Maybe you're a fan of Flea of the Chili Peppers, or Sting, or Paul McCartney. Bass can be almost as prestigious as drums, the bass is more important to a bands sound than the drums are. Drums set the tempo, but bass truly sets the groove of the song. It's both rhythmic and melodic.

Tune all your strings one by one by matching the sound of the strings to the corresponding note on your tuner. Tuning your bass is not hard. But as with any other instrument it involves practice,and of course, practice makes perfect. After a while you may find that you do not even have to rely on an electronic tuner to tune your bass.

Beginner bass players should learn scales right away to save them years of time, trouble and frustration, but that most often never happens for them. Intermediate bass players have to have some patterns under their belt to even be at an intermediate level, however, they are usually the most frustrated players because they feel like they are getting somewhere with their instrument, but the are so held up with partial information that they can't move beyond where they are at.

For instance, you've already heard about "slap bass" for sure. Slap is a very common technique and, because of the use in rock situation it has became one of the most popular technique in bass playing nowadays.

When you hear the term learn slap bass, what it refers to is learning how to play certain techniques on the bass guitar. No matter what the other instruments in a band sound like, the bass guitar is crucial and is really the glue that holds the whole thing together. Slap bass is a way of playing the bass guitar.

Hand Positioning: When playing the slap bass technique you must first make sure your hand is in the proper position or else it will be hard and awkward to play this style well. First, bend your arm at the elbow so it allows you to rest your thumb on the low E string.

Imagine a scarecrow in a corn field - that is how your arm should be bent. With your arm bent in this position it will allow your hand to be in the perfect position to allow your wrist to move freely to strike the strings.

With all this is in mind, now you should start for taking your lessons. It don't matter if you hire a private teacher, learn by yourself or get some online lessons, whatever works for you will be the right path to take if you're just beginning.