Bass Guitar Exercises For Beginners (6 Fun Drills To Learn Vital Skills)

Getting better at bass guitar takes practice.

Everyone knows that.

What most beginning bassists don’t know is what they should practice.

How do you make the most of your limited practice time?

You need focused bass guitar exercises that help you work on specific skills every bassist needs.

Even better, if those exercises are also fun.

Keep reading for 6 great beginner bass guitar exercises that will help you level up in certain key skills. Hopefully you have fun doing the exercises, too. I know I still enjoy doing them as a professional. They are great for warming up.

 

Bass Guitar Exercises For Beginners

These bass exercises are listed in order of difficulty. You’ll want to start with the first one and move down the list, once you have the previous exercise down.

 

Simple Open E Gallop

One of the most basic, yet most efficient, exercises I routinely perform to warm my fingers up is the simple open E gallop. It helps me activate my picking hand and work on keeping time properly, without having to focus on fretting any notes.

Even though this is almost a mandatory exercise for rock and metal bass players, I think everyone can benefit from it. I usually use it when I don’t have much time to get into “ready to play” mode, since it works great at any given tempo.

You can slightly modify this exercise, if you want to work on both hands at the same time. Here is a simple example.

With a few notes replacing the open strings, this exercise effectively becomes a simple lick. You can use whichever scale you are comfortable with. As long as you use this pattern, this exercise is as beginner-friendly as they come.

 

Arpeggiated E And F Chords

A chord progression consisting of only two chords, E and F, is fairly basic, even when arpeggiated. That’s why I usually love to start from the bottom up for the first two bars, and then inverse the plucking order for the third and fourth.

The purpose of this exercise is twofold. First, you get to practice two very mainstream chords that you’ll use in pretty much any song in the key of E Minor. Second, you get to work on your fretting accuracy (mainly because of the inversion on the 3rd bar).

You’d be surprised how simple and beginner-friendly this exercise is at lower tempos, especially around 90-100 bpm. If you don’t have much experience with chords on the bass, feel free to slow it down even further. If you still feel overwhelmed, drop the F chord from the equation and practice upward E instead like this.

 

High-Note Melodic Jam In E Minor

When I started playing bass guitar, I was desperately trying to figure out how to use all four fingers on my fretting hand, especially the pinky. I later realized that this can be a bit more difficult on lower frets since they’re wider.

After covering dozens of Iron Maiden, Death, Kalmah, and Insomnium songs, I realized that noodling on higher notes is incomparably easier. That’s why I made a simple exercise inspired by some of their most melodic riffs to practice a few fundamentals, including:

• Using all 4 fingers
• Making bar chords mid-riff
• Transposing the same lick to lower frets on the same scale

This exercise is much easier than it seems, but just in case, keep the tempo low when you’re starting out. After a few tries, you’ll either learn how to make more effective use of your fretting hand or develop more flexible ways to fret with the fingers you’re comfortable using.

 

Gallop Into Power Chords

One of the first things you’ll need to learn how to do as a bass guitar player is to follow your lead guitarist, especially when they’re soloing. The “gallop into power chord” is a staple for most rock and metal bands in such scenarios, not to mention that you’ll be able to craft some juicy breakdowns of your own. if you experiment with this concept a little.

The purpose of this exercise is quite simple. It combines the first two from the list into a more practical execution of what you’ve already learned. By blending the galloping sixteens with an eight’s worth of a power chord, you’ll be able to follow pretty much any solo, as long as you know the notes and key.

Besides combining faster open notes with simple chords, this exercise will also help you work on your palm muting and release skills. Knowing when and how long to sustain your palm-muting technique is crucial to not overwhelm the other instruments (that are also trying to keep a steady presence), and this exercise will help you work on that.

 

Groovy Slides

Sliding, hammer-ons, and pull-offs are considered beginner techniques, but I’ve yet to meet a newbie who can pull them off correctly. Most people either overplay or downplay when using these techniques.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of trying to hammer everything once you’ve learned how to do it, because it helps with playing economy.

That’s why I’ve created a simple exercise to help you learn how to alternate between plucking and sliding. To add the additional benefit of working in different times, I’ve shifted from the traditional 4/4 to a 3/4 time signature.

Essentially, once you start performing this exercise, your brain will automatically recognize the first two notes as regular ones, and the following trio as sliding notes.

That’s why this exercise features a shift on the 3rd and 4th bars, introducing a legato slide right off the bat and removing it from the G-E-G trio.

If you want more of a challenge, you can try combining everything you’ve learned with the following jumble of arpeggiated scales and legato slides.

 

Basic Time Signature Shifts Exercise

As someone who grew up adoring Rush and Dream Theater, I couldn’t help but notice something was “off” in their songs. It was my music illiteracy. I didn’t know what time signatures meant and how difficult it can be for a non-musician to grasp what is being played.

You’ve probably played and practiced everything in the standard 4/4 so far. Eventually, you’ll be able to do anything in this time signature.

But you’ll want to learn how to play in other time signatures, too. To help you prepare for different time signatures, I’ve made a simple exercise that jumps in and out of 4/4s and 3/4s.

Before you start playing, let me give you a tip. Count to eight once, and then count to six once. Repeat this a couple of times, and you’ll have a much easier time completing this basic exercise.

If you’re looking for a more challenging time-signature-related exercise, here’s a little bonus.

The illustration above ends in an odd-time signature that bands like Dream Theater, The Mothers of Invention, and Tool are famous for, so it could pass as an intermediate exercise. Once you’ve mastered all the previous exercises, give this one a shot.

 

Beginner Bass Guitar Exercises: Final Thoughts

The bass guitar exercises above are all great for beginning bassists, because they help you work on vital skills in a fun way. They are also good as warm-ups for advanced bass players. I still use them, or similar exercises, to this day.

As mentioned, the exercises are arranged in order of difficulty. If you are a beginner on the bass guitar, you’ll want to start with the first exercise and work your way down the list. Some of the later ones may be too difficult for absolute beginners, but you’ll get there eventually. Just keep at it!