No question here, this is just me recording the date I started B2B, what gear I was using and why I’m doing this. In the months and years to come, I’m hopefully not still thinking about learning the bass I bought nearly 9 years ago as a Christmas present to myself - Squire Affinity Jazz (3 tone sunburst) starter pack with Rumble 15.
I’ve had guitars for even longer and slowly getting more consistent on those. Other than just life with young kids and work often taking over, I have begun to realise that I was missing the musical side of playing an instrument. Sounds crazy, but spent way too many hours just practising scales, riffs and chords without any backing tracks or real musical context. Never learnt more than snippets of songs and think this has all really held me back.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been learning guitar via The Art of Guitar. The first part was pretty boring as it was mostly stuff I knew and still not very musical to me. The second part has been a game changer. They use regular, what they call Challenge Songs to put the topic you have just learnt into actual music with backing tracks. It’s been so much more fun and makes me more likely to pick up my guitar to play.
I realised I really would like to make my own backing tracks and eventually some music. Whilst drums are out of my reach, bass isn’t, so I’m going to throw some serious effort at this and going to pick up EZDrummer 2 as part of Black Friday sale to be my drummer.
I’m very pleased to see B2B jumps straight in with playing to backing tracks. Even though the first few lessons I did tonight were pretty easy due to past attempts at playing and history of guitar, just the fact that I was playing to a baking track made it instantly fun.
I also recently found out that the dad of one of my son’s friends plays bass so might even be a chance to jam - something else I haven’t done other than with guitar instructor a few times.
Congrats on starting @iDuncan, it’s never too late.
As you work the course, consider a couple of options that get past the riffs and scales…
Our own 50 song challenge of songs selected by Josh, songs are grouped by difficulty level and each one subtly teaches something or reinforces something in the course.
A great guy on YouTube called Constantine has over 1600 songs tabbed out and posted for learning. His scores are very accurate, and he has things that are very easy to quite difficult. I found his site very useful in finding full songs I could play from start to finish and feel very accomplished. And he is just the nicest guy on the planet.
I agree with everyone else,
And a big thanks to Con at bass instructor, his transcripts are spot on and as John @John_E mentions he is the nicest bloke if you reach out to him.
Enjoy your journey,
Cheers Brian
Thanks, I checked out his channel the other day and happlily jammed along to the start of ’ I Was Made For Lovin’ You’
Just checking in with myself after my first month with B2B. Finished module 6 just now and so far, other than Billy Jean, I’ve been able to play all the fast workouts which feels pretty good. Quite enjoyed the ska one and I think they make it feel more like playing than practice.
Feeling pretty good so far, certainly a help coming from already learning guitar for a little while. Looking forward to continuing B2B in the new year and can already see that the next module introduces improvisation. I love improv on my guitar and this should get me one step closer to making some music
I too just started the B2B course myself. I tried to learn bass six years ago but my work schedule had me waking up at 3:00 am. I normally practice in the mornings so that made it difficult to get excited to practice. Fast forward to now, new job, new hours that are much more friendly to morning practice. I am off to the races and super stoked to be starting again. My bass is an Ibanez SR400EQM. It is a beautiful instrument with great playability. I am lucky to have a large group of musicians in my church, including four bass players and two sound engineers. Can’t wait to jam with others too. Good luck on your journey iDuncan.
Congratulations on beginning the journey I wrote my starting date on the printout of the lesson plan so I’d know, too
I have their Void plugin to help me write Drum n Bass breaks. It’s basically a pile of drumkits and verse/chorus beats/fills you can play or program in real time, and even drag the MIDI out to your DAW and adjust/change to make it more your own. I wait for sales, though, too, tbh. They have a lot of styles/genres. Some might consider this cheating, but eh, whatever. It’s just another tool to me
If you already got it by now, I imagine that EZDrummer comes with a lot of similar functionality via MIDI clips or something, though. I don’t know much about it atm, it’s been a while since I looked into ToonTrack products.
It’s music production, not sports. “Cheating” is a virtue
The more you can cheat, the more time you have to put in to other important things. The only thing that matters at all is the finished product. How you get there is up to you, and the more “cheating” the better, because that’s just a sign of an efficient workflow
Yep, got it via Black Friday sales. I think the main product was less than 50% and yes they have either EDZ or midi packs. The EDZ usually includes a heap of midi samples, but also gives you access to different drumkits to program your own stuff. The midi pacs are a decent collection of drum loops - intro, verse, chorus etc. Haven’t really used it yet, but will get into it. I’ve bought a couple of EDX’s and midi packs so far (mostly metal or rock).
Yeah baby, got through the last few lessons tonight. 4 1/2 months with a few gaps due to too much work, but very happy. I wouldn’t say I’m finished as I started going through the “quiz” and I’m definitely going back through some of the lessons.
So far I’ve ticked off 6 from the “Badass” and 5 from “Super Badass”. Topped it off with a playthrough of (Your love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher on Spotify. Mostly kept up, but not sure I always got the muting in.
It was a pleasant surprise to comfortably play through some of the fast workouts, but better stop as tonights session is already much longer than normal and don’t want to upset my arm,
I wrote my starting date on the printout of the lesson plan so I’d know, too 
