Find a Grade 2 bass guitar tutor

Start with the board, then the exact exam format. Taking online lessons does not decide how you take the exam. These Rockschool and Trinity routes assess different combinations of prepared music and supporting skills. If you are learning without an exam, use the songs and technical goals that interest you without setting an entry date.

Rockschool Grade 2 technical work includes major, natural minor and pentatonic scales, major and minor arpeggios in C, G and A, and an eight-bar riff. A useful step is to understand how the sound changes when the starting note stays the same. Try this original comparison slowly:

G major: G – A – B – C – D – E – F♯ – G.

G natural minor: G – A – B♭ – C – D – E♭ – F – G.

A sharp (♯) raises a note by one semitone, or one fret on the same string; a flat (♭) lowers it by one. The third, sixth and seventh notes change: B becomes B♭, E becomes E♭ and F♯ becomes F. If the minor scale keeps sounding like the major one, isolate those pairs before joining the whole pattern. Listen for each change and keep the tone even as you cross strings.

Then select G–B–D for a major arpeggio and G–B♭–D for a minor one. An arpeggio plays the notes of a chord separately. Only the middle note changes here, making the major/minor difference easy to compare. This listening exercise supports understanding; prepare the grade book’s required rhythm, fingering and tempo separately. For a recorded Graded Certificate, use the current submission list to choose exactly which exercises to record.

For Trinity face-to-face Grade 2, playback and improvising are alternative session-skills choices. Try both before deciding which to prepare. The following are original starting exercises, separate from Trinity’s official sample tests.

Playback: enter without losing the count

The Grade 2 test uses an eight-bar sequence in two-bar phrases. Its scope includes 3/4 and D minor. In 3/4, count three beats to each bar. Have your tutor model two bars: hold D for all three beats of the first bar, then play F for two beats and E for the last beat of the second bar. Echo those two bars immediately, with the pulse continuing. D, F and E are the note names to locate on your bass before starting.

If you enter late, count aloud through the end of the model and into your response. If you shorten the first D, say all three counts while it sounds. The improvement is a prompt reply with the same pitches and note lengths. Build from that short exercise to the full test length and its other musical details.

Improvising: follow the chord change

Grade 2 improvising uses four-bar loops with one chord per bar; country style and 3/4 are among the possibilities. Try F | B♭ | C | F, with one chord symbol for each bar. Begin by playing F, B♭, C and F on successive beat 1s, holding each through beats 2 and 3. B♭ means B-flat, one fret below B on the same string; the chord’s root is the note it is named after.

Keep saying “1, 2, 3” so a fourth beat does not creep in. When the roots change on time, try two shorter repeated notes on the final beat of a bar. That starts a variation while preserving the pulse. Root notes alone are a starting point: continue developing the style, variety and musical shape needed for a complete improvisation.