An introduction to the bass guitar and how to use Gigajam's lessons and software. If you are new to Gigajam or to the bass, start here.

You are introduced to quarter notes and the concept of root notes. You will develop the ability to play A and G in rock grooves so that by the end of the lesson you are able to play along with music.

In this lesson, you learn how to create rhythm using different notes. You will start to develop your right hand picking technique. You will play a series of rock grooves with varied rhythms, along with backing tracks.

You will develop a good understanding and performance of rhythm and how to read rhythm on the musical stave. You will learn two new notes to play with your existing notes by the end of this lesson.

This lesson brings together all the notes and rhythms learned so far. It helps you to develop a good level of performance. You will be challenged to further develop your left hand fingering technique in this lesson.

This lesson contains challenging studies to develop your fluency of performance. There are more rock grooves for you to read and play.

This lesson further develops your fluency and control of rhythm using quarter and eighth notes. Furthermore, we introduce the D and G strings and begin the first part of our study of octave shapes.

Extending the concept of octave shapes to all notes learned so far, this lesson focuses on developing your understanding of the fingerboard to develop greater fluency in your performance.

Here you expand the concept of fingerboard symmetry, by introducing the concept of the fifth shape. This in turn opens up new notes and new sounds, as well as helping you move more fluently and with greater knowledge around the bass guitar.

This lesson uses your increasing knowledge and performance of octave and fifth shapes to learn more notes, develop greater fluency and increase your knowledge and performance of all natural notes on the bass guitar.

Learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson completes your Level 1 in Essential Bass Skills with Gigajam Bass School.

Watch the The First Time being performed by the Gigajam band.

In this lesson you will learn to be able to recognise and play quarter note and eighth note rests, enabling you to create more interesting rhythmic bass patterns.

Here we will lay down the foundation knowledge for the concept of scales and learn to play A minor as an ascending and descending scale using the correct fingers and scale shape.

Having learned how to play a scale we will immediately take you through the process of developing rock grooves using your ability to understand and play in minor scales. You will also have the opportunity to learn a new technique called hammer on, which is frequently used by bass players. This will provide you with more control over your sound.

Building on the skills learned through Level 2 thus far, this lesson incorporates your ability to play rhythmic combinations of both notes and rests, helping you create ever increasingly more sophisticated bass guitar rhythms.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to take the concept of minor scale shapes and play all of the natural minor scales on the bass guitar. This is a lesson that builds directly on the skills you developed from Lesson 12.

This lesson introduces the concept of the major scale and the major scale shape and develops your ability to play and be familiar with the major scale of C. This will enable you, as we did in Lesson 12, to then transfer the major scale shape to every natural major scale.

Here we develop playing the major scale and learn how to transfer the major scale shape to each of the natural notes, building directly again on previously learned skills. We need to introduce and learn the new notes of F#, C# and G#.

We will develop our ability to play more sophisticated rhythms during this lesson as we learn to be able to understand, recognise, read and play dotted notes. We will incorporate these new notes into our rhythm library and combine them with our existing rhythmic knowledge.

We will develop the ability to play both a fifth above and a fifth below the root so that we can develop ever increasingly more musical and creative rock grooves. We will combine the knowledge and skills developed with rhythm through this grade to be incorporated with these new patterns and play a series of challenging rock grooves.

Learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson can go towards your Level Two in Essential Bass Skills with Gigajam Bass School.

In this lesson you will learn how to construct chords using triads so that you can develop and create bass lines and riffs to play with major chords.

In this lesson you will develop your ability to create and develop bass lines and riffs by introducing minor triads. This will extend the skills developed in Lesson 21 with major triads.

This lesson focuses on understanding how ties are used to create rhythm. Having learned to understand the appearance of ties the lesson takes you through a series of practical exercises which will develop your ability to read and perform ties accurately.

In this lesson we take previously learned skills and knowledge and develop by performing practical exercises using triads. Specifically the lesson focuses on playing combinations of bass riffs around major and minor triads. Rhythmic development is also combined with the use of dotted and tied notes.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to take the concept of minor scale shapes and play all of the natural minor scales on the bass guitar. This is a lesson that builds directly on the skills you developed from Lesson 12.

This lesson introduces the concept of the major scale and the major scale shape and develops your ability to play and be familiar with the major scale of C. This will enable you, as we did in Lesson 12, to then transfer the major scale shape to every natural major scale.

In this lesson we take previously learned skill and knowledge and develop by performing practical exercises using pentatonics. Specifically, the lesson focuses on playing combinations of bass riffs around major and minor pentatonics. Rhythmic development is also combined with the use of dotted and tied notes. Additionally, we will introduce the 12 bar concept and learn how to play a bass riff following the 12 bar progression.

We will introduce, understand and play the blues scale in this lesson. We will also compare and develop our understanding of the relationship between the blues scale and the minor pentatonic scale. The lesson will involve developing, creating and performing bass lines created using the blues scale.

This lesson is designed to review the theory developed through the course and to help you create bass lines. As in previous lessons there is a large focus on the ability to use the symmetry of the bass guitar to visualise and transfer shapes.

Learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson can go towards your Level Three in Essential Bass Skills with Gigajam Bass School.