Guitar Lesson Focus: 7 Points To Playing: Part 5

Guitar Lesson Focus: 7 Points To Playing: Part 5

Rhythm Section Rules / Big Bottom

In my private teaching practice offering guitar lessons and bass lessons at Arcadia Music Studio in Concord, I often will help developing players in their approach to live performance. Probably the most critical advice I can give a developing guitar player in a band is that the bass and drums are the most important and fundamental part of every musical combo. A band is only as good as its rhythm section because the bass connects the time of the drums with every other instrument of the group.

So now all the bass players realize that they are more essential to the musical output of the band than the flashy and cocky guitar players they have to deal with.  The bass is the foundation upon which the tonality of each musical section sits.  And it’s important for bass players to realize that the role of the instrument changes from style to style.  In reggae music, the bass sounds like a low-end lead, and is contrasted by bright upper-register guitar voicings played to a syncopated rhythm.  In heavy rock, however, the bass hold down the low end of the frequency range with the guitar taking up more room in the midrange.  It’s important to realize that the bass is not a lead instrument in rock, and it’s important for the player to equalize the sound so it does not mask the low-end of the guitar.

As a professional music instructor, I feel very responsible to translate my stage experience in Li’l Ricky Blues into  understandable bites in order to help my students be prepared for their performances. My students and I are always talking of the ways and means for them to bring it to the stage and send it to the crowd in the private guitar lessons I offer at  Arcadia Music Studio in Concord, CA. Tune in next week for the next series of articles..