10 Years of Bass Advice in 10 Minutes

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I wish someone had told me this 10 years ago… here’s my best bass advice to save you from all the stupid mistakes I made.

If you’re doing the Beginner to Badass course, you can watch this lesson any time - it covers practice fundamentals that you won’t actually need during the course since your ‘practice routine’ is just “show up and hang out with Josh and do a lesson.” Good stuff for later though!

What’s the number one thing you’ve learned since you started playing that you wish you could tell your younger self?

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Love it!

One miss though on feedback - your BassBuzz forum!!! We have been giving each other constructive feedback on the challange songs and folks’ covers for years now and I can attest that this really does help too! Even more than self critique if you ask me.

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Excellent video!

The feedback I appreciate most?

“You suck less than yesterday.”

That tells me that I’m doing something right. :+1:

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Now, the really important question is… how did you find someone tall enough to take an overhead photo of you and your bass gear??? :grin:

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Absolutely love the “peak-end rule” reference. I didn’t know there was a name for it, but I’ve been recommending exactly that idea for practice sessions for a while now. If you feel good at the end of your practice session, you’ll feel good about the whole practice session no matter how well it went. So hack your brain, push that dopamine, and make yourself feel good about practicing!

And of course, learning songs. I’m pretty sure none of us picked up the bass so we could learn to play scales really well. We want to play music! Exercises and etudes are all in service of that goal, but to learn to play songs you’ve gotta play songs.

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Solid advice! So I started writing and couldn’t stop. Hope this rant helps :innocent::sweat_smile:

Consistency is important I have ADHD and getting my brain to do anything is impossible at times. Especially consistently.

  • Trick your brain. Start with 5min. Commit to 5min. You’ll find yourself having fun 2 songs in and you’ll keep playing for hours.

  • If you miss a day or days, the most important part is to notice how your rest made you better. Don’t punish yourself. I’ve taken WEEKS off and realized I sound 2x better afterwards. It works! But if I beat myself up I probably would have quit or hated myself. Be cool, don’t hate.

  • Join a band ASAP. I never played a full song before joining a band. The social pressure has kept me honest and makes me practice so I don’t embarrass myself in public. Most musicians make excuses with this. Just fn do it!

  • Find a mid range guitar. If you are playing a starter Ibanez GIO and garbage amp you will struggle. $300 range for bass and a $250 amp is probably where things get a lot better. Look around on FB marketplace for deals but be careful! Learn what to watch out for.

  • We all want to pick hard shredder songs at first but that is the wrong way. Grab a simple chugger like Joey from Concrete blonde. Build your skills with easy stuff and full songs.

  • Use hard songs to practice technique. Ok this is the opposite of what I just said but I use Hysteria by muse to practice SPEED not accuracy just speed. I don’t spend hours trying to get it right but at the end of a session I play 5 mins to try and get FASTER.

  • Try to find teachers with real world experience. I went to Victor Wooten’s music and nature camp. 5 minutes of music theory with him was better than a year with a random piano teacher. That camp changed my life.

  • Plug in to a music community. Post here but even better go watch local bands, find jams, just talk about music. I’ve made a whole host of new friends through music. It has changed my life. Most musicians I’ve met are kindred souls who are all trying to get better. It makes for easy friendship.

As always thanks Josh for the great video.

The most important thing to remember is to give yourself grace. The bassists #1 job is to be cool. Stage fright, perfectionism, embarrassment, all of these are BS. Dismiss them and just keep playing. Practice + Passion + Persistence = Success.

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The biggest advice I could have is to know what your end goal is. For years, I practiced the six-string guitar. I would pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down, etc., with no real goal other than to get better at guitar. I would jump from thing to thing and get frustrated. Now, I have a goal of joining a band, and your course and some thoughts have focused me and put me on a path. I don’t feel frustrated (much), and have cleared out the “Ohhh look at that, I need to learn THAT!” without completing my fundamentals.

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I have literally spent a frustrating hour long practice session completely failing to get something right, taken a day off, and then went back to it and nailed it first try. The power of rest is real.

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100% I’ve realized my brain keeps auto-playing the song even if I’m not. My band mates also have a 12 time rule. You have to play a song at least 12 times before you get it.

