to Play a D Major Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497930-how-to-play-a-d-major-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:30:51 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497930-how-to-play-a-d-major-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

This is how to play the D Major Triad on the bass. D Major Triad is made up of 3 notes that come from the D major Scale. The root D, the 3rd which is F Sharp and the 5th which is A. We can play 2 octaves of that Triad by playing our open D string and then playing our low F Sharp which is the 2nd fret on the E string. Now our open A, now back to the D. F sharp which is 4th fret on the D string, A 7th fret on the D string and then we can grab our high D, 7th fret on the G string. So this is the 2 octave D Major Triad…and that the D Major Triad on 2 octaves on the bass guitar.

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How to Play Pentatonic Scale Exercises on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497928-how-to-play-pentatonic-scale-exercises-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:01:36 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497928-how-to-play-pentatonic-scale-exercises-bass-guitar/

Transcript

I want to give you a few exercises for practicing pentatonics. You can start pentatonic scales not only on the roots but also on every note of the scale. And this will help you get more fluid and get more familiar with the pentatonics. I’ll give you two examples of how to practice it. First is by just starting at the pentatonics scale on every note of the scale as you go up and then down. The second is just by skipping notes on the pentatonic scaleas you go up and then down. And those are two examples of how you can become more familiar with the pentatonic scale.

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How to Play an E Major Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497927-how-to-play-an-e-major-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:51:14 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497927-how-to-play-an-e-major-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here’s how to play an E major triad on the bass guitar. We’re gonna start with our note E as out root. We’re gonna take out third and fifth notes from the E major scale. Those are G sharp, our third. And B, our fifth note from the E major scale. In order to play a two octave E major triad, we can start with our low E, play G sharp, the fourth fret. Play B on the second fret of the A string. Our next E will be at the seventh fret of the A string. G sharp is the sixth fret of the D string. B is the ninth fret of the D string. And then our other E is right next to it ninth fret of the G string. This is the two octave E major triad.

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String Crossing Technique https://howcast.com/videos/497925-string-crossing-technique-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:49:59 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497925-string-crossing-technique-bass-guitar/

Transcript

we use string crossing technique to talk about playing two notes are drectly next to each other when we have large leaps sometimes the strings in the middle over the string we just finished playing will start ringing and cause unnecessary sound we just want to be hearing the note that we were playing now so we can practice this by playing the strings that are next to each other we can play different and different combinations and practice stopping or the strings that are not playing we can do that by resting the fingers on the strings and with a right hand just pressing the fingers on themselves they start ringing or you can do with your left hand in this case i am using the index finger that i just used to play the first notes to stop the strings by just pressing lightly on the edge of the string and not pressing you can do that by practicing any exercise you want you can even practice the scale like the notes in the

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How Are Beats Divided on the Bass Guitar? https://howcast.com/videos/497924-how-are-beats-divided-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:49:30 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497924-how-are-beats-divided-bass-guitar/

Transcript

So beats basically can be divided into groups of two’s or three’s which means you can divide a beat either in two parts like one and two and three and four and.You can also divide it in groups of three.In the case of three’s you might say triplet,triplet,triplet,triplet so for my extra beat I am going to be going back to the high note.So will play the same example of triplets.So now for each of those quarter notes we can basically divide the beats into groups of two’s or groups of three’s.If you wanted to divide it into groups of two’s we just add eight note in between.We have one and two and three and four and.If you want to do the same thing dividing those quarter notes into three’s we can just go back to the top note we are going to count it as triplet,triplet,triplet,triplet this is what it sounds like.So I am going to play the example one more time first just a quarter notes then as groups of two and then as groups of three.And that’s understanding how beats are divided.

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How to Play an A Major Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497923-how-to-play-an-a-major-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:48:48 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497923-how-to-play-an-a-major-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

I’m going to teach you a really strong fingering for the A-Major scale. A-Major has three sharp notes. So we have C-Sharp, F-Sharp and G-Sharp. The rest of them are just the normal note names. We start on “A” with the open string. “B” is the second fret. C-Sharp is the fourth fret. Now we have open “D”. “E” is the second fret on the “D” string. F-Sharp is the fourth fret on the “D” string. G-Sharp is the first fret on the “G” string. And now “A”. Second fret on the “G” string. And that’s the A-Major scale on the bass guitar.

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How to Play an F Minor Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497922-how-to-play-an-f-minor-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:48:13 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497922-how-to-play-an-f-minor-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

A F minor triad is made up of three notes F, a flat, and C that are root,minor third and fifth.Now’s come from the position in the F minor scale.A root is F,1st fret and E string .A minor third is A flat , 4th fret and E string.And a fifth is C,3rd fret and A string.For our second active we can play the F right next to it 3rd fret and D string, we can play A flat 6th fret , C 5th fret and the G string.jump up to 10th fret for our F. So this is the F minor triad.

