@RemoteOutpost Welcome to the BassBuzz forum! When you have time, join us on the Introduce Yourself! thread.
And… Hell Yeah! Bring on the Five String!
As for BassBuzz, Josh starts very simply. Like, here is how to use a strap and here is how to pluck a string. Then he begins ramping things up, but never too much at one time. It’s like the old idea, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
He holds to this idea of giving you one small piece at a time and then gives you the next one, and then the next one. With each piece building on the one before it and putting what you learned to use by actually playing music as part of every lesson.
As to the course being for a 5 string or not, every lesson is performed on a 4 string but that doesn’t mean you can’t use a 5 sting, 6 string, or any other bass (I’m using an acoustic Bass). One of the things you end up learning is how the strings relate to one another and how that relationship is consistent even when using a 5 string. This may not make sense now but if you take the B2B course, it will be. On a personal note, I’ve looked at a lot of different courses and I haven’t seen one that focuses specifically on using a 5 string in a beginner course. Part of the reason, I think, is that it isn’t necessary to teach a course using a 5 string for a student to understand how to incorporate the Low B string into their playing.
As for reading music, once Josh has gotten passed the basics he includes standard music notation and a simplified notation called, tablature (or just ‘tab’) in every lesson. If you want to learn how to read music, it’s there for you. If you don’t, it’s easily ignored and not required for completing the course.
If you want to see some reviews, you can find some here… Beginner to Badass Reviews? 🎸
If you want to see how Josh teaches to be able to see if his teaching style works for you, then go here… Beginner BASSics. Or go here for one of his YouTube videos… Learning Your Fretboard Notes.
Full disclosure, I’m just a student here like everybody else.