Bass Guitar Tab – Learn To Play Amazing Grace

In this bass guitar lesson you will learn to play a melody with the help of bass tablature. To play melodies is a great way to practice finger dexterity and you can actually play them to your friends!

First we will take a look at a bass tablature staff:

——————————————-

——————————————-

——————————————-

——————————————-

These four lines represent the strings on your bass guitar. We will assume that you have four strings on your bass. The top line represents the first string on your guitar, the string with the highest pitch or the G-string.

On these lines you will find numbers telling you to press down your fingers on the frets. Here is an example:

——————————————-

———–0——————————–

—3—————————————-

——-5————————————

The number 3 tells you to press down the third fret on the third string and play the note. The number 0 tells you to play the open second string, that is, without pressing down a fret.

In this bass guitar lesson you will play the melody in the second position. That means that you play all the notes on the second fret with your index finger, the notes on the third fret with your middle finger and so on.

I will write down the lyrics to the song Amazing Grace one line at a time. Below every line I will give you the corresponding melody written with tablature notation as previously explained. Let us start with the first line:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

—————————————

———–2——-2——————-

——-3——-3——-5—3———–

—3—————————5—3—

That saved a wretch like me

————————————

———–2——-2——-2—5—

——-3——-3——-5———–

—3——————————-

I once was lost but now am found

—————————————-

—2—5—2——-2——————-

—————3——-5—3———–

——————————-5—3—

Was blind, but now I see

——————————-

———–2——-2———–

——-3——-3——-5—3—

—3—————————

I suggest that you learn the melody by heart and practice it using the previously mentioned fingerings.