Beginner to Badass Reviews? 🎸

[JoshFossgreen]

Hey BassBuzz family, for those of you who completed Beginner to Badass, what did you (honestly) think of the course?

It would help people who are interested in the course to have some legit reviews all in one place.

And I’m always ready to take constructive feedback, so we’re all as Badass as possible. Thank you!

And please also post in BadAss BassBuzz Alumni so we can congratulate you for finishing the course!

EDIT: Please help me keep this thread easy to navigate by only posting reviews here. Anything other than course reviews (like questions about the course, etc.) can be posted in Chat. Thanks!

[PamPurrs]

I started out as a high school band drop-out (Kicked out actually). I decided to take up the bass 50 years later, with very little recall of what I had learned in high school, and very little instrumental skill. The B2B course took me from the very basics of bass playing, through some rudimentary music theory, and onto advanced technique in a short period of time. Josh Fossgreen’s style of teaching is lighthearted and fun, yet very focused. I was absolutely astounded at the progress I made. I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning to play bass.

[Lanny]

Thank You @JoshFossgreen!!

On July 13, 2019 I purchased my first Bass (I now own two), and on July 15 I signed up for your B2B course……

I completed my final course lesson yesterday afternoon Sept 11 – in just under two months. I am now not only a ‘Badass’, but an official “Super Badass”!

Having played guitar for the past 60+ years, I wanted to take a course that would allow me to learn a new instrument the ‘correct’ way yet provide me the freedom to be able to set my own learning schedule. Living in the country and being miles away from any town or city poses an additional challenge when looking for any local experienced music teachers – there just aren’t any – the B2B online course was the perfect solution!

With very limited internet capabilities where I live (no internet – just limited cell phone coverage), I was able to take and complete this course online using my cell phone and my MBP. This alone shows that the IT team that put this course (and website) together knew exactly what they were doing for all 109 lessons (and forum) to stream pretty much flawlessly for me using nothing more than a cell phone ‘hotspot’! Yes, there were a few times when ‘buffering’ took place, but I suppose that just forced me to concentrate a little more on my ‘timing’ techniques…

Your teaching style and technique are remarkable in that you truly interact in a very personable way that makes each lesson a virtual ‘new’ experience. Many times, I’ve stumbled into my music room after watching the morning or evening news with a somewhat ‘sour’ attitude towards life here on planet earth yet, after just a few minutes into a lesson, that attitude just disappeared, and all order was reestablished. Must be that “Force”….

All this being said, the ONE most important thing that I have learned by taking this B2B course was “Diversity”…. You were able to do something within my being that no (and I mean NO) formal training, classes, etc. that I was ‘forced’ to attend as a Manager within the Federal Government workforce was able to accomplish… I learned that being more ‘Diverse as a Musician’ opened my soul to being more ‘Diverse as a Human’….

For this one thing I will eternally be grateful.

“May The Force Be With You!”

Bill “Lanny” Lanahan
Fort Valley, Georgia USA

[Jazzbass19]

It’s obvious that you spent a great deal of time and put a lot of thought into planning and implementing your Beginner to Badass course! Your teaching style is relaxed and thorough, making the course fun as well as instructive.

I especially appreciated the way you kept emphasizing and repeating key points throughout the entire course, too! This really helped reinforce what I learned in the earlier lessons and/or reminded me of points that I needed to go back and review again.

Going back over the course a second time, and using the “Course Extras” booklet were both very helpful to me in that regard. One suggestion I might have though, would be to make the booklet a bit larger and with a spiral binding so it could lay flat.

Probably the best part of your approach in the way you teach is to get the student playing simple riffs immediately and then backfilling with more details (e.g. the notes up and down the neck) as the course progresses. This gives him or her a sense of accomplishment right away, and makes the whole process of learning seem less intimidating.

Overall, your B2B course is a nice combination of theory, technique, and practical tips to get the beginning bass player started, and I would definitely recommend it to others.

All best, Joe

[joergkutter]

Not to muddle this thread, but the Thanks Josh! thread contains also “straight from the heart” reviews for the Badass course

[Vik]

@JoshFossgreen, I made a Yelp page for you a few weeks ago and put in a first review. These reviews should be made more public, so anyone researching Bassbuzz, or considering bass lessons online can find them. You can claim the Yelp page by verifying the domain’s ownership, and then edit it, as it’s your page. (It makes you put in a city location, I only knew you were somewhere in the Bay Area)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/bassbuzz-san-francisco

Here’s my review on there:
5 stars

These electric bass lessons are terrific, high quality, logically arranged, with plenty of visual cues, and paced for students of all levels. I was a complete beginner, and found each one of the 109 lessons had some value, and, in fact, am currently taking the course a second time, just to review anything I may have missed, and, because the playalongs were just plain fun! Josh is an exceptional teacher, he has a knack of knowing what needs to be taught, and there are also plenty of bonus materials to aid any student, as well as a forum where he answers any questions. I highly recommend these lessons - there is simply no other equivalent online.

