I am often asked by beginning guitar students what the difference is between bass guitar lessons, and lessons on other types of guitars such as electric guitars or acoustic guitars. While electric guitars and acoustic guitars are very similar in nature, the bass guitar is a completely different animal.
It’s first important to understand that the electric or acoustic guitar is primarily a chord playing, or lead playing instrument – while the bass guitar is more of a “foundational” instrument.
The responsibility of the bass player is to carry the “bottom end” of the music. The bassist works in conjunction with the drummer to form the rhythm section of the group – and the electric or acoustic guitar adds the upper layers of strumming chord progressions and playing solos.
For example – in a song that is comprised of an E, A, B chord progression, the electric or acoustic guitar would typically strum the E, A and B “chords”, while the bassist would play the E, A and B root “notes”. As a result, bass lines are often comprised of single notes, as opposed to multi-note chords.
In addition – bass guitars are tuned lower than other guitars, and have thicker strings that produce tones that are in lower “octaves”. In most cases, bass guitars come in four or five string models, in comparison to electric or acoustics that normally have six strings. (Although there are a number of exceptions)
The tuning of a bass guitar is similar to other guitars, only with less strings, and again, in lower octaves. Here is a comparison:
Guitar – E, A, D, G, B, E
Bass – E, A, D, G
On a five string bass, there is a “low” B string added, and the tuning would look like this:
5 String Bass – B, E, A, D, G
So when deciding whether to take bass guitar lessons, or electric/ acoustic guitar lessons, the main thing to realize is that there is a huge difference in the musical “approach” and mind-set between the two instruments. If strumming chords and playing solos is what you like, then electric or acoustic guitar lessons is probably the route you should take.
On the other hand, if you are “groove” oriented, and like to help keep the beat – then bass guitar lessons are for you!
