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Gigajam Bass School

Guitar lessons screenshot

Welcome to the Gigajam Bass School. Get ready to learn to play bass guitar with our award-winning web-based method.

To get started first download and install the Gigajam Xtractor software, for either Windows or Mac OS X. Read the lesson instructions and watch the Introductory TV Show to get the most from your lessons.

Then open a lesson and have fun learning. When you've completed an exercise you can upload it to your porfolio in your locker.

Technical Exercises

Please practice and upload complete performances for each of the technical exercises in this section when you are ready. Completion contributes to 45% of your award. All of the skills contained in these pieces are developed through the lessons and technical exercises. You will need to demonstrate:

Technical Accomplishment
The extent to which the instrument is effectively controlled.

Musicality
The ability to make sensitive and musical performance decisions.

Musical Knowledge
The synthesis of theoretical, notational and contextual knowledge.

Performance

Please practice and upload performances for each of the songs in this section when you are ready. Completion contributes to 45% of your award. All of the skills contained in these pieces are developed through the lessons and technical exercises. However, you need to play the songs showing:

Technical Accomplishment
The extent to which the instrument is effectively controlled.

Musicality
The ability to make sensitive and musical performance decisions.

Musical Knowledge
The synthesis of theoretical, notational and contextual knowledge.

Communication
The degree to which the performer communicates with and engages the listener through musical performance on their instrument or voice.

Knowledge & Understanding

Please complete the questions in this section when you are ready. Completion contributes to 10% of your award. All of the answers are contained within the course, so please check your understanding of your instrument and the music you have studied so far.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Teacher Verification

Once all the sections of this grade are showing as complete, then please ask your teacher if they will verify the specified technical exercises and performances. You need your teacher to confirm that they have witnessed you perform the specified exercises and performances and that the level of performance is consistent with the level of work evident in this grade of your portfolio. Once complete and verified you can then enter your work to receive your School Music Performance Award.

School Music Performance Awards

By completing each of the Technical Exercises, Performances and Knowledge& Understanding sections of this unit of the course, you will be able to receive a nationally recognised qualification for your hard work and achievement. Once each of these sections of the unit are shown as complete, you should ask your teacher if they believe you are ready to have your worked verified, or whether you need to improve some of the submissions.

To qualify for a pass you need to be aiming for scores consistently above 65%, and you can receive a pass with merit for scoring above 75% and a pass with distinction for scores above 85%. When ready ask your teacher to witness you playing the specified technical exercises and performances. Once complete you can enter to receive your School Music Performance Award.

Debut Grade Bass Lessons

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Bass Intro Lesson

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.

Lesson TV show

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Lesson 1: Building a rock groove

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 2: Introducing eighth notes

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

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet
UWLQ Entry Level Award In School Music Performance (Debut) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0304/8 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification

Grade One Bass Lessons

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 3: Introducing new notes and string crossing

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

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 4: Developing rhythm for rock grooves

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet
UWLQ Level 1 Award In School Music Performance (Grade 1) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0300/0 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification

Grade Two Bass Lessons

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 5: Developing finger control

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

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 6: Developing rock grooves – Part 1

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 7: Developing rock grooves – Part 2

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet
UWLQ Level 1 Award In School Music Performance (Grade 2) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0302/4 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification

Grade Three Bass Lessons

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 8: Introducing root and fifth shapes

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 9: Developing root and fifth shapes

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.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 10: Performing a song

Learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson focuses on reading and navigating a musical score. When you've finished this lesson you'll be performing at grade three standard.

Lesson TV show Lesson booklet
UWLQ Level 1 Award In School Music Performance (Grade 3) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0303/6 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification

Grade Four Bass Lessons

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 11: Introducing rests Part 1

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 12: Introduce scales Part 1

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 13: Minor rock grooves

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 14: Using space

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 15: Developing scales

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 16: Introducing scales Part 2

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

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 17: Developing scales Part 2

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#.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 18: Reading – introducing dotted notes

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 19: Revisiting root and 5th shapes

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 20: Performing a song

Continue to learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson focuses on reading and navigating a musical score. When you've finished this lesson you'll be performing at grade four standard.

Lesson
UWLQ Level 2 Certificate In School Music Performance (Grade 4) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0359/0 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification

Grade Five Bass Lessons

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 21: Introducing triads

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 22: Introduce minor triads

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 23: Introducing ties

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 24: Developing triads

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 25: Developing scales

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 26: Introducing minor pentatonics

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 27: Developing pentatonics

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 28: Introducing the blues scale

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 29: Applying our understanding of theory

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.

Lesson

SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED Lesson 30: Performing a song

Continue to learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a bass guitar chart. This lesson focuses on reading and navigating a musical score. When you've finished this lesson you'll be performing at grade five standard.

Lesson
UWLQ Level 2 Certificate In School Music Performance (Grade 5) (QCF) Ofqual No. 601/0309/7 ?

Technical Exercises

Performance

Knowledge & Understanding

Teacher Verification