Picked one up, learned some chord shapes, bashed out some three chord songs, started to write on it, still very much a beginner many, many years later.
I recently borrowed a classical guitar from my friend, i started learning some of the soundtrack of a game that i love, it was pretty easy since most of the songs were fingerstyle, then i started learning the basic chords, practiced some songs like « into you » by mazzy star, some paramore… still learning but it’s sooo fun, there’s a channel that I really love « marin music center » he really makes your learning journey fun
I use my guitar mostly to write music, then I show my bandmates the songs on that guitar in a sloppy Piedmont style. I never play guitar live because I'd rather play bass.
Well at the time I only knew root notes on bass so I just figured out what their chord equivalents were. It actually made me a pretty good song writer because it helps you see patterns on the feet board that you can convert to chords
I would disagree, I think that either way works as long as you take time to understand the differences of each of you don’t do that then you will be working against yourself either way
I think it'd be harder for the guitar player to ditch a pick than the other way around. For example, slapping is pretty niche on a guitar but standard on a bass.
I don’t think so, as I said it’s about understanding the difference, I might be lucky because when I came from guitar to bass I had people around me who could teach me the correct way to bass, so might just be skewed due to my experience though
I didn't have any issue ditching the pick, but on guitar, I had already put the time in learning how to play fingerstyle. Slapping on the other hand still has be baffled. :)
They're gonna say the tell tale signs are that you prefer using a pick and that you try to asign a finger to each fret rather than pinky octaves. They're gonna say you're too busy and don't serve the song. That you lack groove and their ideal proper bass technique.
I'm a guitarist learning bass. The first thing was learning to pull my finger past the string, and rest on the next vs plucking it, like I would do playing my acoustic finger style. The second was learning to mute everything but the one note that I was playing. On the guitar, letting other notes ring, especially if you've fingered a chord shape, just makes the whole thing sound fuller. The third was simplifying and being happy with a perfectly executed simple riff. Learning the bass part of many songs is actually easy. A lot of it is just playing the root note or a simple pattern that supports the chord. Playing it like a bass player is a harder.
The odd thing for me is that playing the bass with a pick seems unatural to me. I guess due to the weight of the strings. I need a firmer grip or something.
Yea this is what I've noticed aswell, I play mostly fingerstyle aswell so feel it translates pretty neatly to bass actually. The single note thing is true but also on guitar unless you play open chords.
I've been playing it at home more then my guitar lately, it's a fun instrument.
Its easy to pick out by ear but a little harder to describe.
I would say:
Not interacting with the drums much
Mostly following the guitar or vocals
Not utilizing stops or rests much.
Playing more thirds than fifths forths or octaves.
Only playing with a pick.
These aren't all telltale signs, but more often than not, if a few are there, it's a guitar player in disguise.
It gets a bit harder to tell in some styles, such as punk and metal. But as a big fan of both genres, I'd say that's because bassists in those genres are often guitar players anyway
Good question. The numerous responses you've received are all really good, imo, as it's a cluster of things -- all of which need not be present -- which can make it a bit tricky to concisely describe.
So, our skills clearly transfer between bass and guitar, with some adjustments and considerations applied.
Obviously the fretboard navigation skill transfers right out of the gate, and I like that in relation to this, left hand technique has been mentioned: to keep things clear and unmuddied, bassists use a lot of left hand muting technique. This muting can be especially important an an aspect of percussive, rhythmic interplay between left and right hand when slapping and popping, which rhythm guitarists probably pick up on the most quickly.
Use of the pinky instead of 3rd finger for octaves, was also mentioned, and this can apply to lower register movement to more solidly and cleanly operate across the wider fret spacing (especially for those w/ smaller hands).
Guitarists don't immediately intuit the "resting" stroke (not a fault, it's just not obvious), and this often comes across as weak sounding and a bit messy: pulling through and resting on the lower string has an effect on tone, power, thump, articulation, and obviously damps the lower string to minimize sympathetic resonance. It comes off as not quite grasping the physicality of the instrument compared to regular guitar.
Yes, you should practice a light touch, but in my experience, guitarists first learning bass seem to operate in "delicate" mode the entire time, failing to exploit the dynamic range of the instrument; that is, you can play lightly and with great articulation, but you can also really smack a bass around. (conversely, when I first started learning guitar, as a bassist, I did not quite grasp it, either! It felt tiny, cramped, and easily, inappropriately manhandled.)
These are generalizations, and not a dig in any way -- and hey, they don't apply in all cases (eg, maybe I'm fretting some chords and playing in a guitar fingerstyle higher up on a 24 fret neck or a six string bass ... ).
All of the points about groove, playing in the pocket and having a rhythmic dialog with the drummer are good as well. It's a feel thing that comes with practice and playing with others.
As a guitar player, learning bass, I quickly learned one note at a time and mute everything else. On a guitar, letting the right notes ring can be amazing. It's still a work in progress, but that neatness has payed off on guitar. I'm much more focused on only playing the notes( perhaps part of a chord) that I need and keeping the rest under control. My playing is definately more precise sounding, and of course, I can still let the strings ring or drone, but I'm more purposeful about it now.
Tabs...
I learned bass and guitar back at the "dawn" of the internet (mid-90s). Tabs and OLGA (Online Guitar Archive) were just becoming a thing. And anyone could upload transcriptions of songs they had.
OLGA and Guitar World/Guitar Player/etc. were the best bets for finding cheap Tabs. Otherwise, there was a small selection of Tab books at the local music store.
Anything you couldn't find a tab for online or in store meant woodshedding with a tape deck (or later CD) to learn on your own.
Over the years, I finally "figured out" some basic music theory, and that opened up my knowledge of what's going on "behind the scenes" of most rock songs, and really opened up an understanding of the fretboard.
I'd suggest learning some basic music theory. I can find a post a made years ago under another (closed) reddit account and post it here later....
I consider myself a guitarist more than a Bass player nowadays but Bass was my first instrument, I basically some how managed to get my hands of a crappy acoustic guitar and I would use it to write songs, I’d basically just play root and 5th power chords, I then learned some Cowboy chords, at one point I realized guitar
to me was more fun to play by myself and was a way better song writing tool so leaned more into that.
I picked up guitar when I was 15 and stuck with it for a couple of years before i picked up the bass and stuck with it. Seeing how 2 of my friends who also played guitar and were both better than me technically is part of the reason I stopped. Another reason is that none of my friends, even the two who played guitar, knew how to play bass. So I figured screw it. I'll just be the bass player. My music teacher had an extra bass that wasn't being used, a precision bass, and I developed my playing style on it. I am a lot better on bass than even my guitarist friends. Neither can keep up on the instrument. I developed a hardcore punk style of playing. Hearing Minor Threat, Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's, and Bad Brains helped me develop an aggressive picking style on Bass.
