Beginner Class of Winter 2021 - How is it going?

[MonsieurFahrenheit]

Yeah I should be getting to Billie Jean (shes not my lover btw) by Saturday/Sunday

[Mike_NL]

@T_dub

The Fast one is not even a requirement for the BadAss Test at the end I dont think.

Correct. It is a requirement for the Super Badass Extra Credit, along with other finger twisters such as “Higher and Higher”, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and the infamous Single and Double pluck octave workouts. All at the Fast tempo of course.

[MonsieurFahrenheit]

It is if you want to be in a MJ cover band

[T_dub]

@MonsieurFahrenheit

if you want to be in a MJ cover band

to do that, you need to play the CORRECT version, in the fast workout.
Ghost Gb notes on the E string every-time you play its octave,

I can’t fret the riff correctly with my thumb wrapped around the neck to fret the Gb on the E string, so I my dreams of playing in a MJ coverband will never be recognized. Fortunately, they do not exist.

[Wombat-metal]

@T_dub

Remember, once you can play it as the SLOW speed, you can move on, and come back later to get the Medium workout. The Fast one is not even a requirement for the BadAss Test at the end I dont think.

Josh keeps thowing me off. I will be doing fine, he was say something (other than counting), and my attention waivers, and I lose the groove. Enough for now.

[MonsieurFahrenheit]

how long have you been playing bass?

[T_dub]

I just picked up close to a year and a half ago, maybe 14 months.
I did play guitar in my 20’s, poorly, but it helped with the transition, even tho it was about a 25 year break.

[PamPurrs]

@Mike_NL

Most people need surgery after Billy Jean

[MikePhil]

Thanks again Pam! great info. Looks like I have a lot to learn! That’s good though, I’m enjoying this journey into bass and music. If I can learn some video and audio editing skills along the way too, all the better.

[MikePhil]

Hi, I’m a fairly new beginner (latter half of last year) and that one got me also…I wasn’t the only person who struggled with that! Yeah the fast workout was tricky. I worked all though the course then went back to the parts I was stuck on as has been suggested. Excellent course

[Celticstar]

@John_E

Josh cleverly knows the value in getting someone feeling good about what they are doing so it is imprinted as a pleasurable experience that leads to better learning, fun, GAS, obsessive bass disorder (the best of all the disorders), etc.

Yessiree - and when teachers tell people that they have to learn something before they can progress further they run the risk of frustrating the student to the point that they just give up and quit.

In short - If your not enjoying what you are doing and having fun doing it then why bother.

I wonder what % of people that give up on bass do so because of inadequate teaching methods?

I have a neighbor’s daughter who I watched go to a local in home guitar teacher for three years. This works out to be over $7K in those 3 years. All of a sudden she quit.

I was talking to my neighbor and asked if his daughter would like to jam with me. When I went over there I found that she could not even strum along to something as simple as Happy Birthday. She told me that she was never taught about chord progressions and the teacher was not interested in showing her how to just play through a complete song just strumming chords. All she ever wanted to do was play and sing along with songs she liked. So, I asked her what song she would like to learn and she said The City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie. I gave her the sheet music with a chord lead sheet and in one 2 hour session she had what she wanted and was back at playing. Oh yeh I also taught her Happy Birthday
By the way - I did not charge anything for this and never will. I do it for the love of music.

A lot of music teachers in my area just plain hate me for things like this because they are not teaching for the love of music but rather as a for profit business. At $50/Hr I can see their reasoning but IMHO their motivation for teaching is all wrong.

I actually had a so called qualified music teacher ask me to show her how to tune a guitar at an introductory lesson she was hired, and paid to teach, by the local city council at the libray. At this same session when a beginner asked her a simple question she could not answer it and referred the question to me.

After that first session I had about 10 people approach me to teach them. I arranged a hall and everything went swimmingly for three years until Covid hit. I still stay in touch with some of the players but not being savvy or having a webcam to use Zoom, for meeting on line, there has been no teaching from me.

Before you ask - Yes I still did this, and will do it again, at no charge to any of the players and will continue once we can all get together again.

