Feeling a bit lost on where to go next

hey Josh!! I have a little problem so I finished the course which was great and like in April and I listened to what you said abt creating a routine and stuff it’s just I feel a little lost and don’t know where to go next ya know like yeah I wanna play and sound good but idk what I should focus more on am 15 rn so I wanna play more consistently and stuff so I can a more decent player as I get older

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Quick tip: If you’d like to address a message to Josh, be sure to type @JoshFossgreen in your post. When you do, he will receive an alert that he’s been specifically mentioned.

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My 2nd step after B2B was to go for SBL

Quickly I moved from SBL to talkingbass (chords essential, groove trainer 1&2, also purchased technic builder but not started yet)

For me SBL was a little too heterogeneous in terms of lessons length (I work quite a bit and usually try to grab my bass 5-10 min before going to bed). Talkingbass is better for me as lessons are shorter

This summer, during vacations, I will go back to SBL as I will have more time and I like the fact that songs are longer (to build endurance)

Important fact, once a week we play cover songs with my family band - this gives me opportunity to play « real music »

Hope this helps

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I, too, went from B2B to SBL. I’m still working through stuff at SBL. I think that their Players Paths are really good, as are their Learning Pathways. I did the Beginners Learning Pathway which was not really much more than a recap of B2B, but Ian’s presentation style and his excitement over the material was enjoyable. I’m doing the Blues Learning Pathway right now, and I’m up to Players Path level 4.

SBL takes a lot of heat around here because a number of B2B forum regulars don’t much care for Scott (the “S” in SBL). I find him - and his compatriot Ian - fun to listen to. A lot of those people will recommend TalkingBass courses in lieu of SBL. Personally, I much prefer SBL to TalkingBass, but that’s completely a personal thing and not a slam on TalkingBass. They have awesome content.

Either way you go, you really can’t lose.

Talking Bass is one guy: Mark Smith. He not only is an accomplished professional bass player with decades of experience, he is also a teacher with first hand experience of teaching at university-level music school. Still, he presents material in a step-by-step method that a player at any level can follow.

Mark’s courses have traditionally been no-nonsense, player-intensive material, i.e., he presents the material and the rest is left for students to practice it. As such, it is a more hands-off approach than B2B, where Josh presents beginner-level material with play-along workouts.

There are folks here on the forum who enjoy SBL and derive benefits from its courses, and that’s great: Whichever learning path promotes more and better players is fantastic.

Personally, my path after B2B has been Talking Bass.

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I’m in the middle like @mileydi2212 and I’m going to choose a talkbass course: what do you recommend after the great B2B?

@Fede79 , I took groove trainer and chord tone essentials, highly … do them both at the same time

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Ho @qenden, thank you but I can afford only one and I have to do a choice. :pensive:

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I would go with the Groove trainer next as it gives you lots of little etudes (studies) for you to practise on but doesn’t have all that much theory. Depends to some extent on what you are looking for. Do you want to learn more music theory? In which case some of the Talking Bass theory courses like Chord Tone Essentials would be ideal or for more practice oriented stuff the Groove Trainer would be good.

Another thing that will develop your playing no end, having completed B2B, is get into doing covers. Loads of help on this forum about ways to get your favourite songs, find the tab/music online and create backing tracks with the bass removed. Then you can record yourself playing them (also loads of help in these pages) and join in the fun on the Covers thread: Post your covers! (2024) - #2885 by TheMadBassist

Given your financial constraints another alternative, but a little less structured, would be to get into all the free lessons both Josh (B2B) and Mark (Talking Bass) have on their youtube channels.

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Ok @Fede79 just as @HighlandBass said go for the groove trainer

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@HighlandBass and @qenden ok!

I’m going into details of the courses but Groove Trainer seems to meet my requirements :blush:

Thanks a lot

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+1 for this. Basically, this is what I have been doing since the tail end of the B2B: I’m somewhere between 40 and 50 of them now - should really count. I have four motivations for doing them:

  1. it’s superb fun! How many songs are out there in the ether? I hear something and think, ooh, could I play that?
  2. you continue to learn and push yourself. Admittedly, sometimes I select easy ones as I also work and have a family. Other times, I pick something that is a bit of a stretch.
  3. ‘auditioning’ songs for my fledgling band, “Can we please have a go at this…?
  4. learning songs that other band members want to play

The great thing about the covers it that it builds confidence - “I can play this…” it was this confidence that led to my forming a band….

And that’s the next thing I would advise - go play with other people - not only is it superb fun, but it also pushes one outside a comfort zone. I’ve had a number of conversations with our guitarist, who is way better than me, where he has told me that I can learn the (xxxx) song, “you’re better than you think you are…”. Even if I’m not, his confidence in me, builds my confidence in myself!! Classic virtuous circle stuff!!

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Ever thought about connecting with other players in your area and just start playing music in jam sessions? In my opinion you’ll learn as much, if not more, doing that than you will trying to take another bass course. If you finished B2B…you’re ready. Join your church worship team, play with them. Look for impromptu jam sessions on musician forums in your area. Don’t be shy about it, musicians are great teachers if you’re willing to learn and put the time in.

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I haven’t sought out any additional courses after B2B, I just started learning and covering my favorite songs. Every song had forced me to develop certain techniques to be able to play them. Personally this has worked quite well. The longer I go the more I become interested in the theory behind the music and so for that reason I am actually going to be enrolling in some in person classes.

You don’t need to know the “why” to be proficient at the “how” but I suppose it depends on what your personal goals are!

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What else to do following B2B is absolutely relative to the individual player.

Learning the “why” of music construction can and does make learning new songs easier and faster. Learning “how” to play individual songs is also valuable.

But the choice of which to do is not necessarily an either/or decision.

Learning how and why songs are constructed takes the mystery out of learning new ones because the patterns and logic they’re built from become clear and recognizable. There’s value in learning as much as possible because all pursuits combined lead to better playing.

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This! Learning the “why”, put you in a position to understanding what happen in a song or bass line. Understanding the pattern will help you to choose different chords or notes and completely changing the perception of your intention in that moment. The “why” learning you more ways to tell the same thing.

I agree with all the good advice and reccs here! Basically, you can…

Learn tons of songs - it’s fun and you’ll get better at bass

Do more courses - if you want to (and also tons of good stuff on the BassBuzz YT Channel)

Get a teacher - for even more direction (hopefully, unless they suck, which some do)

PLAY WITH OTHER PEOPLE (and use your existing knowledge) - which is absolutely the best/fastest way to build your real world bass skills

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So, to further help out the OP - totally not for me - what would you lot say is the best way to meet other musicians? Like, I doubt there’s some wacky match-dot-com-but-for-musicians app out there. Is craigslist still a thing, maybe some Facebook groups or summat?

There are :wink:

I’ve used Bandmix. You can search for people local to you, filtered instrument, experience, commitment and age. I’m U.K. based. I think it also covers the States. Plus there are frequently local Facebook pages were people are looking for musicians…

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While the Youngs probably have apps for this, I recommend the crazy sounding method of just talking to people. We have a mailing list at work of many folks dying to jam, on a wide range of instruments. So maybe just ask around at work! You might be surprised.

So far I have avoided it as I already have an ancient band that a couple of us are trying to keep kicking, slowly, from different continents…

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