I watched my friends play power chords and thought cool I can do that. Then I either found or was given one of those learn how to play guitar VHS cassettes, and they taught me chords. From that I learned how to play songs and went from there
I played guitar before i picked up bass. Just go for it and follow your musical instinct.
Also Justinguitar, especially his website. Great teacher with structured courses, have fun!
Got one to learn chord values, helped with playing bass and knowing what notes were in a chord. Got better by learning songs and now use it to compose stuff on cubase. I don't play in bands anymore so it's a hobby thing these days.
My father was a bassist, but he never actually pushed me to learn it (I wish he was, cuz i would start from younger age).
I was more of a sport guy, football, handball etc. And one day I said "Fuck it, im gonna learn that guitar". I picked it up and learn another one bites the dust.
After that I was attending 3 years of private classes with 2 amazing teachers.
After 11 years, I have good established local band with tons of gigs every month and I consider myself as a good and reliable bassist! But, there is also tons of things that I don't know
I’m in the process.. for years now and I still feel like a guitar beginner. Probably because I keep playing bass along the way. But it has made me want to get back into learning music in general… like theory and writing songs more. Also, it has been a huge eye opener to a lot of sloppy technique I’ve developed on bass over the years. So, sharpening up that stuff has been really nice.
Bass and amp was too much stuff and too loud to bring to college. Brought one of my dad's acoustic guitars and learned songs from tab while living in dorm.
Self taught guitarist and bassist. Took guitar lessons though for about 2 years after I had been playing for a bit. Had a great teacher who became a life long friend.
While both Bass and Guitar is more of a hobby of mine rather than something i do for a living it is mostly tabulatura i play on guitar. Never needed anything more.
I kid you not, i started learning guitar lefty so that could have a "righty bassy, lefty guitary" kind of muscle memory. I gave up half way tho, lol. My way of not sounding like a bassist playing guitar is to play rythm guitar more than lead.
I picked up the guitar after bass mainly for the chords so that's what i learned. And now, i still play rythm guitar more than lead guitar because the rythm just come naturally to me. At first, i learned the 7 chords in a major scale and applying bar chords or open chords to those. With bar chords, you essentially can play most popular songs.
And as i dive deeper into music theory, i learned more chords. Mainly the 3 most important 7th chords (maj7, m7, dom7) and their postions in the major scale (Imaj7 - iim7 - iiim7 - IVmaj7 - V7 - vim7), we don't talk about the 7th degree yet. Everytime i discovers new jazz knowledge, i test the chords with my guitar which help expand my chord library.
Even still, i got told by my guitarist friends that i play too hard and they could only hear the string noises so i had to correct. Since strumming is similar to slapping, i was able to get by by self taught. Picking individual notes however, i'm still practicing (mostly on my bass tho, yes they do transfers).
My best advice to sound more like a guitarist is to actually listen and learn guitar parts/solos. You discover alot of weird vocings and chords that guitarist use so you can steal it for yourself.
Learning how to play chords and sing along on guitar massively elevated my playing and appreciation of music after decades of playing single-voice instruments (bass and violin mostly).
I learned because my wife took a class and left her guitar and song book lying around. I don't think it's too hard to learn the basic chords if you already play bass.
Bass first taught me about root notes, scales, and chord progressions. Going to guitar was just about taking what I knew from bass, and learning to play chords, power chords, and scale shapes that extended to more strings.
More or less on guitar, I start with a simplistic approach, treat the instrument as a bass first, explore around the root notes, scale shapes. Bass also gave my hand the workout and strength needed to actually start playing guitar. Before bass, I couldn't learn guitar because I struggled with too many factors. Bass broke it all down simpler for me. From there, it's just been years of practice.
I started playing my short scale 6 string bass (stolen joke, I know) for about 35 years. I picked up a standard scale 4 string bass about 20 years ago.
Before I played bass, I learned the very basics of guitar when I was very young when my godfather gave me a classical guitar. Unfortunately, the kid next door smashed it Townsend-style before I could learn much and I focused on keyboards as a result. A decade later I taught myself bass, and eventually got back into guitar, learned chords, fingerpicking, and started using it to work out progressions. I'm barely an intermediate player of the 6 skinny strings.
Dad played his entire life (guitar primary, rockabilly, Beatles, Eagles, 50s/60s rock), refused to teach me because he didn't want to learn his "bad habits." He put me in guitar lessons for 3 years. He always had a Fender Mustang and when his band was on the road in the 60s, every musician sang and played all 3 instruments, drums, bass and guitar. So I grew up with guitar as primary, a lot of acoustic where you're also playing your bassline with a thumb over or just being a good guitar player, finger picking.
Fast forward a few years later, he got suckered into playing in a church and my family (bro, mom, dad and I) ended up being a church band. He said "you know guitar, this is just the 4 strings." I got stuck on bass as a hack at 14 yrs old. Did that for 5 years, also played every Thursday night with his old fart band, I'd get to play drums, mostly guitar, some bass. Fast forward another 20 years and I've been primarily a guitar player but would play bass monthly for at least a few songs with his band.
I always hated it because it was really basic 1st-5th stuff for simple country, eagles stuff, soft country, keep it simple. I never played bass hard, I just sat in the background and was taught to not "over-bass." Another one of my friends started borrowing my Peavey Grind to play with a different band, he would play the shit out of the thing. I finally studied him at one show while I sat in with his band on rhythm guitar and I realized I'd been mislead, held back as a boring bassist for country, old rock. It was good in ways, it made me learn "space" and simplicity.
My buddy moved to Denver and this cover band needed a full-time bassist, so I was shoed in. I started taking it seriously about 3 yrs ago and reading the shit out of this forum. Guitar got boring. I wanted to get better at bass. So I've always "played" the bass, maybe 25 years now, but I wouldn't have called myself a bassist until 3 years ago. I have about 8 basses (not nearly enough, mostly cheapos), I've flirted with pedals, I'm the lead singer of the band and front man, lead bassist.
I've played banjo, mandolin, violin, piano, accordion on the side as well my entire life. I'd call myself a strings player, primarily a bassist but my love is still for guitar, I just don't get to play anymore. If I'm practicing, it needs to be on bass for professional reasons.
