@sunDOG Cheers Buddy, that’s inspirational. Well done on your recent stage performances. How many minutes or hour’s are you putting in a day, week?
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It took playing with other musicians.
Playing on my own to recordings, I have no point of reference. I hear my mistakes. I hear how I could improve.
Playing with other musicians, I focus on locking in and working together. I can feel that happening. I can perceive how, as imperfect as my playing is, my being part of that ensemble adds something vital.
I can hear that all of us make mistakes at times. I make mistakes, but they don’t mess up the song as long as the drummer and guitar keep rolling. I also hear the drummer and guitar make mistakes, and that my staying solid and holding down my part can hold the song together while they recover.
Playing with other people lets me see what I’m doing RIGHT!
(Also, Billie Jean is brutal.)
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I don’t buy the 20 hours schtick a bit. From 10-12 years old, I took 2-hour piano lessons every Saturday morning from the soloist for the St. Louis Philharmonic. She could tell within 15 minutes of how much practice time I’d put in that week. If I had slacked off, I got an earful. She was TOUGH. But after those 3 years, I could sit down in front of the sheet music of a classical piece I’d never seen before and do a bang up job of playing it while sight reading. That took 3 years of daily practice. So, no, 20 hours is bullsh!t.
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Yeah, I think Josh put Billie Jean in there to be nasty to us 
As for many others here, I too couldn’t handle that bass line. I’m now getting towards the end of my first run of the course (I intend to go back over large chunks), and still haven’t been brave enough to revisit Billie Jean …
I’ve been playing for about 8 months and in no way feel competent. Do I feel more competent than I did 8 months ago? Definitely; and did I feel competent enough to have a go at playing Seven Nation Army with band mates? Hell yes! 
As others have already said, don’t feel that you need to be able to play Billie Jean before moving on - simply move on and the competence will develop as you progress further through the course 
Phil
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Well done on seven nation army.
Thanks for the advice.
Same!!!
and I really hate that I suck at them
Yeah me too. I mean not enough to put in the work to get good at them - but I do hate it 
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I almost never write in forums, but your message got me.
I know how you feel.
My advice to you: You can’t win this fight against your brain playing straight, so you have to CHEAT. How? Find, or ask your close Ex to find you BAD players. Total noobs, beginners that stink to high heavens. Play with them first. That will give you the boost you need, to gradually climb up the ladder to play with people in your level.
Btw, you don’t have to find a group of players that stink. Find one beginner drummer (better if they’re nice though). Learn the simplest song. You’ll feel better 
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@JustTim my experience was a little different, I’ll be at not playing with other people in a band, playing golf, when I used to waste time doing such a thing. I used to get so frightened to play with people that were better than me. I was never very good, but got to a point where I could actually enjoy going through the day, mostly because of the cart and the beer, but the game didn’t annoy me.
anyway, long story longer… Most people better than you, or I actually would have patience and understanding. At least that’s what I found in golf, and a lot of golfers can be assholes. The bigger bit here, is that when I played with people better than me, I played better. When I played with people that sucked, I sucked. Maybe because I didn’t want them to feel bad, maybe because I just didn’t care, I don’t know it was a long time ago.
But what I do remember, even longer story longer, is that I always look forward to playing with people better than me, because I learned something and I got better every time.
If you do end up playing with people that you don’t know who are better than you and who have no patience, well, there’s assholes in every activity
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It’s like golf.
My experience has been the opposite, dig deep and play with better players in no time you are fast becoming like them.
Here’s the thing. If you are young and motivated you are more likely to play and have a great time regardless of the awareness of your skill level and flaws, this goes 10x if you don’t watch any YouTube.
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Sorry. I didn’t answer this question. I’m typically playing about an hour to an hour and a half a day. Band rehearsal days are obviously longer - we were in a rehearsal studio for 3 hours last night, but probably playing for 2 hours. Add to that, the hour I did at dawn, so yesterday was 3 hours.
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The things I deal with daily are different from you.
What I find helps get over things is to embrace sucking. To screw up. Do the absolute WORST you could do, and see that it’s fine.
I rock climb. I’m scared of heights. The more I fell, the easier it got and the better I was able to climb. I used to take my car to track days. Brought my wife one time. She was totally stressed about it… until she spun the car, went off track, and everything was fine.
As hard as it is - you need to put yourself in a position to make that first mistake so that you can move past it.
Maybe ease yourself into it by finding a person you trust, and intentionally playing badly for them. Just smack the strings. Sloppy rhythm. Dissonant tones. Ringing open strings. Blat straight into the peak limit on the preamp. Then have a good laugh about it with your friend.
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This really works!
Parody works, too. I can’t sing but I sing all the time; parodies and goofy ditties and silly exaggerations of styles. (My sultry jazz version of “Where has the toilet plunger gone?” brings the crowd to it’s feet, lemme tell ya!) As I’m working through B2B I’ve been starting to do the same a bit with bass. The goofier the better, it’s amazing how well things go when you just cut loose.
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You also get a chance to learn the raw sounds you can get out of the instrument.
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I am on Module 10. I was under the impression that at some point in the course Josh would say, “now is the time to go back to Billie Jean.” I thought he told us when we first had it that he would revisit it. Was I wrong? I’ve been wondering when he was going to set us loose on it.
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The course does not return to BJ. You can on your own if so desired.
I don’t know why I thought that. It seemed as if he was setting it up for a challenge - “Don’t worry about this now” which he says about a lot of stuff, but for some reason I thought he was going back to it. Thanks.
Yes, me too. 
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I just checked back to that module, to see if I was hearing stuff. I wasn’t. Josh says he is “going to invite you back at the end of the course to check your progress.” So, I and a few others have been progressing through the course wondering just when he was going to do it. No big deal, but I wanted to make sure I heard what I thought I heard.
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I read that Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads, played only 3 months before playing with a band, to which I went “WOW”, but then again, I don’t think she’s typical, I think she has some prodigy in her blood.
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