Is There Much of a Difference Between Learning the Bass and Eltric Guitar?

Posted in learn guitar on 02. Mar, 2011

Another learn guitar question has come in this week. Let’s tackle it straight away:

Question: I have been playing the guitar for 7 months and I take private tutoring. Is I much harder/Easyer or is it almost the same in learning??
Answer: Stick with guitar. The theory is the same. They are tuned the same.

But, if you want to be able to play bass and guitar fluently, you’ll ahve to learn a couple of things on guitar:
Rest stroke.
Rest stroke is when you use your index and middle finger to pluck the strings. place your index and middle fingers on the A string (5th from the bottom). stroke the open A string with your middle finger but dont lift it up, let it rest on the next string (the E string, 6th from the bottom). Then stroke the A string with your index, let it rest on the E, and move your middle finger back to the A string to keep it from ringing out indefinitely. That’s rest stroke.

Slash chords
D/F#
C/E
those are chords that make the bass play a transition note (a note that sounds well when going from one chord to another) while the guitar plays a different chord. This comes either with experience or with memorization. Once you are able to identify what slash chord you are able to play instead of the note you are supposed to be playing on the bass, your bass playing will sound a whole lot more harmonizing.

One Response to “Is There Much of a Difference Between Learning the Bass and Eltric Guitar?”

  1. Jon Magnus says:
    March 2, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    I’d probably stick with your electric guitar lessons a bit longer than 7 months before considering another instrument. I’ve been playing guitar for 9 years and haven’t received a single bass guitar lesson. Once you have a good understanding of guitar the bass is just as easy. They are tuned the exact same way so it isn’t much of a challenge.

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