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How to Play an A Minor Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497921-how-to-play-an-a-minor-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:47:07 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497921-how-to-play-an-a-minor-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

The A minor triad will be made up of the root, 3rd and 5th, which refer to the root, 3rd note, and 5th note of the A minor scale. Our root will be A, our 3rd note of the A minor scale would be C, and the 5th note of the A minor scale will be E. We’ll practice it by playing the A minor triad in two octaves. We play our open string A, C on the 3rd fret of the A string, E on the 2nd fret of the D string, and then A on the 7th fret of the D string, C on the 10th fret, E on the 9th fret of the G string, and then A at the 14th fret of the G string… And that’s how to play the A minor triad on the bass guitar.

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How to Play a C Minor Triad on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497920-how-to-play-a-c-minor-triad-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:45:37 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497920-how-to-play-a-c-minor-triad-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here is how to play the C minor triad on the electric bass. The C minor triad will be mad up of three notes that come from our C minor scale. The root, the third and the fifth. The root of our C minor scale, is “C”. the third, is “E flat”, and “G” is our fifth. If we want to play up two octaves, we will play “C”; third fret on the A string, “E flat”; first fret on the D string, and then open “G”. Now we can play “C” at the tenth fret on the D string, “E flat” on the thirteenth fret of the D string, and “G” on the twelfth fret of the G string, and the “C” at the seventeenth fret of the G string. That is the C minor triad in two octaves.

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How to Play Notes on a Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497919-how-to-play-notes-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:44:54 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497919-how-to-play-notes-bass-guitar/

Transcript

So I wanna get started talking about the basics of playing notes. We wanna talk about note names and learning where the notes are in the instrument. When you are playing the electric bass, there is these 4 strings and each have a name that go along with them. So, the way music works is that notes go from A to G, and then repeats back to A. So you always have notes that are A, B, C, D, E, F, G and then the next note is A. The names of the open strings, the strings that’s closest to you, the lowest string is E. The next string, the closest one to it, is A. The string that’s closest to that, it’s neighbour, is D. The string that’s closest to that, the last one we are gonna play is G. Now, the bass is tuned in fourths, that means that there are 4 note names in between each of the strings. If we know our lower string is E, then we count to four, E, F, G, A. We can remember the string is A. A, B, C, brings us to D. D, E, F, G. So, that’s how we remember the names of the four strings. And then we can find all the notes in between, by remembering that there is always a skip. We always skip one fret in between the names of all of the notes. And we’ll get to those notes later, they..they are not bad notes, we just need to get to them at a different time. But, we always skip one note in between the names of each of the note names of each letter, except for between E and F, and B and C. There will be no skipping between those two. So, We know that our lowest string is E, and no skip puts us at the first fret with F. Now we are gonna skip the second fret and the third fret is G. Then we skip between G and A. So, the fifth fret is A, which is the same as the longer string. A skips a note to B, which is the second fret, and then B does not skip a note between B and C. So, the third fret on the A string is C. And then again, a skip between C and D, which is the open string next to it. D and E, we are gonna skip that first fret. And then there is no skip between E and F. So, that brings us back to E and F, a different E and F. And that’s the basics of playing notes on bass guitar.

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How to Play a One-Octave Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497918-how-to-play-a-one-octave-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:44:23 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497918-how-to-play-a-one-octave-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

There are a lot of ways to play a one-octave scale on a bass guitar, but there’s also a nice simple formula for beginners, so that you can get the sound in your ear and you can get the feel of the notes under your fingers. My formula is 2-4, 1-2-4, 1-3-4. So if we space our fingers, 1 per fret. And we pick a string low like the E-string, our lowest string. We can start with the second finger and play 2- 4. And then on the next string we play 1-2-4 and then on the next string we play 1-3- 4. And that’s how you play a One-Octave Scale on a Bass Guitar.

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How to Play an F Minor Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497917-how-to-play-an-f-minor-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:43:58 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497917-how-to-play-an-f-minor-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here is how to play the F minor scale on the Bass Guitar. Instead of thinking about F minor as being F Major with the lowered third note, a lowered sixth note and a lowered seventh note. We can think about a little easier by just playing the notes of our A-Flat major scale, starting on the sixth note which is F. So, lets review our notes for A major. We will start with open A, B at the second Fret, C#, now open D, E on the second Fret, F# on fourth Fret, now G# on the first Fret of the G string and finally back to A. If we go back two notes to the sixth note of our scale, we get the F#. And now if we use the same notes from the A major scale, we can just play our F# minor scale much easier. F#, E, D, C#, B, A, G# and finally F#. Here is what the F minor scales sounds like in the Bass Guitar.F minor scale in Bass Guitar

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How to Play a Minor 7th Chord on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497916-how-to-play-a-minor-7th-chord-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:43:02 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497916-how-to-play-a-minor-7th-chord-bass-guitar/

Transcript

The minor 7th chord has 4 notes: a root, a minor third, a fifth, and a minor 7th. Let’s use G as an example. The G-minor 7th chord is going to be G (our root), B-flat (our minor third), D (our fifth), and F (our minor 7th). G, B-flat, D, and our lowered 7th, F. Here’s the G-minor 7th chord in 2 octaves. And that’s a minor 7th chord on the bass guitar.

