How To Learn Your First Song On Bass

These days, I don’t do a lot of in-person teaching anymore, but when I did, I’d get a lot of day-1 beginners coming to me keen and excited about playing bass but they didn’t have a clue where to begin.

They may have searched Google or YouTube for ‘bass lessons’ and seen the ever-expanding buffet of lessons, articles, reviews, books, videos and everything else.

As a teacher, it’d be tempting for me to jump straight to things that I know are good for new students – proper technique through exercises, learning some basic theory, how to lock in with a groove etc.

And for a while, I tried teaching those things first up. The result?

Eyes glazed over, minds wandering.

To a total beginner, that stuff is super important, but not super compelling (although it becomes more compelling the more you learn)

The last thing I wanted to do was take a beginning student, full of vigor and enthusiasm and suck it all out of them before they even got a chance to get going, so I tried some different approaches.

By far, the one that made the biggest difference was very simple:

Get them playing a song that they like

In hindsight, this is painfully obvious, but at the time it was a revelation to me.

When I did this, eyes stopped glazing over – they went wide with excitement. (“We’re going to play that!?!”)

Their minds also stopped wandering. These students were 100% with me as I guided them through some very simple songs, and it was through these songs that I could then teach them about things like basic technique, groove and how the song was put together.

They got what they wanted, but I also snuck them a bit of what they needed.

So if learning songs is a great way of working on all these things, plus it’s super compelling, how are you supposed to do it as a beginning bass player?

Well that’s exactly what today’s lesson is all about.

Now in this video, I’m specifically talking about learning your first song all the way through, but even if you’ve already learned a bunch of songs, I’d recommend checking out the 4 steps I outline and see if they can help speed up your own process.

Check out the lesson here:

Video Not Showing Up Here? Watch On YouTube

If you’re brand new to bass and Become A Bassist, I have a ton of resources you can use to jumpstart your playing. If you’re looking for ideas for very beginner-friendly bass lines, then be sure to check this out:

Beginner Bass Lines – Guaranteed To Impress [Playlist]

There are tons of bass lines in there that would be ideal first songs. If you want to go beyond that, you can also check out my Beginner’s Starter Pack

Become A Bassist Beginner’s Starter Pack

It’s a collection of some of my absolute best free material you can use to work on the 3 most important areas of your playing as a beginner.

Whether you just want to learn your first song or you’re looking for a new way of approaching things, I hope you find all this helpful!

Good luck with everything in here and happy playing!

Cheers,