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Really loved how relatable this was, and it’s fun to see you improving your skills/implementing what you teach.

My one thing to tell past me would be “set obtainable goals (aka don’t play the compare game!)”

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TIL the Peak-End Rule. This is very interesting.

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Well, my advice to beginner me would be to start slower… Don’t practice 1 or 2 hours straight right from the get go.

I guess this is only relevant for the few of us who are older or for whatever reason get aches and pains. Playing through the pain is sometimes the answer to develop strength, but in my case it only developed tendonitis that crippled me for too long.

But hey, I was really excited to hang out with video Josh!

:joy:

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At the very least, go see bands and watch the bass player. I started paying more attention to the bass player a few weeks before I bought mine. Like, spent the whole show just watching them. Just getting an idea of how they were playing their instrument (even if I didn’t know how to play a single note) at least set me up for learning.

And once I started learning, I was able to pick out things they were doing, and get an idea of how “real” bass players do things.

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Excellent Video For Sure There Josh Man - I Definitely Agree And Have Experienced More Than A Few Of These - Have Yet To Pick Up The Guitar Though - Well Done On The AC/DC Riff

As For Advice - The Number One Thing I Would Recommend , Whatever Scale , Pattern , Or Song That You Are Learning Or Practicing , SING The Note That You Are Picking - When I Joined BassBuzz In 2020 , Sure Would I Would Have Starting Working On Singing For Back Up Vocal Work Nowadays - Sing Along Like Nobody Is Watching

Stay Fancy ,

Cheers

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This is great advice as I begin my bass journey and await my diagnosis for Adhd (assessment starting this month).

So far, my love of music and my Adhd trait of wanting to learn/know all I can about bass is propelling me forward. That said, I bought the bass and starter equipment and procrastinated before I actually picked up my bass. Now, I have picked it up though, and I think I just might have found a new addiction (better than shopping)!

I was surprised to find I have reasonably good rhythm (for a beginner) and that I can keep up the pace better than I ever thought I would, I guess it helps that I have always heard bass lines in every song I have listened to.

Absolutely loving it so far and now wondering why I didn’t pick this instrument up before now.

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This is why I have “win” songs - songs that I both love playing and usually play pretty well. If I’m not feeling great at the end of practice, I play one of those, and remind myself that a matter of months ago I couldn’t do that.

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Hello @kgoldsby and welcome!

I can relate to so many things in your post. Procrastination, I have a huge problem with that. As an example, I bought an audio interface in November, only installed months later. I installed and registered the software that came with it (Fender Studio Pro) and guess have I used it at all yet! Not! :grin:

Fortunately I don’t procrastinate practicing bass, mainly because I’m hyperfixated on it, love music and playing. But I have a tendency sometimes to start a new hobby, dedicate myself entirely to it, think about it all the time, talk about it all the time, and a year later a new hobby comes along and the other one is slowly left aside. I talked to a bass teacher about that, and he laughed and said “Don’t worry, this (playing bass) will never go away”. I believe be is right! So far more than a year has passed and I’m sticking to it, and going through a new bass course.

A good strategy is to have a course going at the time. I prefer not to buy more than one course at once, so I have something to aim at.

I also have a more expensive bass to aim at, and I’m not buying it yet (I have a tendency to get a collection of things I like and so far I only have 2 bass guitars, which is very weird!)

When I’m reading or studying something, I usually have to stop and go back to read/watch it again, because my busy brain is having a lot of thoughts about what I’m reading/watching and I might get distracted following one of these thoughts and having a lot of great ideas. But giving yourself some grace is great so we don’t get discouraged.

:grin: Oh yes, it is a new addiction and it is better than shopping, but beware! It leads to bass related shopping!! :grin: Just take a look at the GAS thread in this forum!

That’s exactly how I feel as well.

Another good advice to keep the interest in the hobby going: keep participating in the forum! Talking with people who share the same love for bass is invaluable. You will learn a lot, make friends, and will keep the flame alive also when you get interested for something else or when you can’t play because of being sick or injured or travelling, etc.

There’s an Introduce yourself -thread in the forum, you might like to check it out and introduce yourself there! :slightly_smiling_face:

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