Ah yes, but you should see the look on their faces when they have played a whole song together.
I started doing this FREE years ago when many schools started cutting music classes in their curriculums.
The thing is that 10 year olds usually have the attention spans of a bag of wet socks so a lot of them give up, in this world of instant gratification. But, if one or two out of the ten continue, I have done my job.
Most of my classes are mixed age groups so there is usually only maybe 1 or 2 youngsters in this age range. The ones that usually stick with it usually have other family members learning at the same time which seems to help inspire them.
@pete_s
I was in your exact position and actually put the bass aside for about a year after B2B. I hunted all over to find other things. Some talkbass courses are good, some way too much theory for what I care about. Ari’s first book, ok, but haven’t cared much about it since. SBL forget it.
My advice is this…
Full song practice - to me is one of the best skill builders going and you play things you like. The catch here is if something seems way way too hard put it aside. Our own 50 song challenge is the closest thing you will get to B2B part 2. Each song was picked by Josh to build on the skills you learned in B2B. What most of us found is after a certain number of these we would rather pick our own songs, but the skill building in the easy to medium ones if really useful.
Rich Brown - go to his YouTube Channel, sort all videos oldest first, find the first metronome video, do all 5 (I took private lessons which focused on improv, learned more from Rich. His ghost notes and triads stuff is great (I’m on the triads now). Assuming his other stuff will be too. And they are free!!!
Agree with @Celticstar here. Your fingertips “learn” through rite learning. Over and over and over. Any instrument is a lot of repetition. Every single time I pick up a sax, it’s long tones first (every single note on the horn as long as I can hold it, to build intonation memory), then all major scales (never did add minors, crap one more thing to do).
15 minutes in I get to start working on learning new concepts or songs.
One thing I would add about live lessons.
You really need to go into them knowing what YOU want to learn. Too too many instructors simply give you their normal course of action. I tired of this quickly (and the expense for it), even though I clearly stated what I was wanting to do.
What I did find though, is most of the things I wanted to work on with him came to me by simply focusing in and doing it until I understood it. Didn’t need a person telling me how to use a pick, it sorts itself over time, etc. I think the only downside to B2B (other than no part deux) is that you really feel like you’ve mastered things then quickly learn you are really at the beginning of the journey.
I am fortunate to be able to learn from a book and then apply it. Of course this does assume that the book is correct. As a case in point, when I was considering one of Ari’s books I watched a promotional video of hers and in it she stated that there were only 24 keys. I sent her an email about it but never heard back. That was it for me with Ari’s material.
Back in the early 1970’s, when I started guitar, the instruction books to get were primarily Mel Bay. But now the best bang for the buck, for me anyways, are the Hal Leonard books. It seems Mel Bay is just not staying up to date and, his books are not any cheaper.
Thanks for the Rich Brown tip, he’s got a great style, I’ll definitely check out his other videos.
Reflecting on what others have said I want to say I’m not put off by the effort or time involved. As part of my job I’m constantly having to learn and practice new things so this is not new for me. I think the frustration for me is that over the years I have gotten good at learning these skills. I know how to get to where I want to be and have confidence that what I’m doing will get me where I need to be even if I occasionally take a wrong turn.
Bass and music is so fundamentally different from these things though that I’m essentially back at square one. I don’t have the resources I’m used to when learning something new.
Essentially I need to learn how to learn the bass.
Brings to mind a quote from Pete Townshend, who a couple years ago said he was finally good enough on guitar he wasn’t embarrassed to play with others.
@pete_s you say you’re goal oriented, so am I. Just what are your goals?
This is why learning theory from forums is unreliable.
I was taught In total, there are 24 keys and 30 ways to spell them .
The root of the problem with advice on theory is that in the nicest possible way I assume some of you on here are dogs that have learned to type (My favourite cartoon below). So I only get my theory from music teachers like Josh or Mark Smith, Ariane Cap etc
So yes, Josh is in fact an incredible player. And he can do some stuff that i can’t even decode, let alone attempt.
When we compare ourselves to others, it’s easy to sometimes feel like we are deficient-i can say this freely, because being down on myself is easy.
Pro golfers make hitting 300 off the tee look easy-because they do it for a living. If you played 8 hours a day for 30 years, you’d look just as good making it thump.
I’ve been told it takes 10,000 hours to do something and be considered expert at it. That’s 40 hours a week for 5 years straight.
Since you haven’t don’t that (yet!) Maybe give yourself a little break and realize how much fun your are having. Being kind and forgiving to yourself is just as important as being that way to people around you.
I hope maybe hearing from another who struggles helps. Keep it in your hands, keep practicing.
I have to say i actually found an Italian teacher who has a bass course whose attitude, manners and content are on par with Josh’s (even if the quality of the production is quite lower than B2B). His course is in Italian tho so not much international. davidemartini.com. he also has a yt channel even if he’s not updating it lately due to some personal issues as he said. I bought his course too and I think it’s worth it much like Josh’s. It has to be the bass who attire the best of people has it not?
