Hi guys,
In the B2B course, Josh makes a point of encouraging us to nail the slow workouts and keep moving forwards if we are finding the medium and fast workouts too difficult. We can always come back to these at a later date.
My question is, how long do you spend trying to nail the medium/fast workouts before you decide to give in and move on?
Hours, days, weeks?
It takes time to build muscle memory and most time you’ll get the idea of how long it would take but on some sections after a few days/ weeks it just all of the sudden clicks and you got it.
When I got stuck on something I slow it down and start depositing the practice when you make the balance it’s yours to keep. There are a few songs that I started since the middle of lockdown that I’ve been practicing and still don’t have it down yet but I know I will one of this day.
I usually practice on a few things so I can put them in rotation as I don’t always get it right away and working on them for 10-15 minutes each session helps depositing the e practice time soon it would pay off. So don’t be discouraged you’ll get it.
If it’s more than a couple days, add it to your practice routine and move on. For example, most people aren’t able to play Billie Jean (Module 4) at fast speed until they’ve completed the course.
What you don’t want to do is let any one song kill your momentum. There’s a lot to absorb, particularly if this is your first experience.
Keep in mind that a beginner is being exposed to many, many new and foreign concepts and techniques, all at the same time.
A good chunk of intellectual processing is necessary to understand these concepts,
Also, a great deal of physical training and practice is required for both hands to establish muscle memory of their required actions. Dedicated, slow practice is the way.
All of the above is a lot for a beginner to handle, but it is the trial by fire that turns a newbie into a player.
Nailing the slow workout in each lesson, even if it’s slower than Josh’s version, is perfectly fine. The important things are that the concept is absorbed until it’s clear and both hands practice their parts over and over again, in unison. Speed always comes when the fundamentals are well and totally practiced.
It is the Slap that has bogged me down.
I will likely skip it at this time as slap is not something I am very interested in
@johnchesters81 I didn’t spend too much time on the difficult-for-me workouts because I kept in mind what Josh and others here said: that we are still building lots of skills and you can always come back and try the workouts again.
I pretty much always found that when I was further in to the course, I’d go back to the workouts that were hard for me and I’d be able to do them. You’ll get to that point too, and the things that seemed challenging will be much easier 
I think @StartedAt48 hit on something really important here. You want to learn bass to play bass not to learn bass so it’s important to play things at your level then go from there. You want to keep playing and build confidence because confidence is contagious. The more songs you play the better your get at navigating songs.
Hi @johnchesters81,
I spent between one or two weeks on each harder lesson. You should also ask yourself what nailing a workout means to you. I find that getting through a workout two times without any mistakes is a high bar sometimes, so I’d recommend having a “good enough” level that allows you to move on.
There’s five levels for each workout actually, when you think about it:
1 Following the lesson with your bass, finding the frets, notes etc., pausing where necessary, slowly playing along [Josh plays slower to demonstrate, so going back to the lesson is an idea]
2 Slow Workout
3 Medium Workout
4 Fast Workout
5 Bonus Level: 110% speed or the original song, if there is one
Extra tip: record your first real play-through and your last one. A phone recording is usually enough. Modern Android has a decent recorder. I find that putting the phone somewhere in front of the amp is best. Experiment!
Hope that helps!
Cheer,
Antonio
There were things I couldn’t get past about medium speed on, but I didn’t let it worry me. There’ll be things in the course you just don’t like to play so move on to the next lesson. Then you’ll find yourself jamming to music and having a great time and I think that’s really where you learn the most. Don’t get discourage because B2B, even though it’s a great course, won’t be your only source of learning.