How to Play Bass: About the Bass

Tony Saunders, a former student of Herbie Hancock himself, shares his expertise with students of the four- and five-string bass, providing all the fundamentals necessary to follow in his footsteps.

I’ve been fortunate enough to play base for the last 32 years. During that time I have been able to play a lot of different styles of music—country, rock, jazz, blues even a little folk music. The reason that I have been able to do that is because I was well rooted in the foundation of playing the base. I wanted to ask Stanley Clark about the base and so the base is the instrument that is suppose to be the bottom of the band. It is suppose to hold the foundation and it is suppose to create a feeling in the band that creates how the music is interpreted. So to even slim that down a little bit whatever the base player plays that is what type of music the band is playing. If they are playing country music, if the base player is playing the country baseline it is interpreted as country. If it is playing jazz it will be interpreted as jazz. If it is playing blue grass it will be interpreted at blue grass blues and every style continues on that. The reason I say this is because the drummer and the piano player or the guitar player can be playing the same chord pattern and if you play one note or if you play a lot of notes it will determine which style of music it is. So what we are going to talk about in this series is getting you some fundamental sharps that will help you begin to learn about the base. The base is very evolving instrument in today’s music. There is the four string base, five strings, six, seven, and eight. Today we are going to talk about the four and the five strings. Me personally, I usually play a five string, but I do play a four string also. So, we are going to talk about that and I am going to give you some nice tips that will help you move forward in your base playing. By the time you learn this DVD you should be as good as me. Right? Okay! So, we want to move along and we are going to basically start at the beginning. I am going to start talking about my five string base and then I am going to basically say the same thing for the four strings. As you know, the five string base has five strings. The lowest being the B string. The highest being the G string. So on the bottom we have the D, E, A, D, and the G. So that is moving from the bottom of the base to the top. On the four-string, we would eliminate the B string. So, we would just have E, A, D, and G. So, one of the things that you want to make sure that you have when you are starting to play base is a couple of things. One is a metronome because all of these exercises that I am going to give you, you should play to a metronome. Why you say metronome? What is the most important thing in the band? The time between the base player and the drummer. If you have great time you work a lot and you will be really famous and then we can come and hang and have coffee. But if you have bad time your being bands that people go, “I do not know if I want to see them because they don’t groove.” So the “groove” is created through time. So, these are very important issues that I have. The reason that I work is because I play with a lot of feeling and I am able to play off a lot of bottom and so that people get a good feeling off of what I play no matter what the music is. So, what I am going to try to show you here is some beginning concepts that I learned a long time ago that really helped me. One of the things that we want to talk about with our left hand is finger dexterity. Finger dexterity can only made better one way. That one way is by what? Practice. Not by osmosis by practice, so it doesn’t happen. Even me I’ve been playing base a long time like I say 32 years actually longer than that, 34 years professionally and before that I decided to learn how to play. But, my hand development which is what makes it so that your hands—a lot of the movements that you learn on the base they are natural because our hand is made basically for grabbing and holding on. So, what we want to deal about this finger dexterity and individuality with our fingers. So we want to learn and practice things that make our hands learn how to do what we want them to do on the base both with the left hand and with the right hand. Building a left hand dexterity is something that is very important because if you do not have the chops to play the base, you’re going to be unhappy with the playing. So, unfortunately we’ve got to start with the basics. I do not play with the pick I play with my fingers and I would suggest that you learn how to play all styles with your fingers and with a pick although I prefer to play with my fingers. I play will all four of my fingers, but today we’re going to concentrate on playing with just two fingers.