Online Guitar Lessons Review

bass guitar scale length

i’m building a neck for a bass guitar to my own specs. where can i get/make custom frets?

it has a fairly standard scale length, but i don’t know if the neck would match any frets that are sold.

heres one way>

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musician/GenSetup/Frets/frets01.html

another>http://www.guitardoctor.com/custom_shop_new.html

and another>

http://www.bestfrets.com/

Bass Guitar Scale Manual $14.88 Scales, exercises, rock and blues progressions for all grades in all the important keys. Standard notation and tablature plus full color note-finder poster are included. Chapters include: systems analysis * scales in open position * scales in closed position - one octave scales * and scales in closed position - two octave scales.

Bass Guitar $16.46 The First and only method to expertly teach you every scale, every trick & technique, in every musical key, anywhere on the entire fretboard! Author Mark John Sternal has been credited as one of the greatest music instructors of the 21st Century! His credentials accumulate to thousands of beginner through advanced bass players and guitarists. This course promises to turn beginners into pro''s & make the pro''s even better! 160 page book with narration/performance audio CD, complete course for beginner through advanced.

GUITAR & BASS $17.99 GUITAR & BASS

Extended Scale Playing for Guitar $5.99 Extended Scale Playing for Guitar

The Diminished Scale for Guitar $7.44 The Diminished Scale for Guitar

The Ultimate Guitar Scale Bible $10.13 The Ultimate Guitar Scale Bible

Guitar Scale Dictionary $5.99 Guitar Scale Dictionary

100 Tips for Bass Guitar $16.54 A step-by-step guide to the bass. Via a series of graduated exercises supported by a free full-length audio CD, respected performer and teacher Stuart Clayton gives the lowdown on fingerstyle and plectrum technique and teaches you how to slap the strings like Mark King! Whether you''re a beginner looking to buy your first guitar or a seasonned professionnal hoping to enhance your playing skills, 100 Tips for Bass Guitar You Should Have Been Told is all you need to become a master on the four-string powerhouse.

Ultimate Guitar Techniques: Scale Shapes $10.85 Ultimate Guitar Techniques: Scale Shapes

The Ultimate Guitar Chord & Scale Bible $16.91 The Ultimate Guitar Chord & Scale Bible

Consider the instruments used by your favorite celtic group — certainly, there’s a fiddle … and there may be a tinwhistle and perhaps some bagpipes. There’s probably a guitar and a bodhran (a sort of handheld drum) — but what about those other stringed instruments?

You may find a mandolin or a mandola in the group — and perhaps a bouzouki. In fact, a bouzouki may take the place of the guitar. What makes these instruments useful in celtic folk music?

First off, you’re probably familiar with a mandolin. It’s a small (pretty much violin-sized) strummed or plucked instrument — you can finger chords on it and strum it, or you can pluck individual strings to play a melody. Mandolin’s are common to most types of folk or country music. They have essentially the same scale length as a violin (the strings are about the same length) — in fact, it’s normally tuned exactly like a violin — GDAE! This makes it very easy to learn both instruments.

The mandolin has a high, ringing tone. When playing accompanying chords, the mandolin’s high pitch and sharp attach have an almost percussive effect … making it an excellent rhythm instrument. Since the mandolin isn’t loud when individual notes are plucked, most solo playing requires a fast and repeated picking technique.

The mandola is a little larger than the mandolin — giving it a lower pitch. Some tune it a fifth down from a mandolin — CGDA. Some folks even tune an entire octave lower — although the scale length isn’t really long enough for proper intonation. The lower tones alter the effect of strummed chords — instead of a sharp and ringing attack (like a mandolin), the effect is much closer to a guitar where the chords flow naturally to the background. Sharp and bright chords jump to the forefront of a song — sometimes this is good, but usually you want your rhythym instruments to be complimentary, not a featured solo instrument.

If lower is better for chord playing, then why not go all the way to an octave mandolin? Tuned like a mandolin to GDAE … except an octave lower … the octave mandolin also has a scale length close to a guitar. And here’s where we start running into problems!

How far can your fingers stretch? Most chords on a guitar span 4 frets at the most — with 3 being the most common maximum stretch. Mandolin chords often span 4 frets — with some having a 5 fret span. When played on a short scale mandolin, this stretch isn’t a problem. When the scale length approaches 2 feet or so (about a guitar’s scale length), the required fret stretch is simply too much for most players.

A bouzouki has this same problem — originally used for Greek folk music, a bouzouki is tuned like an octave mandolin. This lower tuning makes it ideal for a Celtic rhythm instrument — except for the required fret stretch.

Because of this, you often see bouzoukis or octave mandolins tuned differently for celtic music — GDAD. Chord fretting in this tuning is much easier and the longer scale length (a few inches longer than an octave mandolin) results in deep, long sustaining chords — making a bouzouki a perfect rhythm instrument for Celtic music!