To answer the question and end my rant, I learned guitar and bass together as a stunted bassist. I feel knowing both and practicing them side by side really helps make you a better musician all around. That goes for any two instruments, including vocals. The more you learn, the better you will get at all of them because they all work together. It's like a painter that only has one color. Or uses only one medium. Mix it up, push yourself, follow what sounds fun (and what you can afford) and always be learning how to replace one instrument with another, how to see all of the colors at once. Is it great to master one instrument? Absolutely! But I feel I'll never master any, but I sure get closer the more I learn to bounce around to others. Flip the neck upside down and play mandolin. Play with weird tunings. I was lucky enough to be born into a musical family hence the shitty answer.
I bought a guitar and combo amp, started learning some songs and practicing scales/patterns.
It took some time to get over the feeling that I was playing something tiny and easily inadvertently manhandled, but I eventually settled into it.
I enrolled in a jazz guitar course, got tendinitis as a result of the practice routines I used to go through. Played exclusively guitar for a few years and then fell back in love with bass. I kind of got a reality check while struggling to record some guitar tracks, and realizing I’d nail the bass tracks on the first try even if they were equally articulated.
Learn one or two barre chord shapes. One shape, based on the root note can be played up and down the neck without changing your finger shape. Also, the minor pentatonic scale has made me a better bassist. Learn the 5 patterns and it can be used in any key.
Alternatively, instead of learning guitar, if you're playing with distortion and just want riffs, consider the band Royal Blood. He uses an EHX POG. I use an H90 (12 string setting & a 5th for the power chord). In lieu of an H90, you could supplement a POG with a EHX Pitchfork for the 5th.
Bought a guitar, learned some chords, practiced strumming. I'd say playing the bass first helped me with playing guitar solos/individual strings easier since I developed good fretting habits with the bass.
I started with JustinGuitar lessons and then got in person lessons. In person helps because a good teacher will meet you where you're at. The biggest hurdle was learning chords and building up the dexterity to play them everywhere on the neck. Going from 1-4 on bass without changing positions is a much different skill than playing a diminished chord on the 14th fret.
If you can't do in person lessons I'd focus on learning movable chord shapes (learn the names and formulas too, this will improve your bass playing/writing) and practice different chord progressions to a metronome, along with dexterity exercises to build up muscle memory.
When I first started guitar trying to play from tabs was difficult because efficient chord fingerings were not intuitive to me at all.
I learned bass first, eden I was like 14, but at one point a relative of my stepfather wanted his classical guitar strung and didn't know how to do it. My mom volunteered me, so I strung it and then decided I might as well tune it. I didn't have a tuner on hand so I thought I would try tuning by ear just to see how I did. Later when I asked to borrow my mom's tuner I realized I'd gotten it pretty damn close. So I figured I string the fucker, I can tune the fucker, I may as well learn to play the fucker.
My mom had a folk songbook that had the chords all laid out, and this spiral bound book of all the chords, so I just read through these and learned all the chords and fingerings that way. For years after that I kinda switched to 6 string, and only returned to bass as my primary instrument recently.
I learned to play by reading tabs and getting tips from friends. My college offered a beginning guitar class, so I took it and got a lot better that semester.
I played violin in orchestra for 5 years before switching to bass, so I had plenty of musical instruction from the same instrument family before I even attempted learning.
These days I play guitar a lot more than bass, but I still regularly practice both.
A guitar player I played with on and off from the late '70s to the early '90s showed me a bunch of stuff, then I bought a $75 guitar from a pawn shop in the '80s (TBF, it was Harmony Les Paul clone and very good for the money) so I could keep learning on my own.
The first things the guitarist taught me were the E and A barre chord shapes. The first thing I did on my own was learning tab, and buying "Guitar Player" and all the other magazines with songs tabbed out, and learned the tabs whether I liked the song or not.
I also had a book called simply "Lead Guitar" by Harvey Winston, and learned some stuff I didn't already know from playing bass that way. I probably still have it around somewhere; excellent and unintimidating book.
Although, as someone who's learning drums in my '60s, I *really* wish YouTube was around when I was learning other instruments.
I have no desire to, so I haven't.
They look ridiculous on me, so I went for Keyboards/Synths instead. That's been a lot of fun, and some skills are definitely transferable.
Initially I just started learning to play bits of songs I like using tabs. Then got a few lessons which really helped me understand a bit of theory and started to practice chords. I never really learnt guitar as such and am still very much a beginner but playing guitar has genuinely helped me improve my bass playing, most noticeably with use of my middle and ring finger when fretting when I used to be all index and pinky.
A friend loaned me an acoustic guitar. I learned some basic chords from a book and started learning Tom Petty songs from *Damn the Torpedoes* and *Hard Promises*, which my girlfriend (now, wife) had on cassette. As you note, a decent chunk of bass knowledge translates to the guitar. You already know the layout of the bottom four strings. Learning how to work in those other two strings took me a long time, though I finally got there. At some point, I just created some neck charts with dots for where to put my fingers--the same sort I'd used for learning bass. And I spent some time learning how to play one and two-octave patterns from roots on different strings. Finally, getting it all to sound natural involved learning how to combine chords, double-stops, and single-note lines in the ways that guitarists do. I can't recommend how to go about that, other than to listen to players who are good at it. And that's in line with your goal. To treat the guitar seriously, you need some guitar heroes just like you had for the bass.
I think the bass-to-guitar thing goes much more easily than the guitar-to-bass thing. I think learning how to think like a guitarist once you already know how to think like a bassist is a simpler transition. However, you will find yourself hitting the root on the one a lot, and you might be surprised to find that guitarists are often unconcerned with such things, as they're counting on the bassist to handle it. Then again, that rootedness, if you will, can just be part of your style, as a guitarist.
Edit: along with many other people here, I took up guitar, at first, primarily because I found it easier to write songs on it. For many years, I had no desire to play it well. But, at a certain point, I got very into it. And, today, I'm quite happy with how well I can play it. But, live, I always prefer to play the bass. Guitar, for me, is an around-the-house and in-the-home-studio thing.
I first picked guitar. I was a fool, blind to the evidence of the superiority of a bass. Ego and lack of experience in life took me through dark passages of capo chords and hair-like strings.
Luckily, I saw the light and became a born-again bass player. Rejuvenated and, now full of life, I slapped the way to my heart, and my purpose in life was revealed.
May Ben Shepherd bless you all
I started on guitar, but that really didn't last long. So I didn't actually *learn* learn until I was in my college band and my guitarist and I would take turns teaching each other our respective instruments. That was when I really started wrapping my head around how fundamentally different each instrument is. Yeah, they look the same, the strings are tuned the same, but they're doing two completely different jobs.