The upside to all this is that local event organizers have asked me to run 1 day beginner seminars that they have paid me for. Again, my only criteria was that non of the attendees be charged for going.

I have never seen an instructor with better teaching methods than @JoshFossgreen

OK I’m done so I’ll get down off my soap box.

[John_E]

@Celticstar

I wonder what % of people that give up on bass do so because of inadequate teaching methods?

Sadly, my daughter stopped piano for this reason.
Luckily, she realized this later and now is looking to get back in.

[Celticstar]

@John_E

Sadly, my daughter stopped piano for this reason.
Luckily, she realized this later and now is looking to get back in.

Good for her.

I always feel sad to hear about people giving up and I have found that if you ask them why it is usually comes down to the teaching method.

[PamPurrs]

@Celticstar

I wonder what % of people that give up on bass do so because of inadequate teaching methods?

I’d agree this is the reason so many give up on any instrument.

[Celticstar]

@PamPurrs

I’d agree this is the reason so many give up on any instrument.

And this is so sad

[Wombat-metal]

I take in person lessons, as well as B2B. But it’s very different stuff, mostly we play through songs, he shows me some muting tricks and some theory stuff. But I go to each lesson with an agenda. I don’t rely only on the teacher

So I think the student teacher thing is a two way street. It’s hard for kids to question adults so parents need to bridge that I think

[PamPurrs]

That’s a really good point @Wombat-metal, and I hadn’t even thought of that. You’re right, kids don’t speak up and tell the teacher what they need, the teacher just gives the student what’s on their agenda. When I had my bass coach for several months, I went to every session with my own agenda and questions, and that’s what we worked on. It was fun and very beneficial.

[wellbi]

As it was little over 2 months ago since I started to play Bass I will share my experience so far.

I’ve picked up Bass as the way how to improve my music writing process and it really informs the way how I see Bass success and achievements.

At the moment I am on a break from B2B course, for a few weeks already and who knows how long this break will last.

I like the way how Josh approaches the course and his camera presence but the whole course is really focused on playing songs, while I’ve found out that I am really only concerned with the sounds I can create with the instrument. And as such I spent hours trying every plucking angle, tried every combination of plucking positions, five days with metronome and drum loops to make my plucking hand serviceable, dug deep in to the angles between my arm and body, suffered through a few days of practice runs over the fretboard to find out exact technique of combining finger spreading and micro shifts in every possible situation etc. . (I simply brute forced Billie Jean until I was able to play it.)
I found out that I really prefer repetition and drills over “fun” while learning to play Bass.

I plan to finish B2B in the future, but at the moment I will probably stick with “my course”. It’s probably not as efficient as a structured course, but as long as I see regular progress I can live with that. The graduation being ability to write and play a bass part in some of my tracks. It’s still quite far away, but definitely in the realm of possibility. (It wasn’t like that a couple months ago.)

What I really enjoy so far is the Bassbuzz community here. No bull crap, just Bass and overall mature people with a common interest.

Cheers!

[MonsieurFahrenheit]

Wow! I use to love this song now it’s FU Billie Jean you filthy whore!! LOL I hit a brick wall, up to this point I would do the lesson and then be at 90-100% on the slow workout no problem medium was about the same, and most fast was 80-85% consistently. With Billie Jean I don’t even think I was ready to try the “slow” workout after the lesson and the lesson was really slow I noticed when the workout started and I was like “wtf this is the slow workout?!” LOL I know that in 6 months it won’t matter and I will be ripping it but I feel like I learned nothing! Which I guess is the point of Josh trying to keep us grounded and not swell our heads… I will keep plugging away for the next few days and then move on I won’t lose sleep over it!

[John_E]

I did not get Billie Jean on fast workout during the course last spring.
I sorta forgot about it and gave it a whirl a few weeks ago and it was cake.
slow down Josh’s video to 75-80% or even slower if you have to on the slow workout, work your way up to slow.

If you don’t get med, move on, try again after a bunch of modules.
Remember, your fingers have no interest in doing what you are asking them to do.
You must train them over time, and they will start to behave.
You will get it, but might be in a while, and that is cool.