Most beginners believe that they need to know how to read music, understand theory, struggle through boring exercises and learn hundreds of chords to play bass guitar. NOT SO!

Bass guitar is the most popular instrument on the planet because it's also one of the easiest instruments to learn how to play. Thousands of popular bass songs can be played with just a few bass patterns and techniques.

Learn those few patterns and techniques, along with the basics of holding and tuning a bass guitar, and you too will be able to play hundreds of your favorite bass songs. And that's what Jump Start Bass Guitar is all about - a quick, easy, fun and interactive approach for learning how to play bass guitar.

Video Introduction

Click below for a sample video from the course.

About the Guitar Lesson Plan

Interactive Playalong Video Guitar Instruction

Jump Start Bass starts you off with a series of video lessons showing you how to tune up, hold the pick and position your hands. Next up, you'll start learning the most common picking-hand techniques for bass players. Rhythm patterns and grooves come next with a series of videos showing you a few basic bass lines and rhythmic feels that you would use when playing Rock, Blues, Country, Latin and even a little Jazz. You'll then pull it all together by working with practice rhythm tracks so that you can get comfortable playing with a drummer and keeping the groove!

TrueFire's interactive video software accelerates the learning process with handy controls like zooming, looping, tab, notation, Power Tab files, integrated tuner, metronome, rhythm tracks and direct links to the TrueFire forum and Support Center.

About Your Instructor

Brad Carlton

Brad Carlton's reputation as one of the most sought after "stunt" studio guitarists is well deserved. His mastery of the fretboard is exceeded only by his working knowledge of theory, harmony and technique. Carlton is best known for his uncanny ability to improvise impeccably executed solos over any changes, in any style -- with little or no rehearsal time.

Carlton is as proficient on bass guitar as he is on electric and classical guitar. Brad has worked with all of the major guitar publications, is an Educational Director at TrueFire and has authored hundreds of educational articles, courses and study programs for all levels of play, across all styles of guitar and bass.

About the Series

Get Up and Running Without Tedious Theory

TrueFire's Jump Start guitar lessons embrace an unorthodox but highly effective approach for teaching people of all ages how to play guitar. In essence, Jump Start courses skip over all of the tedious theory, boring exercises and drawn-out explanations with one end in mind - help students start playing guitar, making music and having fun as quickly and easily as possible. Once the student is up and running, they'll have the confidence and inspiration to dig deeper into the finer details and expand their knowledge base.