Tablature

• 1). Log into your Internet browser and navigate to one of the many good providers of free online bass tablature (see Resources). Search for a song with which you are already familiar. You will notice that a bass tab comprises four lines with a collection of numbers spread out across those lines. Each of the four lines represents a string on your bass. The bottom line represents the lowest string (E), the top line, the highest (G). The numbers along each line represent the fret that must the pressed down for the correct note to sound. For example, if there is a "5" on the bottom line, press your finger down on the fifth fret on the bottom string. Play the first few notes of your selected song.
  
  
• 2). Once you have become reasonably proficient at your selected song, listen to the original track and try playing the bass line along to it. Listen carefully for discrepancies between what you are playing and what you hear on the original track.
  
  
• 3). Continue to practice with familiar songs. Bass tablature is not good at conveying rhythm, so it helps to be familiar with the rhythm of the music you are learning beforehand. Other tablature notation includes "h" for "hammer." This requires a note to be produced without plucking a string, but by forcefully applying your finger to the required fret.
  
  

Written Notation

• 1). Navigate to one of several good websites that will explain the basics of written notation (see Resources). Written notation is more complicated than tablature and will take longer to learn; however, it is also more accurate at conveying the music it notates because it provides a means of conveying not just pitch (which note to play), but also duration (how long it should be played for).
  
  
• 2). First learn how pitch is represented, starting with the four open strings (E, A, D, G). The basic rule with written notation is that the higher up the "stave" the note is, the higher the pitch of that note is.
  
  
• 3). Learn how rhythm is represented. The basic note length is one beat (a crotchet). Various notations will lengthen or shorten this basic note duration, usually by a factor or two (i.e., doubled produces a two-beat minim, halved produces a half-beat quaver). If you are serious about learning written notation, then purchase a basic music theory book.