Bass Lessons in Munich
The bassist holds the band together. You will learn slap, fingerstyle, and pick techniques, developing a deep understanding of rhythm and harmony. Indispensable in any band setup.
The bass is the instrument nobody notices – until it is gone. Four strings, one note at a time, and yet it decides whether a band grooves or is merely loud. At Fretster you learn electric bass from the ground up: timing, right-hand technique, locking in with the drums and the lines of the great bass players – using our own sheet-music library, which no other music school in Munich has. For children from 8, teenagers and adults, in Obersendling and Allach.
Who are bass lessons for?
For beginners who have never held an instrument – the bass is one of the most rewarding places to start: within a few weeks you are playing root notes along to real songs, and that sounds like music straight away, not like practice. For guitarists who have been handed the bass in their band and realise it is a different instrument with its own logic. For children from 8 whose hands are big enough for a short-scale neck. And for adults who “always wanted to” and finally have the time.
What you don’t need: reading skills, your own instrument for the trial lesson, a particular age. What you do need: 30 to 60 minutes a week, a metronome (ours is free in the Fretster app) and the willingness to do boring things very well. Because that is exactly what good bass playing is made of.
What a bass lesson at Fretster looks like
Every lesson starts with timing. Not with theory, not with scales: with the metronome, with eighths and sixteenths, with ghost notes and muting. The bass is a rhythm instrument that happens to have pitches too – if you understand that early, after a year you sound like a bass player and not like a guitarist with thick strings.
Then technique: fingerstyle with alternating fingers, a pick for rock and punk, later slap and pop, dead notes, muting the strings with both hands. We work with the Fretster method in four areas – rhythm, motor skills, ear and theory – and on bass, rhythm carries the most weight. Theory still happens, but on the fretboard: why does Jamerson play the third instead of the root? What is the fifth doing in a walking bass line? You learn that with your fingers, not with a pencil.
The second half belongs to the song or the line. You bring what you want to play – funk, rock, pop, soul, jazz, metal – and we break it into building blocks you can practise at home during the week. Every exercise is there to listen to and play along with in our notation player, with a tempo control and loop.
The sheet-music library: bass from Jamerson to Wooten
Only Fretster has this: an open sheet-music library with more than 270 bass exercises in notation and tablature – organised by twenty bass players who shaped the instrument. James Jamerson and the Motown lines, Jaco Pastorius and the fretless, Larry Graham, who invented slap, Rocco Prestia with his sixteenth-note grooves, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten, plus the great jazz double bassists from Ray Brown to Ron Carter. Every phrase is an original exercise in the style of the master, not a transcription of someone else’s song – legally clean and built up didactically, from an easy first step to exam level.
On top of that come concepts and techniques organised by principle – walking bass, octaves, chromaticism, ghost notes, double thumb – and public-domain pieces you may play in full. In lessons these pages are your textbook; at home they are the reason practising does not get boring. In the Fretboard Studio you can also display any pattern on a four- or five-string bass neck and write your own tabs.
Why the bass carries the band – the research
That “the bass makes the groove” is not a musicians’ cliché but a measurable fact. A study at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind (Hove et al., PNAS 2014) showed that our brain detects timing deviations in low notes far more precisely than in high ones – and that people align their movements more strongly with the lowest voice. That is why in almost every musical culture in the world the bass sits at the bottom of the rhythm: the ear wants it there.
For lessons this means two things. First: on bass, timing is not one aspect among many but the core – a cleanly placed root note counts for more than a fast solo. Second: groove can be trained. Research on the “groove experience” (Janata et al., 2012) shows that the urge to move to music is linked to a clearly perceivable pulse and well-placed syncopation – exactly the things we practise from the first month. And because bass is almost always played with others, it gets you into a band faster than any other instrument: bass players are in demand.
Instrument, locations and prices
For children from 8 we recommend a short-scale bass (30-inch scale length), for adults a standard four-string – Precision or Jazz type is a matter of taste, both work. Nobody needs a five-string at the start. You don’t have to bring anything to the trial lesson; afterwards we help you choose, so the wrong instrument doesn’t end up gathering dust in a cupboard.
Bass lessons are available at both Fretster locations in Munich: in the south in Obersendling (Hatzelweg 25, 81476 München) and in the north-west in Allach-Untermenzing (Gustav-Otto-Bogen 13, 80997 München), easy to reach from Moosach, Pasing, Karlsfeld and Dachau.
One-to-one lessons on a monthly plan: 30 minutes 105 €, 45 minutes 149 €, 60 minutes 185 € per month. Without commitment: a 10-lesson card (30 minutes 510 €, 45 minutes 570 €, 60 minutes 650 €). Band programmes and the Jam Station come on top as soon as you can hold down three or four songs.
The trial lesson is free for children and teenagers; for adults it costs 20 €. After that, you decide – no automatic contract.
Free practice tools between lessons
Our own mini tools run in the browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install:
Tuner — Tune your strings right in the browser, using your phone’s microphone. Practising out of tune is like learning vocabulary with typos.
Fretboard Studio — Show scales and chords on the fretboard, draw your own shapes, write tabs and print them as a PDF.
Metronome — Tempo, time signatures and a planned practice session. Built for phones, no sign-up.
Sheet music player — Practise notation and tabs with loop and tempo – the hard bar slowly, until it sits.
And when you no longer want to play alone:
Jam Station — Open session: play with others, no fixed programme.
Band workshop — Rehearse songs together – that is how you learn to listen, count and start at the same time.
Frequently asked questions
- At what age can children start learning bass?
- From about 8. Hand size and concentration are what matter: a short-scale bass with a 30-inch neck and light strings fits most eight-year-olds. Younger children who love rhythm often start on drums or guitar and switch later – the bass isn’t going anywhere.
- Do I need to play guitar first?
- No. Bass is not “easier guitar” but its own instrument with its own technique and its own job in the band. If you play guitar you have a head start on the fretboard; if you start from zero you have no guitarist habits to unlearn. Both are fine.
- Do I need to read music – or are tabs enough?
- You learn both, but without pressure. Our sheet-music library shows every exercise in notation and tablature one above the other, so you read the tabs for the fingering and get used to the notes on the side. For jam sessions and bands, tabs and a good ear are enough; if you are heading for a big band, musical theatre or music college you need notation – and you get it with us.
- How soon can I play in a band?
- Sooner than on any other instrument. Many songs initially need root notes with good timing from the bass – beginners manage that within a few weeks. Once you can hold down three or four songs, you can join our band programmes or the Jam Station. And honestly: bass players are wanted everywhere.
- What is the difference between fingerstyle, pick and slap?
- Fingerstyle (alternating index and middle finger) is the standard for soul, funk, jazz and pop. A pick gives a harder attack for rock, punk and metal. Slap is the technique of Larry Graham and Marcus Miller: the thumb strikes the low strings, the fingers pop the high ones – percussive and loud. We start with fingerstyle and add the other techniques once the timing is solid.
- Can I still learn bass as an adult?
- Yes, and the bass is particularly well suited to it: the technique is manageable at the start and the result in a band is audible immediately. Adults practise more deliberately and usually have a clear wish – their own band, the Friday session, one particular song. That is exactly what we work on. The Fretster method adapts the pace to you, not the other way round.