Scott Paul Johnson
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How learning bass helped my guitar skills (pt1?)
🕑 Added 2025-08-04 17:00:06 +0000 UTCWhere to Start • Lesson Archive • Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private Lesson
Hi Everyone,
Bass players tend to think much more specifically about timing than guitar players. You might think bass players are just guitar players with fewer strings and fewer notes to worry about, but playing bass requires a completely different mindset and a much more meditative, concentrated approach. In this lesson I explore one specific concept I learned from the pro bass players in my life and how it changed the way I think about guitar.
If you like this lesson, let me know. There are a few other things I've learned from bass players that really helped my guitar skills, and I'd love to do some lessons about that if people find it interesting. Thats why this is titled pt1 with a question mark: should there be a part 2 and 3?
Comments
Scott Paul Johnson
you don't need to be saying "1 2 3 4" in your head, but there is certainly always a sense of where the beat is. Think of it like walking - you're not consciously aware of where the ground is, but you KNOW where it is. As you get more and more comfortable keeping track of "click click click click" you'll develop a more nuanced sense of what each beat is, whether you consciously think the numbers or not.
Erin
when you demonstrated a lazy guitar playing it kinda sounded cooler.. I actually never think about timing except when I hear other people play I can almost always immediately tell when something is off.. in the most recent bass challenge I knew my timing was off but I couldn’t play it in time no matter how hard I tried. Are we supposed to be counting in our head?
Jeff Sanders
Love this so much! The “bass is like the reverb to the kick drum” is such a gold nugget of wisdom. Yes, please to pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt. 5, pt. 6…
Erin
Haha your mollases mode was funny.. thats my default mode
Tasha McManus
👏👏👏 this is particularly apropos for where I’m at, returning to bass playing after a long hiatus. I actually feel like I love the bass more than the guitar, but the guitar is something that has given me more versatility for songwriting. I was almost entirely self-taught and now I have the benefit of returning to the bass with the theory and fretboard knowledge I’ve learned through your Patreon, which makes it an infinitely fuller experience. Yahooooo!!! One little add-on to the solid advice you laid down regarding the timing of basslines: sometimes anticipating the next chord (like is often employed in Cuban music) is a pretty neat trick. Thx!
Lauren Wise
This is interesting...I find I am ALWAYS rushing the count, always ahead, alwys "anticipating" the beat instead of waiting for it.
Lauren Wise
Weird is good.
