Here are some of those patterns, scales and phrases you can use. These are moveable shapes and can be applied to whichever root note you are on (5th fret A, 5th fret D or 7th fret E). It ain’t cheap but the smart new finishes, the player-friendly amendments (improvements?) to an all-time classic and the tones are worth it. You'll first need to decide whether you want a long or short scale bass guitar. The scale – or scale length – of an instrument is the distance between the bridge and the nut, and we use it to measure the total playable length of the instrument. For a lot of people – especially new bassists – four strings is enough. For honing your chops, and getting used to the larger size of the bass guitar, the standard four-stringed approach is what we'd suggest you go for.

Knowing where to start when finding the best bass guitar for you can be a pretty daunting task. There are many factors to consider, especially if you’re looking for a beginner bass guitar to start your bass playing journey on. Here are some of the most important things you’ll need to decide on, before you go looking for your brand new bass guitar. Long scale vs short scale bass guitars Position the green notes over the correct notes on the bass fretboard to play the scale with that tonic note. You can also use these shapes while improvising or composing. This is why additional notes outside of the octaves are provided. Using them you can extend the single-octave scales so that your lines don’t have to end on a tonic note.Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our guides. You can go beyond simple quarter notes here but remember the blues uses a shuffle feel (see ‘Groove: 6 Examples Of Different Feels’) so make sure you know how to play that. Ultimately, the total freedom to play what you want is what we all want to do. Start simple though and master that before you move on. When you feel comfortable, always push yourself to the next level. Related Lessons Four-string basses are happily capable of any style of music, from jazz to thrash metal - but if you'd like to branch out into the world of extended range, then five and six-string basses are definitely worth your time. Note: not all of the patterns contain two tonic notes. Although you won’t be able to use these shapes on their own to play an entire scale, you’ll still be able to use them combined with the adjacent shapes to play full scales, multi-octave scales, or while improvising.

First and foremost, we are musicians, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best bass guitars on the market right now.Traditionally a bass guitar has four strings, tuned E, A, D, G. However, you can get 5 and even 6 string basses (and more!) that extend your frequency range. Basses with additional strings have a lower bottom string, so a 5-string will usually be tuned B, E, A, D, G, though of course you can pretty much tune it how you want. Note: this scale is the same pattern as that used in the E blues scale open position scale, but played on the adjacent strings. The blues scale is in fact no more than a slightly modified pentatonic minor scale. By comparing the two scales you’ll notice that the only difference between them is that the blues scale contains an additional note.