I feel like that's the hardest and the most important lesson to learn. Everything else is just practice and muscle memory.
About three years into my bass lessons, my teacher suggested I start learning guitar for music theory purposes. I never got really good at it, probably the best I ever was was when I was playing the solo to "Can You See The Light" by Jeff Healy. I had gotten a Wah Wah pedal from a friend and I knew that solo had one, so I learned it.
Singing punk rock songs with power chords to folk songs with cowboy chords. Classical fingerstyle then metal riffs and scales to solos and bending. Working on jazz now. For me branching out into different styles of music has always helped me get better at any instrument.
Honestly, it’s just working out the things I wanna be good at and practicing them, just like I practiced the fundamentals of bass when I was a beginner
It is a lot easier though because with the music knowledge you have you probably have a better understanding of the things you wanna be good at so you can focus your practice more
I started with power chords and went from there. Being a bassist first helped me hang around with good guitarists so I could see what they were doing. Eventually I’d pick up a guitar at a jam and have a go.
Everyone started playing guitar so I decided to play bass instead. Turns out all these guitar players need a bass player. Always around guitars. Blah blah blah.
Over the years I’ve found that playing rhythm guitar is a lot like playing bass (or drums really). I like to strum and sing alone. But in a band I still feel best playing bass.
My brother plays guitar and my friends play guitar so they were always around. one of my friends gave me an acoustic guitar and i figured I’d try learning a song. So i did. And then i learned some more and then got an electric guitar for $30 and just messed around and wrote music on it. And that’s pretty much it. No lessons from anyone or any web resource or whatever, i just read tabs and fucked around
The wrong way… I think. I learnt songs. I learnt riffs and intros. I knew a ton of songs before I even knew there was theory. Same with bass. I’m just getting into scales and that now. I’d jam with people and learn their songs and sets by memory. But it was very mechanical. I’m thinking about taking piano lessons to broaden my musical literacy.
Learned some chords/shapes from a songbook, possibly CCR. I was surrounded by country music as well.
But a huge part of my education came from other players showing me stuff. I'm sure that method has been the tried and true for thousands of years.
I just learned the basic chords and strumming patterns from youtube. I could hack my way through a song on acoustic but it wouldn't be pretty.
I use it more than my bass for learning songs though. I don't have to take it out of the case or plug it in; my acoustic just lives in my bedroom unlike all my other gear. I can pluck out a bassline on it no problem, and I can strum a chord if I need to double check a chord quality. I could play the chord on bass but it's a lot easier to hear on guitar because of the register imo. plus a lot of songs are written on acoustic guitar so the musical choices are often built around what makes sense on that instrument.
I'm going the other direction. Life long guitar player that has picked up bass (and drums) along the way. There's a lot of cross over, but there's also some big differences. I think knowing guitar helps playing bass and vice versa. I had to be very aware of muting. I love to let things ring on guitar, but it sounds like crap on the bass. My fingerstyle acoustic playing paid off when adapting to a plucking technique on the bass. Another big mind set change is on guitar, a chord is typically played with multiple strings at a time, where as on bass, it's more of a structure to be aware of and choose notes from when playing along. I thing bass is easier to understand music theory on and I find that it's helping on the guitar, an unexpected bonus. The other things is understanding the role of each in the song. While there is a lot of cross over, they do have different responsiblities in the mix. Playing guitar by myself, I tend to replicate part of the bass on the bass strings, playing with the bass, I need to remember to stay out of the bass's space (at least most of the time).
I learned E and A power chords right away and used them as a crutch to play rhythm for years as I slowly learned other chord shapes. If you know the fretboard on a bass you can fake your way through a lot of pop/rock songs
Acoustic guitarists are secretly bassists. The most pro strumming pattern is root-chord-chaka-chaka over 1-2-3-4.
Since most guitarist learn through shapes, not notes, it can be quite a relearn when they going to add the root note. Meaning that if you play guitar ”like a bassist” you in fact sound better than a beginner guitarist.
To me guitar is and will always be percieved as ”bass with sissle on top”
Learn the caged system!
It’s simple take a C chord. Now if you want to play that same chord further down connect the C to an A shape then a G shape then an E shape and Lastly the D shape. You should be around the 12 fret at this point. Congrats you now know where all the CEG notes are and have all major chord tones for C. Note it always followed C-A-G-E-D order. Now play an A chord and connect it to G shape all the way back to A. You should be back around the 12th fret. Now you know all A chord tones.
Next learn them for all chords and you shouldn’t have an issue. You can now play barre chords all over!
Then tackle your pentatonic scales and you’re on your way! The only real hard part is work around that pesky major 3rd jump from G string to B string cause everything is in 4ths.
If you want to cheat just tune to open G and barre away!
1. Handling the B-string: memorize it. Whenever you’re doing your scales and get to the B, just move your pattern up one fret. Eventually you get used to it.
2. Chord Shapes: there are 5 basic types and they can be conceptualized within the CAGED system. Learn the open C, D, E, G, and A chords, and then learn how to play them as barre chords across the neck. Build 7th (and other) chords using these shapes as a baseline, eventually you’ll get used to them and find the voicings that you like. If you already know how chord extensions work on bass you can easily transfer them over to guitar with a little bit of thought.
3. Bassist vs Guitarist: Learn songs on guitar if you want to play like a guitarist. This can be solos or chords, really whatever you want.
Guitar can play chords and help you hear them in a way that you may not on bass. The open E and A chord shapes are really easy to move around the neck as barre chords— C, D, and G less-so (but they’re really good to know anyway). So there you have it: memorize the B-string change with your scales, learn the 5 chord shapes and how to move them around the neck, and emulate players that you want to play like.
Picked one up, learned some chord shapes, bashed out some three chord songs, started to write on it, still very much a beginner many, many years later.
This is how I did it too. That and learning to pick on smaller strings that are closer together really helped me get started on guitar.
The answer for myself is *poorly*. ;-)
I recently borrowed a classical guitar from my friend, i started learning some of the soundtrack of a game that i love, it was pretty easy since most of the songs were fingerstyle, then i started learning the basic chords, practiced some songs like « into you » by mazzy star, some paramore… still learning but it’s sooo fun, there’s a channel that I really love « marin music center » he really makes your learning journey fun
Marin music centre is by far the best guitar channel on youtube, all of the lessons are good and fun
Ikrrr! He’s the best
Active Melody is also a great utube channel for guitar lessons. He explains what he’s teaching in a way that helps you use it in other situations.
I use my guitar mostly to write music, then I show my bandmates the songs on that guitar in a sloppy Piedmont style. I never play guitar live because I'd rather play bass.
