Give up private lessons?

21

As someone who also took private lessons, and also completed the BassBuzz course, I thought I would tell you about my own experience.

I took firstly 3 private lessons and had a bass on loan, to see if I would like it and whether this could be my think. I loved it! I then enrolled in the BassBuzz’ BtoB online course, and later had more private lessons with a local bass teacher.

I learned a lot more and a lot faster with the BassBuzz course. The course is so well designed, and we progress through the lessons in a very structured manner. Josh is very good at explaining things in a way a beginner can understand, and believe me, it was much easier to learn and to understand than with my private lessons.

I had private lessons this autumn once a week, only 30 minutes long. Here this is quite experience in the long run. And I wasn’t progressing much with the private lessons. 30 minutes once a week isn’t enough, and my teacher liked to teach by playing and by ear. He wanted to show me and I would copy him, but without music notation. I explained to him I really need to see the sheet music, and sometimes he printed it to me at the end of the lesson, so I would practice at home. But it felt like I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out and remember the notes on the fretboard during the lessons. Maybe his strategy works on the long run, or maybe it works for some people, but I was having a hard time.

With an online course, one can study as long as one wants, whenever one wants, and it is possible to watch the videos again, repeat the lessons. And the BassBuzz course offered me a lot more theory and explanation, which I felt were lacking from my private lessons.

Like you, I’m pretty analytical and I love studying, I like theory, and I’m a very visual person. I need to see the music notation, preferably sheet music and tabs, if am I to learn a song. It is a lot easier to learn rhythm and note duration from online videos.

I can’t say whether you should give up private lessons or not, or find another teacher. But I would recommend you try an online course, either in stead or in addition to private lessons.

I warmly recommend BassBuzz’ Beginner to Badass course! I learned so much from it!

And after that, take a look at Talkingbass.net I started the Groove Trainer course at Talkingbass, and it is a perfect continuation after BassBuzz.

As you mentioned you are an analytical thinker, I think you would probably also enjoy Talkingbass’ Simple Steps to Sight Reading for bass guitar, which is a very long and comprehensive course full of theory. I haven’t taken that course yet, but I probably will in the future. Talkingbass has a lot of other interesting courses. Enough to keep one busy for years.

I hope this helps!

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22

not every teacher is a good teacher. i have my suspicions that maybe most teachers aren’t good teachers. find someone you groove with. or don’t. seriously, you don’t really have to to do this (private lessons). i personally get the heeby jeebys when i think of being locked in a room one on one with someone trying to play some freaking arpeggio, i’m perfectly happy learning at my own pace in my own way. the overarching idea here is to have fun, because if you’re not, why do it? and it doesn’t sound like you’re having much fun. i mean, sure it’s not ALL fun, but still. fun.

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23

Because they aren’t. I’d say very few are.

Being a teacher is a unique skill set. It requires separate training.

Most music teachers are musicians first, who are supplementing that with teaching. But they have never done any teacher/instructor training.

They often have a lot of information to impart, but I’ve generally found that it actually requires being a good STUDENT to get the most out of it. That to get the most out of them, you have to know what information or techniques you want to learn, and guide them to imparting that.

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24

This is such an incredible problem even outside of music. The same thing comes up with sports players becoming coaches or trainers. As much as kids praise the “school of youtube” a lot of social media education tends to be individuals sharing their own perspective which is often not what makes for a good teacher.

I’ll tack on that bad communication from either the student or the teacher is enough to ruin an otherwise fine situation. I made this mistake with my last music instructor. She was friendly and we had a good vibe in lessons, but I knew she was tired of some of the pieces I wanted to learn and I had anxiety about bringing in weird stuff so the lessons never went in a direction meaningful to me. I probably wasted half a year or so doing Josh’s “option 4” which was a complete waste of time and money.

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25

Also, being a good teacher doesn’t mean that someone would be a good teacher for everyone. Someone can be a great teacher, but not be a good teacher.

Heck, most of us here think Josh is a good teacher, but i guarantee you there are many people who think he sucks as a teacher.

At the end of the day, you are paying a teacher for their services. If you are not enjoying/getting benefit you do not need to keep paying and using the service.

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26

yep. it’s amazing how many hall of fame coaches never played the sport, or played but were terrible.

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27

If you want to delve into the analytical side, you might like the book “Bass Theory” by John C. Goodman.

(Also I second what everyone has already said.)

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I think that I have it. The Hal Leonard series is good stuff! Now, to find it and put it on the nightstand!

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Hey Aderly :slight_smile:

I’m 55 and came to this amazing instrument in July. Like you I can be quite analytical, and hard on myself about progress / achievement / perfection - all the stuff we’re told not to aim for.

My take on your post … you need to find someone to be silly with, let go, laugh your head off and play ridiculous stuff and enjoy the heck out of it! I’m lucky to have that, we play everything from Iron Maiden to Lady Gaga to Duran Duran. I make one hell of a mess, it’s improving me rapidly, and it’s becoming my favourite thing ever!

I wish you so much joy of this awesomely funky instrument. Sounds like you’re not getting that from your lessons. I suspect there lies your answer.

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30

Everybody has a choice to reach their goals. And it seams its run course in which you learned and enjoyed. I was in a major car crash, left shoulder replacement and 2 heart attacks…. in 5 months. Doctors told me I was air playing my bass in during 3 surgeries. So now I’m back at it. Looking at my goals I setup. With Josh at the top of my list who I picked as my Teacher. Thanks for listening to this 69 year ol man.

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31

Doesn’t sound like a fit Aderly5. One piece of advice is to get the “I am old” out of your head. Music is forever. I started playing the bass 6 years ago, I am 76. No lessons due to pandemic and struggled with online. UNTIL I found beginner to badass course. It’s a well rounded course which teaches many skills. You go at your own pace and repeat it as many times as you feel you need to. I found it tremendously helpful and Josh and his crew is quick to help if you have questions.

It is well worth trying, it almost feels like private lessons. I will never be super speedy but plsy well enough to b part of my local ukulele group. And BTW playing with others really helps improve your playing.

Hope this helps.

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32

People do wild things while under :rofl::rofl::rofl::sign_of_the_horns:t2::sign_of_the_horns:t2::sign_of_the_horns:t2:

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What caught my eye from your post was there is no curriculum. It took me awhile before I understood that this is super important. When a teacher has a curriculum they’ve thought about how to pass on the learning material. Doesn’t need to be exact but they thought about the steps. Good curriculums build on the steps or have multiple exercises that utilize skills from other exercises you are doing. I spent a long time practicing in an ‘open’ way and also having teachers without a curriculum, after a while I started think I should get a teacher that didn’t allow me to make the calls. I finally found one. My input pretty much none, he has the entire plan set out. Because he has an excellent course (IMHO), things make way more sense to me, and I can see how I pretty much wasted a lot of time when I didn’t have a curriculum. My teacher also assess how I’m digesting the lessons and then makes changes based on that.

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