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What Is an Octave on the Bass Guitar? https://howcast.com/videos/497914-what-is-an-octave-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:41:58 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497914-what-is-an-octave-bass-guitar/

Transcript

I wanna talk about understanding octaves on the bass guitar. There are seven note names that we use in our musical scale. So every time we play the eighth note, it’s gonna have the same name as the note name from the first note. This is basically an octave. So an A for instance, on the second fret of the G-string, an octave down is the open string A. So this is the note E in three different octaves. And that can be true for all of the notes that we have. C, C-sharp, D, D-sharp, E, F, F-sharp, G, G-sharp, and A. And that’s the basics for understanding octaves on the bass guitar.

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How to Play an A Minor Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497913-how-to-play-an-a-minor-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:41:33 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497913-how-to-play-an-a-minor-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

We can think about A minor as lowering the 3rd, lowering the 6th note of the scale and lowering the 7th note of the scale. But that can get really confusing. An easier way to think about it would be to start thinking about a C major scale on A. Or C major scale on the 6th note of the scale, which happens to be A. So, let’s refresh ourselves on C major. C, D, E, 2nd fret of the D string, F, 3rd fret of the D string, open G, A on 2nd fret of the G, B, 4th fret of the G string, back to C. If we start that on A, we can play the same notes and get our A minor scale. That’s A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. And that’s how you play the A minor scale on the bass guitar.

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How to Hold Your Bass Guitar Properly While Sitting https://howcast.com/videos/497912-how-to-hold-guitar-while-sitting-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:41:05 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497912-how-to-hold-guitar-while-sitting-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here’s how to hold your bass guitar properly while sitting. You want the bass to balance on your knee so that it’s not tipping one way or the other. That’s different for every instrument, so I suggest putting it on the knee that you’re going to be resting it on and allowing it to balance itself. In this case I have to push it a little further towards my right hip so that it doesn’t tip head forward, because you don’t want to be thinking about balancing the bass while you’re trying to play the instrument. Once it’s just in position, you can put your hands in place. And if it’s comfortable and you’re not using your hands to actually balance the instrument all the time, then you’re in a proper position to start playing.

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How to Play a Major Pentatonic Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497910-how-to-play-a-major-pentatonic-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:39:54 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497910-how-to-play-a-major-pentatonic-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

Here’s how to play a Major Pentatonic Scale. The Pentatonic Scale has five notes. It’s comprised of the first three notes of a major scale,and then the fifth and sixth note on the major scale. In the key of C, we start at C and we play a C, D, E, G, A, which brings back to C. I’ll demonstrate a two octave C pentatonic scale for you. That’s how to play a Major Pentatonic Scale on the bass guitar.

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How to Position Your Right Hand on the Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497908-how-to-position-your-right-hand-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:38:49 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497908-how-to-position-your-right-hand-bass-guitar/

Transcript

When it comes to positioning your right hand on the bass guitar, I like to start with the pick-up that’s closest to the middle, between the fretboard and the bridge. On this bass it’s easy, because there is only one set of pick-ups. Some like a jazz bass series will have two sets, so you’ll have more options. If we move our hand closer to the fretboard, we are gonna get a warmer tone with less attack. If we move our hand closer to the bridge, we get a more crisp, clear tone. That can come in handy, for punk passages or often for really fast passages we have to play quickly.

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How to Play a B Minor Scale on Bass Guitar https://howcast.com/videos/497906-how-to-play-a-b-minor-scale-bass-guitar/ Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:37:28 +0000 https://howcast.com/videos/497906-how-to-play-a-b-minor-scale-bass-guitar/

Transcript

We can think about B minor as B major with a lowered 3rd note, a lowered 6th note, and a lowered 7th note, but this can be a lot of information to think about when we’re trying to play music. So instead, we can think about it as a D major scale, starting on the 6th note, B. So let’s refresh ourselves on the D major scale. We play our open D, E, 2nd fret, F#, 4th fret, open G, A, 2nd fret, B, 4th fret of the G string, C#, 6th fret, and now D on the 7th fret. If we go back to the 6th note of the scale, we get to B. Now we can play the same scale, D, starting on B, and we’ll get our B minor scale – B, A, G, F#, E, D, C#, and B. This is what the scale sounds like… and that’s the B minor scale, on the bass guitar.

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