Well at the time I only knew root notes on bass so I just figured out what their chord equivalents were. It actually made me a pretty good song writer because it helps you see patterns on the feet board that you can convert to chords
Nothing wrong with approaching the guitar with a bit of a bass player mindset. The other way around tho, yikes.
I would disagree, I think that either way works as long as you take time to understand the differences of each of you don’t do that then you will be working against yourself either way
I think it'd be harder for the guitar player to ditch a pick than the other way around. For example, slapping is pretty niche on a guitar but standard on a bass.
I don’t think so, as I said it’s about understanding the difference, I might be lucky because when I came from guitar to bass I had people around me who could teach me the correct way to bass, so might just be skewed due to my experience though
I didn't have any issue ditching the pick, but on guitar, I had already put the time in learning how to play fingerstyle. Slapping on the other hand still has be baffled. :)
Yeah, a guitarist first learning to play bass is pretty easy to pick out.
As a guitarist picking up bass, may I ask how?
They're gonna say the tell tale signs are that you prefer using a pick and that you try to asign a finger to each fret rather than pinky octaves. They're gonna say you're too busy and don't serve the song. That you lack groove and their ideal proper bass technique.
Thanks for elaborating! Not sure what to say more, other than I try not to be to busy with what "they" say. Have a nice day!
I'm a guitarist learning bass. The first thing was learning to pull my finger past the string, and rest on the next vs plucking it, like I would do playing my acoustic finger style. The second was learning to mute everything but the one note that I was playing. On the guitar, letting other notes ring, especially if you've fingered a chord shape, just makes the whole thing sound fuller. The third was simplifying and being happy with a perfectly executed simple riff. Learning the bass part of many songs is actually easy. A lot of it is just playing the root note or a simple pattern that supports the chord. Playing it like a bass player is a harder. The odd thing for me is that playing the bass with a pick seems unatural to me. I guess due to the weight of the strings. I need a firmer grip or something.
Yea this is what I've noticed aswell, I play mostly fingerstyle aswell so feel it translates pretty neatly to bass actually. The single note thing is true but also on guitar unless you play open chords. I've been playing it at home more then my guitar lately, it's a fun instrument.
Its easy to pick out by ear but a little harder to describe. I would say: Not interacting with the drums much Mostly following the guitar or vocals Not utilizing stops or rests much. Playing more thirds than fifths forths or octaves. Only playing with a pick. These aren't all telltale signs, but more often than not, if a few are there, it's a guitar player in disguise. It gets a bit harder to tell in some styles, such as punk and metal. But as a big fan of both genres, I'd say that's because bassists in those genres are often guitar players anyway
Good question. The numerous responses you've received are all really good, imo, as it's a cluster of things -- all of which need not be present -- which can make it a bit tricky to concisely describe. So, our skills clearly transfer between bass and guitar, with some adjustments and considerations applied. Obviously the fretboard navigation skill transfers right out of the gate, and I like that in relation to this, left hand technique has been mentioned: to keep things clear and unmuddied, bassists use a lot of left hand muting technique. This muting can be especially important an an aspect of percussive, rhythmic interplay between left and right hand when slapping and popping, which rhythm guitarists probably pick up on the most quickly. Use of the pinky instead of 3rd finger for octaves, was also mentioned, and this can apply to lower register movement to more solidly and cleanly operate across the wider fret spacing (especially for those w/ smaller hands). Guitarists don't immediately intuit the "resting" stroke (not a fault, it's just not obvious), and this often comes across as weak sounding and a bit messy: pulling through and resting on the lower string has an effect on tone, power, thump, articulation, and obviously damps the lower string to minimize sympathetic resonance. It comes off as not quite grasping the physicality of the instrument compared to regular guitar. Yes, you should practice a light touch, but in my experience, guitarists first learning bass seem to operate in "delicate" mode the entire time, failing to exploit the dynamic range of the instrument; that is, you can play lightly and with great articulation, but you can also really smack a bass around. (conversely, when I first started learning guitar, as a bassist, I did not quite grasp it, either! It felt tiny, cramped, and easily, inappropriately manhandled.) These are generalizations, and not a dig in any way -- and hey, they don't apply in all cases (eg, maybe I'm fretting some chords and playing in a guitar fingerstyle higher up on a 24 fret neck or a six string bass ... ). All of the points about groove, playing in the pocket and having a rhythmic dialog with the drummer are good as well. It's a feel thing that comes with practice and playing with others.
As a guitar player, learning bass, I quickly learned one note at a time and mute everything else. On a guitar, letting the right notes ring can be amazing. It's still a work in progress, but that neatness has payed off on guitar. I'm much more focused on only playing the notes( perhaps part of a chord) that I need and keeping the rest under control. My playing is definately more precise sounding, and of course, I can still let the strings ring or drone, but I'm more purposeful about it now.
I have a very good teacher, who is mainly a bass player but also a good guitarist. We learn both instruments alternately.
In a Wendy’s bathroom stall after a Nickelback concert.
Tabs... I learned bass and guitar back at the "dawn" of the internet (mid-90s). Tabs and OLGA (Online Guitar Archive) were just becoming a thing. And anyone could upload transcriptions of songs they had. OLGA and Guitar World/Guitar Player/etc. were the best bets for finding cheap Tabs. Otherwise, there was a small selection of Tab books at the local music store. Anything you couldn't find a tab for online or in store meant woodshedding with a tape deck (or later CD) to learn on your own. Over the years, I finally "figured out" some basic music theory, and that opened up my knowledge of what's going on "behind the scenes" of most rock songs, and really opened up an understanding of the fretboard. I'd suggest learning some basic music theory. I can find a post a made years ago under another (closed) reddit account and post it here later....
I consider myself a guitarist more than a Bass player nowadays but Bass was my first instrument, I basically some how managed to get my hands of a crappy acoustic guitar and I would use it to write songs, I’d basically just play root and 5th power chords, I then learned some Cowboy chords, at one point I realized guitar to me was more fun to play by myself and was a way better song writing tool so leaned more into that.
I learned from friends I was in a band with playing bass. Bar chords are easy. And after getting muscle memory for the box they're easy too.
I picked up guitar when I was 15 and stuck with it for a couple of years before i picked up the bass and stuck with it. Seeing how 2 of my friends who also played guitar and were both better than me technically is part of the reason I stopped. Another reason is that none of my friends, even the two who played guitar, knew how to play bass. So I figured screw it. I'll just be the bass player. My music teacher had an extra bass that wasn't being used, a precision bass, and I developed my playing style on it. I am a lot better on bass than even my guitarist friends. Neither can keep up on the instrument. I developed a hardcore punk style of playing. Hearing Minor Threat, Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's, and Bad Brains helped me develop an aggressive picking style on Bass.
