Are you actually learning bass… or just learning bad habits? Knowing the difference will save you years of wasted progress.
If you’re doing the Beginner to Badass course, this lesson would fit… any ol time. It’s just solid advice.
What one thing slowed you down the most when you first started on bass?
No lessons. I could improvise on piano, but a couple of friends were forming a band and needed a bass and keyboard player. So, I jumped right into the fire. I kept the bass lines simple and managed to play along with the records of the songs we covered. The most important thing to me was “did the girls dance”. They did, and I was happy. Then came the Army (Vietnam War), college, a career and a 40 year hiatus from playing bass and piano. One of the first things I did when I decided to pick up the bass again was sign up for your B2B course. 
Probably wanting to learn/know everything too fast. I have a tendency to nerd out and want to know all the minutiae to what I am doing. By slowing down and taking it slower helped my progress. That, and honestly, bass lines can be far more complicated and complex than I was hearing in the song. Only four strings, how complex can it be 
I was literally typing a comment on the YT video to join a band and then Josh got it in there right at the end. B2B got me band ready but after finishing I was still just playing along to songs at home and I plateaued hard. Joining a band got me back on a path of growth, pushed me out of my comfort zone, and forced me to look at and tackle mistakes head on. I still make them of course but now I can’t just ignore them
This video was hugely validating for me, because it actually describes how I’ve been practicing! I look for songs I’m 90% good at, and put in the work to get that other 10% up to par using the methods in the video.
I’ve even been doing this part:
When you make a mistake, you stop and replay that section correctly five to ten times in a row.
I do want to add though, that this can end up accidentally training you to stop playing any time you make a mistake. And that ends up being a real handicap when you want to play with other people and not just recordings. So I prefer to play through the mistake for at least a few bars to not bake in that reflex, then go back and do the repetitions on the difficult part.
I’ve been sharing my progress with more experienced musicians in some group chats I’m in, and they’ve said I’m making good progress for someone who’s only been playing for 2 months. I owe most of that to the B2B course, but I’m in the final stretch (starting Module 15 today!) and I know these practice habits are what will keep me going.
I’m definitely guilty of trying stuff way outside my skill level.
I’m currently halfway through B2B and I’m doing well but not exactly killing it and making it look easy, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to learn Southbound Pachyderm by Primus between lessons. It’s kind of funny that my practice is going through chords, the 12 bar blues, then something that would make Claypool shake his head in disappointment.
Point taken, I’ll stick to the level one songs and revisit Primus later.
Great video @JoshFossgreen, reading Molly’s book really helped my progression, specifically 1. NOT: starting a piece at the beginning and playing until making a mistake then either blowing through it or starting over and 2. Play something (either the bar or two you’re struggling with, or the whole piece 5-10 times in a row MISTAKE FREE. Tons of other really great advice in that book and I highly recommend it, but these two point above have been transformational for me.
The thing that slowed me down when I first started was a, “that’s too hard, I can’t play it” mindset. It was applied to most exercises and songs, and was difficult to shake. Recording myself (even just audio) helped me take a step back and realize I didn’t sound as terrible as I thought I did.
Slowly it built up into the “I can’t do it… YET” and that unlocked the door to more progress.
AFAIK the teacher of J. S. Bach told him that musical knowledge cannot not be measured by yards, when he asked about Händel.
However, I have also been learning 10 finger typing on monkeytype.com and even though my speed is nowhere near as I would like to reach, the trend surprised me. Earlier, in sport, my development was always wavy, but steadily advancing in long terms. However, monkeytype’s micro practices helped me continuously develop, without the big drop downs.
So, I think the trick, at least for me, is to practice in small chunks, but multiple times a day. Which is not hard, because I am listening to music almost all my life and for wind instruments, I always played the tunes with my fingers on the underground while holding the handrails. (This is also a good technique to learn translation, btw.) So I can play bass without any gears, actually.
Attached my trend on monkeytype →
Judging by Reddit I think this is common, but also true for me - the gateway to interest to begin with hard rock/metal or something bass heavy (e.g. Rush). This causes people to just brute force memorize songs, instead of learning anything about music along the way.
Learning songs this way means that if you lose your place in a song, it’s a pain in the rear to try to get back on track!
Song-wise, I started getting better, faster, by first focusing on the song structure and progression. This is easier by biting off simpler, easy progression songs and building from there.
I also learned (Thanks B2B!) that I don’t have to like a song to enjoy playing it.
Wow. Good to see you formally incorporate Molly Gebrian’s stuff into your videos. I watched her series of videos several weeks ago when I stumbled on this thread: Practice techniques based on applied science. Going through B2B, I was guessing you were already applying some of her techniques but now it seems you’re going whole hog. Maybe re-record some of the early B2B lessons on how to learn?
Great video. I loved the Senna example.
You mentioned the 1.4 second lap time difference… For context of how massive that is: I used to do amateur sportscar racing in a “spec” series (everyone had the same model of car, prepared to the same rulebook to minimize the effect of equipment). Much slower than F1, and lots more variation in driver skill level. 1.5 seconds is about what separated the couple of cars who fronted the pack from drivers like myself were were solidly mid-pack.
1.4 seconds in ski racing is a lifetime. World Cup Super G is 15th.
Skiing is way more exciting than F1. Sorry not sorry
Starting too fast - practicing too much each day and trying songs which were way too hard.
Not only did it make me not incorporate good basics, but it got me injured which made me stop for about two years…
SCCA?
NASA. Porsche 944 spec.
Ahh, cool. My best friend’s dad was SCCA, used to race a bugeye Sprite in H-Production. Got me out on the track a couple times on my motorcycle 