[Vik]

Here’s another site that others have already put some reviews up on, I just added mine:

BassBuzz Reviews - 5.0 Stars

[Jazzbass19]

@Vik

I made a Yelp page for you a few weeks ago and put in a first review. These reviews should be made more public, so anyone researching Bassbuzz, or considering bass lessons online can find them.

That was very nice of you to do that, @Vik

Thanks & thumbs up for your review as well

All best, Joe

[PamPurrs]

@Vik

https://www.yelp.com/biz/bassbuzz-san-francisco

Hey @Vik, I clicked on that link and it’s a dead page. I tried to do a search for Bass Buzz, but no results.

[howard]

Yep, I’ll stand by my post in the Thank You thread, I meant every word of it. Paraphrased here:

Josh really has a gift for teaching and the course was great. Looks like it took about 100 days for me and I was in no way trying to move fast; it was just right.

I used to play keyboards in a gigging band in college. My best friend has been keeping things going this whole time, never really quit, and now we’re passing DAW projects back and forth with me on bass. Super fun, and Josh helped out a lot with getting me to this point. Both with the course itself, and tons of good advice here from Josh and @Gio.

Three months to pick up a new instrument to the point of jamming with old bandmates - after a couple decades of no music at all - is pretty damn satisfying and says a lot about the course.

Also I have to say - Josh and company have managed to curate what is by far the friendliest music forum on the internet. Everyone here is great. I have no idea how they did that

[Vik]

Ugh, I get the dead page on Yelp too if I’m not logged in there, but it shows up if I am logged in. Hoping it’s just a hiccup, and it will be back up. But sometimes they remove businesses or reviews if they don’t think they are real, or if the business has not been validated by the owner.

Also, I think if you do a search on Google for “bassbuzz” (all one word, rather than separate), some of these review sites come up on the first or second page of results.

[terb]

so, here is my review (feel free to correct if needed, my english being far from perfect !) :

I’ve been playing guitar for years, and during my musical journey I ended up by falling in love with bass. I was not really a beginner but I wanted to avoid playing bass like a guitarist, so I decided to learn bass playing back from the begining, that’s why I purchased the B2B course. I finished the course a few months ago, and I really enjoyed it. It’s really well made, very comprehensive and also very enjoyable. I’ve learnt a lot during this course and I highly recommend it, to beginners and also to guitar players who want to switch properly to the bass.

[PamPurrs]

@terb very well done!

[PeteP]

Even if there was anything wrong with your English (and as a native English speaker I can confirm there isn’t), the content, sentiment and intent is perfect.

[eric.kiser]

@JoshFossgreen There really is a pretty big difference between how you present your course and what I’ve seen anywhere else.

Are you looking for people to nit pick at it and over analyze it?

[nicholas.richino]

After playing in the 60s, life happened I put the base down for 50 years. On my birthday,I was turning 70, my wife and daughter gave me a bass so that I could play with my granddaughter, a bass player, who was 7 at the time. I was never very good and after all that time I was a true beginner. After fumbling around I found “Beginner to Badass” I liked the name and signed up! I pushed through and finished in a couple of months. I couldn’t believe my progress! I was playing to my favorite tunes and have a great time. After a while, I felt that I needed more. I looked at several other on-line programs. But there is only one Josh! So I am retaking B2B and it’s even better the second time around! Thanks Josh, you’re the best!

[JoshFossgreen]

@eric.kiser

Are you looking for people to nit pick at it and over analyze it?

No, just looking for personal experiences, but critical feedback can be part of that!

There’s also the What Would You Like To See In The Next Course thread for suggestions.

[PeteP]

Not at all @Mark_D, and it’s become quite normal for folk to realised halfway through that repeating the course is likely to pay big dividends. Plenty of the finishers have returned to the forums and still refer back to the course modules.

[howard]

Yep. Strongly recommend the course. Best money I have spent on music yet.

[nicholas.richino]

@Mark_D, great point. That was my experience, which I thought was the point here. But , full disclosure, I pushed to hard to finish the course quickly. While I could play all the levels well enough, there are a lot of Theory elements that made more sense to me the second time around.