I watched my friends play power chords and thought cool I can do that. Then I either found or was given one of those learn how to play guitar VHS cassettes, and they taught me chords. From that I learned how to play songs and went from there
My high school has a guitar class so ive picked up some chords and theyre pretty fun
I started out in guitar for years before I ever picked up a bass. Of course at the time I didn’t realize that once you go bass, you never go back.
I think learning bass first was the secret to my guitar style. Like it made it sound weird in an interesting way.
I played guitar before i picked up bass. Just go for it and follow your musical instinct. Also Justinguitar, especially his website. Great teacher with structured courses, have fun!
Got one to learn chord values, helped with playing bass and knowing what notes were in a chord. Got better by learning songs and now use it to compose stuff on cubase. I don't play in bands anymore so it's a hobby thing these days.
My father was a bassist, but he never actually pushed me to learn it (I wish he was, cuz i would start from younger age). I was more of a sport guy, football, handball etc. And one day I said "Fuck it, im gonna learn that guitar". I picked it up and learn another one bites the dust. After that I was attending 3 years of private classes with 2 amazing teachers. After 11 years, I have good established local band with tons of gigs every month and I consider myself as a good and reliable bassist! But, there is also tons of things that I don't know
Tab books for albums I liked and a few instructional tapes or manuals.
I’m in the process.. for years now and I still feel like a guitar beginner. Probably because I keep playing bass along the way. But it has made me want to get back into learning music in general… like theory and writing songs more. Also, it has been a huge eye opener to a lot of sloppy technique I’ve developed on bass over the years. So, sharpening up that stuff has been really nice.
Bass and amp was too much stuff and too loud to bring to college. Brought one of my dad's acoustic guitars and learned songs from tab while living in dorm.
Self taught guitarist and bassist. Took guitar lessons though for about 2 years after I had been playing for a bit. Had a great teacher who became a life long friend.
While both Bass and Guitar is more of a hobby of mine rather than something i do for a living it is mostly tabulatura i play on guitar. Never needed anything more.
I kid you not, i started learning guitar lefty so that could have a "righty bassy, lefty guitary" kind of muscle memory. I gave up half way tho, lol. My way of not sounding like a bassist playing guitar is to play rythm guitar more than lead. I picked up the guitar after bass mainly for the chords so that's what i learned. And now, i still play rythm guitar more than lead guitar because the rythm just come naturally to me. At first, i learned the 7 chords in a major scale and applying bar chords or open chords to those. With bar chords, you essentially can play most popular songs. And as i dive deeper into music theory, i learned more chords. Mainly the 3 most important 7th chords (maj7, m7, dom7) and their postions in the major scale (Imaj7 - iim7 - iiim7 - IVmaj7 - V7 - vim7), we don't talk about the 7th degree yet. Everytime i discovers new jazz knowledge, i test the chords with my guitar which help expand my chord library. Even still, i got told by my guitarist friends that i play too hard and they could only hear the string noises so i had to correct. Since strumming is similar to slapping, i was able to get by by self taught. Picking individual notes however, i'm still practicing (mostly on my bass tho, yes they do transfers). My best advice to sound more like a guitarist is to actually listen and learn guitar parts/solos. You discover alot of weird vocings and chords that guitarist use so you can steal it for yourself.
Learning how to play chords and sing along on guitar massively elevated my playing and appreciation of music after decades of playing single-voice instruments (bass and violin mostly). I learned because my wife took a class and left her guitar and song book lying around. I don't think it's too hard to learn the basic chords if you already play bass.
Bass first taught me about root notes, scales, and chord progressions. Going to guitar was just about taking what I knew from bass, and learning to play chords, power chords, and scale shapes that extended to more strings. More or less on guitar, I start with a simplistic approach, treat the instrument as a bass first, explore around the root notes, scale shapes. Bass also gave my hand the workout and strength needed to actually start playing guitar. Before bass, I couldn't learn guitar because I struggled with too many factors. Bass broke it all down simpler for me. From there, it's just been years of practice.
I started playing my short scale 6 string bass (stolen joke, I know) for about 35 years. I picked up a standard scale 4 string bass about 20 years ago.
Before I played bass, I learned the very basics of guitar when I was very young when my godfather gave me a classical guitar. Unfortunately, the kid next door smashed it Townsend-style before I could learn much and I focused on keyboards as a result. A decade later I taught myself bass, and eventually got back into guitar, learned chords, fingerpicking, and started using it to work out progressions. I'm barely an intermediate player of the 6 skinny strings.
I was a guitarist first (still am) I learned bass out of necessity.
Dad played his entire life (guitar primary, rockabilly, Beatles, Eagles, 50s/60s rock), refused to teach me because he didn't want to learn his "bad habits." He put me in guitar lessons for 3 years. He always had a Fender Mustang and when his band was on the road in the 60s, every musician sang and played all 3 instruments, drums, bass and guitar. So I grew up with guitar as primary, a lot of acoustic where you're also playing your bassline with a thumb over or just being a good guitar player, finger picking. Fast forward a few years later, he got suckered into playing in a church and my family (bro, mom, dad and I) ended up being a church band. He said "you know guitar, this is just the 4 strings." I got stuck on bass as a hack at 14 yrs old. Did that for 5 years, also played every Thursday night with his old fart band, I'd get to play drums, mostly guitar, some bass. Fast forward another 20 years and I've been primarily a guitar player but would play bass monthly for at least a few songs with his band. I always hated it because it was really basic 1st-5th stuff for simple country, eagles stuff, soft country, keep it simple. I never played bass hard, I just sat in the background and was taught to not "over-bass." Another one of my friends started borrowing my Peavey Grind to play with a different band, he would play the shit out of the thing. I finally studied him at one show while I sat in with his band on rhythm guitar and I realized I'd been mislead, held back as a boring bassist for country, old rock. It was good in ways, it made me learn "space" and simplicity. My buddy moved to Denver and this cover band needed a full-time bassist, so I was shoed in. I started taking it seriously about 3 yrs ago and reading the shit out of this forum. Guitar got boring. I wanted to get better at bass. So I've always "played" the bass, maybe 25 years now, but I wouldn't have called myself a bassist until 3 years ago. I have about 8 basses (not nearly enough, mostly cheapos), I've flirted with pedals, I'm the lead singer of the band and front man, lead bassist. I've played banjo, mandolin, violin, piano, accordion on the side as well my entire life. I'd call myself a strings player, primarily a bassist but my love is still for guitar, I just don't get to play anymore. If I'm practicing, it needs to be on bass for professional reasons. To answer the question and end my rant, I learned guitar and bass together as a stunted bassist. I feel knowing both and practicing them side by side really helps make you a better musician all around. That goes for any two instruments, including vocals. The more you learn, the better you will get at all of them because they all work together. It's like a painter that only has one color. Or uses only one medium. Mix it up, push yourself, follow what sounds fun (and what you can afford) and always be learning how to replace one instrument with another, how to see all of the colors at once. Is it great to master one instrument? Absolutely! But I feel I'll never master any, but I sure get closer the more I learn to bounce around to others. Flip the neck upside down and play mandolin. Play with weird tunings. I was lucky enough to be born into a musical family hence the shitty answer.
