Is Electric Guitar Easier than Bass? Which one is Best?

Are you confuse between an electric guitar and a bass? You can’t just judge these two instruments only on the basis of their number of strings!

Here’s the article of my 4 years of experience: Which instrument is easy to learn and play. Electric guitar or Bass?

Is Electric Guitar easier than Bass? The electric guitar could be easy to play as compared to the bass due to its relatively small body size and thinner strings. Thicker strings of the bass make it hard to fret the notes correctly to a newbie.

But, Does that means you shouldn’t even think about the bass? Both the guitar and bass have their own advantages and disadvantages. Even they look a little similar from the outside but have some major differences in them.

Let’s take a quick look at them:

5 Key Differences Between Electric Guitar and Bass

These are the points you need to consider before you pick whether you want to learn bass or an electric guitar. Go through these points and check which instrument resonates with your personality more.

Difference in Tuning

The difference in tuning or you can say ‘Pitch‘ is the first thing that makes these two instruments totally different from each other.

A normal 6 strings electric guitar is tuned in standard tuning of E-A-D-G-B-E, on the other hand, standard bass guitar only has the 4 strings which are tuned similar to the lowest four strings of the guitar, except it just one octave below the pitch.

Although the bass guitar has different strings than the electric guitar this is one of the main factors that majorly creates the difference in the tone of both instruments.

Sound

Although, there is no connection between the sound of the instrument and its easiness but come on we’re talking about music here!

In heavy genres, especially genres like rock and metal, lot of time you’re getting a peculiar sound from the electric guitar that comes from the distortion.

Whereas for bass guitars, usually, we’re getting sound very clean, deep, and clear without adding any distortion to it, just like an acoustic guitar.

Difference in the Size

Along with the sounding tone, the size of the instrument also going to play a crucial role at the beginning of your music journey.

Usually, bass guitars are larger in size as compare to electric ones. coming towards the scale length, an average scale length of a 4 string bass is around 34 inches whereas that of an electric guitar is only around 25 inches.

There are some short-scale basses available in the market but still, they are larger than normal electric guitars. Here extra scale length of bass doesn’t mean it has more frets than the electric guitar, it is just a relatively bigger instrument.

Ease in Playability

If you thinking bass might be easy to play just because we need to deal with 4 string only, that’s not a complete statement in any way. Depending upon the genre and what kind of music you’re going to play, both bass guitar and electric guitar can be extremely hard or might be very easy.

Usually, for beginner players, the Electric guitar seems to be comfortable due to its (relatively) low weight and body size in a comparison with bass. The bass might be very bigger for your hands or maybe fits perfectly on your lap. Everything depends on your physique.

Coming towards the strings, Bass guitar comes with a thicker strings which feels very hard to play with fingers for any newbie. on the flip side, you’re mostly playing electric guitar with a pick, not your fingertips.

Roles in a Band

Both Bass and Guitar players have a very distinct but equally important role in any music band.

Bass provides the backbone to the band that holds on the other instruments together. In a genre like Jazz and Blues, bass work with the drummer, whereas in the case of metal and hard rock, it provides meat to the guitarist’s riffs.

On the flip side of the coin, the guitar has a very varied role in the band. Usually, drum and bass are considered as a rhythm section whereas guitar got some freedom here in terms of solos and embellishments.

So,

Is Electric Guitar Easier than Bass Guitar?

As I mentioned earlier, playing guitar can tough or hard, its depends upon how long you want to play this game, which style do you want to go into? And all these things are true for bass too.

In case of electric guitar, you don’t need to be a great guitar player in order to play the rock music. You can simply learn few chords here and there and start writing the songs.

But, if you push yourself further into this, you can easily spend rest of your life learning new and new things everyday, practicing them and still not lived upto your own expectations.

Coming towards the bass, once you learn to play the correct notes, you can easily get into any band as a bassist. but if you want to learn then there are lots of possibilities waiting for you.

Final Thoughts:

Although, both electric guitar and bass has their own place and one can learn any of the instrument according to their taste of music. But, for a beginner, Electric guitar seems to be the best option to get started than bass due to the heavy bass strings and its large body.

I hope I able to convey my thoughts upto you, and you get the idea about what I am trying to say! If you have any doubts, feel free to put it down in the comment section.

Also, don’t forget to share this article with your friends and family on your social handle, that means lot to me!

For Further Readings:

• How Often Should I change my Guitar Strings?
• Can you use Acoustic Guitar Strings on your Electric Guitar?
• Are Guitar Stands Bad for your Instrument?