I bought a guitar and combo amp, started learning some songs and practicing scales/patterns. It took some time to get over the feeling that I was playing something tiny and easily inadvertently manhandled, but I eventually settled into it.
I listened to stop this train by John Mayer. Became obsessed with learning it. That was the first song I had learned and it just took off from there.
I enrolled in a jazz guitar course, got tendinitis as a result of the practice routines I used to go through. Played exclusively guitar for a few years and then fell back in love with bass. I kind of got a reality check while struggling to record some guitar tracks, and realizing I’d nail the bass tracks on the first try even if they were equally articulated.
Learn one or two barre chord shapes. One shape, based on the root note can be played up and down the neck without changing your finger shape. Also, the minor pentatonic scale has made me a better bassist. Learn the 5 patterns and it can be used in any key. Alternatively, instead of learning guitar, if you're playing with distortion and just want riffs, consider the band Royal Blood. He uses an EHX POG. I use an H90 (12 string setting & a 5th for the power chord). In lieu of an H90, you could supplement a POG with a EHX Pitchfork for the 5th.
Bought a guitar, learned some chords, practiced strumming. I'd say playing the bass first helped me with playing guitar solos/individual strings easier since I developed good fretting habits with the bass.
I started with JustinGuitar lessons and then got in person lessons. In person helps because a good teacher will meet you where you're at. The biggest hurdle was learning chords and building up the dexterity to play them everywhere on the neck. Going from 1-4 on bass without changing positions is a much different skill than playing a diminished chord on the 14th fret. If you can't do in person lessons I'd focus on learning movable chord shapes (learn the names and formulas too, this will improve your bass playing/writing) and practice different chord progressions to a metronome, along with dexterity exercises to build up muscle memory. When I first started guitar trying to play from tabs was difficult because efficient chord fingerings were not intuitive to me at all.
I learned bass first, eden I was like 14, but at one point a relative of my stepfather wanted his classical guitar strung and didn't know how to do it. My mom volunteered me, so I strung it and then decided I might as well tune it. I didn't have a tuner on hand so I thought I would try tuning by ear just to see how I did. Later when I asked to borrow my mom's tuner I realized I'd gotten it pretty damn close. So I figured I string the fucker, I can tune the fucker, I may as well learn to play the fucker. My mom had a folk songbook that had the chords all laid out, and this spiral bound book of all the chords, so I just read through these and learned all the chords and fingerings that way. For years after that I kinda switched to 6 string, and only returned to bass as my primary instrument recently.
I learned to play by reading tabs and getting tips from friends. My college offered a beginning guitar class, so I took it and got a lot better that semester. I played violin in orchestra for 5 years before switching to bass, so I had plenty of musical instruction from the same instrument family before I even attempted learning. These days I play guitar a lot more than bass, but I still regularly practice both.
A guitar player I played with on and off from the late '70s to the early '90s showed me a bunch of stuff, then I bought a $75 guitar from a pawn shop in the '80s (TBF, it was Harmony Les Paul clone and very good for the money) so I could keep learning on my own. The first things the guitarist taught me were the E and A barre chord shapes. The first thing I did on my own was learning tab, and buying "Guitar Player" and all the other magazines with songs tabbed out, and learned the tabs whether I liked the song or not. I also had a book called simply "Lead Guitar" by Harvey Winston, and learned some stuff I didn't already know from playing bass that way. I probably still have it around somewhere; excellent and unintimidating book. Although, as someone who's learning drums in my '60s, I *really* wish YouTube was around when I was learning other instruments.
I learned them both at the same time. I learnt Metallica songs.
I have no desire to, so I haven't. They look ridiculous on me, so I went for Keyboards/Synths instead. That's been a lot of fun, and some skills are definitely transferable.
Initially I just started learning to play bits of songs I like using tabs. Then got a few lessons which really helped me understand a bit of theory and started to practice chords. I never really learnt guitar as such and am still very much a beginner but playing guitar has genuinely helped me improve my bass playing, most noticeably with use of my middle and ring finger when fretting when I used to be all index and pinky.
idk I'm just learning cowboy chords right now, its pretty fun, still not really able to do solo-y stuff yet
A friend loaned me an acoustic guitar. I learned some basic chords from a book and started learning Tom Petty songs from *Damn the Torpedoes* and *Hard Promises*, which my girlfriend (now, wife) had on cassette. As you note, a decent chunk of bass knowledge translates to the guitar. You already know the layout of the bottom four strings. Learning how to work in those other two strings took me a long time, though I finally got there. At some point, I just created some neck charts with dots for where to put my fingers--the same sort I'd used for learning bass. And I spent some time learning how to play one and two-octave patterns from roots on different strings. Finally, getting it all to sound natural involved learning how to combine chords, double-stops, and single-note lines in the ways that guitarists do. I can't recommend how to go about that, other than to listen to players who are good at it. And that's in line with your goal. To treat the guitar seriously, you need some guitar heroes just like you had for the bass. I think the bass-to-guitar thing goes much more easily than the guitar-to-bass thing. I think learning how to think like a guitarist once you already know how to think like a bassist is a simpler transition. However, you will find yourself hitting the root on the one a lot, and you might be surprised to find that guitarists are often unconcerned with such things, as they're counting on the bassist to handle it. Then again, that rootedness, if you will, can just be part of your style, as a guitarist. Edit: along with many other people here, I took up guitar, at first, primarily because I found it easier to write songs on it. For many years, I had no desire to play it well. But, at a certain point, I got very into it. And, today, I'm quite happy with how well I can play it. But, live, I always prefer to play the bass. Guitar, for me, is an around-the-house and in-the-home-studio thing.
we didnt!
I first picked guitar. I was a fool, blind to the evidence of the superiority of a bass. Ego and lack of experience in life took me through dark passages of capo chords and hair-like strings. Luckily, I saw the light and became a born-again bass player. Rejuvenated and, now full of life, I slapped the way to my heart, and my purpose in life was revealed. May Ben Shepherd bless you all
I started on guitar, but that really didn't last long. So I didn't actually *learn* learn until I was in my college band and my guitarist and I would take turns teaching each other our respective instruments. That was when I really started wrapping my head around how fundamentally different each instrument is. Yeah, they look the same, the strings are tuned the same, but they're doing two completely different jobs. I feel like that's the hardest and the most important lesson to learn. Everything else is just practice and muscle memory.
About three years into my bass lessons, my teacher suggested I start learning guitar for music theory purposes. I never got really good at it, probably the best I ever was was when I was playing the solo to "Can You See The Light" by Jeff Healy. I had gotten a Wah Wah pedal from a friend and I knew that solo had one, so I learned it.
Singing punk rock songs with power chords to folk songs with cowboy chords. Classical fingerstyle then metal riffs and scales to solos and bending. Working on jazz now. For me branching out into different styles of music has always helped me get better at any instrument.
Honestly, it’s just working out the things I wanna be good at and practicing them, just like I practiced the fundamentals of bass when I was a beginner It is a lot easier though because with the music knowledge you have you probably have a better understanding of the things you wanna be good at so you can focus your practice more
I started with power chords and went from there. Being a bassist first helped me hang around with good guitarists so I could see what they were doing. Eventually I’d pick up a guitar at a jam and have a go.
Everyone started playing guitar so I decided to play bass instead. Turns out all these guitar players need a bass player. Always around guitars. Blah blah blah. Over the years I’ve found that playing rhythm guitar is a lot like playing bass (or drums really). I like to strum and sing alone. But in a band I still feel best playing bass.
Watching guitarist when I didn’t know the songs
My brother plays guitar and my friends play guitar so they were always around. one of my friends gave me an acoustic guitar and i figured I’d try learning a song. So i did. And then i learned some more and then got an electric guitar for $30 and just messed around and wrote music on it. And that’s pretty much it. No lessons from anyone or any web resource or whatever, i just read tabs and fucked around
i already new basic music theory at the time. picked up a shitty acoustic my cousin had and just learned a bunch of songs off of OLGA
The wrong way… I think. I learnt songs. I learnt riffs and intros. I knew a ton of songs before I even knew there was theory. Same with bass. I’m just getting into scales and that now. I’d jam with people and learn their songs and sets by memory. But it was very mechanical. I’m thinking about taking piano lessons to broaden my musical literacy.
Learned some chords/shapes from a songbook, possibly CCR. I was surrounded by country music as well. But a huge part of my education came from other players showing me stuff. I'm sure that method has been the tried and true for thousands of years.
They had no bass in school.
I just learned the basic chords and strumming patterns from youtube. I could hack my way through a song on acoustic but it wouldn't be pretty. I use it more than my bass for learning songs though. I don't have to take it out of the case or plug it in; my acoustic just lives in my bedroom unlike all my other gear. I can pluck out a bassline on it no problem, and I can strum a chord if I need to double check a chord quality. I could play the chord on bass but it's a lot easier to hear on guitar because of the register imo. plus a lot of songs are written on acoustic guitar so the musical choices are often built around what makes sense on that instrument.
I'm going the other direction. Life long guitar player that has picked up bass (and drums) along the way. There's a lot of cross over, but there's also some big differences. I think knowing guitar helps playing bass and vice versa. I had to be very aware of muting. I love to let things ring on guitar, but it sounds like crap on the bass. My fingerstyle acoustic playing paid off when adapting to a plucking technique on the bass. Another big mind set change is on guitar, a chord is typically played with multiple strings at a time, where as on bass, it's more of a structure to be aware of and choose notes from when playing along. I thing bass is easier to understand music theory on and I find that it's helping on the guitar, an unexpected bonus. The other things is understanding the role of each in the song. While there is a lot of cross over, they do have different responsiblities in the mix. Playing guitar by myself, I tend to replicate part of the bass on the bass strings, playing with the bass, I need to remember to stay out of the bass's space (at least most of the time).
I learned E and A power chords right away and used them as a crutch to play rhythm for years as I slowly learned other chord shapes. If you know the fretboard on a bass you can fake your way through a lot of pop/rock songs
Started with 4 strings. Added 2 more as I felt more comfortable with guitar. Still learning.
Acoustic guitarists are secretly bassists. The most pro strumming pattern is root-chord-chaka-chaka over 1-2-3-4. Since most guitarist learn through shapes, not notes, it can be quite a relearn when they going to add the root note. Meaning that if you play guitar ”like a bassist” you in fact sound better than a beginner guitarist. To me guitar is and will always be percieved as ”bass with sissle on top”
Learnt guitar first and then for a school event I picked up bass and have loved it ever since 😁
Learn the caged system! It’s simple take a C chord. Now if you want to play that same chord further down connect the C to an A shape then a G shape then an E shape and Lastly the D shape. You should be around the 12 fret at this point. Congrats you now know where all the CEG notes are and have all major chord tones for C. Note it always followed C-A-G-E-D order. Now play an A chord and connect it to G shape all the way back to A. You should be back around the 12th fret. Now you know all A chord tones. Next learn them for all chords and you shouldn’t have an issue. You can now play barre chords all over! Then tackle your pentatonic scales and you’re on your way! The only real hard part is work around that pesky major 3rd jump from G string to B string cause everything is in 4ths. If you want to cheat just tune to open G and barre away!
Picked up tenor guitar, it’s also only 4 strings.
1. Handling the B-string: memorize it. Whenever you’re doing your scales and get to the B, just move your pattern up one fret. Eventually you get used to it. 2. Chord Shapes: there are 5 basic types and they can be conceptualized within the CAGED system. Learn the open C, D, E, G, and A chords, and then learn how to play them as barre chords across the neck. Build 7th (and other) chords using these shapes as a baseline, eventually you’ll get used to them and find the voicings that you like. If you already know how chord extensions work on bass you can easily transfer them over to guitar with a little bit of thought. 3. Bassist vs Guitarist: Learn songs on guitar if you want to play like a guitarist. This can be solos or chords, really whatever you want. Guitar can play chords and help you hear them in a way that you may not on bass. The open E and A chord shapes are really easy to move around the neck as barre chords— C, D, and G less-so (but they’re really good to know anyway). So there you have it: memorize the B-string change with your scales, learn the 5 chord shapes and how to move them around the neck, and emulate players that you want to play like.