Welcome to the Bass Buzz forum! If you haven’t already done so, the Chat forum is a great place to start a thread saying hi and introducing yourself. I’m really excited for everyone to have a chance to build some community around learning bass and playing music!
I’ll start! Here’s some stuff you might not know about me from watching me teach you bass for hours and hours:
After years of wanting to, I finally started studying martial arts this last year (Jeet Kune Do mostly, plus some Muay Chaiya and Filipino Kali). It’s been really amazing in a lot of ways. I’m especially enjoying the increased body awareness and nimbleness, I’ve actually found it useful on stage (i.e. I’m stumbling around less when I get absorbed in the music).
I’ve been vegan for almost 10 years, and despite what people think, it’s been really really easy to be consistent, even touring around the country and playing in some very small midwestern towns that the vegan concept hasn’t made it out to yet.
I’m really passionate about Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication (NVC), and try to integrate its principles into my communicating, whether in my personal relationships or even making bass lessons videos.
I want to get to know you guys too, so start a thread and say hi!
I’ll contribute. I don’t have a musical bone in my body, but I’ve always been gobsmacked by people that can play music. I’ve always liked the drums and bass. When I’m at a show, those are the two cats I watch the most. So, at 58 I decided to get serious and take up the drums and the bass. I have a drum instructor that comes over once a week and I’m taking bass lessons here. Both endeavors are working out well. I think I might actually pull this off and be a drummer and a bass player. I don’t know where it will take me, I just want to be able to play an instrument. Maybe I can gig at the retirement home!
I’ve been retired for 18 years from the Air Force Reserve. I was active duty for 6 years and Reserve for the rest. I was a bomb loader on A-7’s and F-16’s, and a Flight Engineer on C-141’s until my retirement in 99. I’ve been a pilot since I was 16 and I’m currently a Gulfstream 550 Captain for large casino in Las Vegas.
Guess I’ll add on. I’m in the same boat (or plane) as @asantora, I do not have a musical bone either. I somehow even make an air guitar sound bad.
As I have stated in another post, I originally purchased the bass I have now back in the mid 90’s, but it was in my friends talented hands for the past 20 years. It ended up collecting some dust, so I worked a deal to get it back. I thought it was time to do something far more productive than watching YouTube videos.
When I originally had the bass, I just tortured it and really never learned how to actually play it. Now, with these modern computers and the interweb, I thought I could give it a better go.
I cannot believe how far I’ve come in just the 2 weeks I have been doing this course and am so I excited about learning tons more. I sometimes have to force myself to stop going through courses and spend some time with my wife.
Anyhow, I am 53 (glad I’m not the only older chap on here) and I work from home in the wonderful Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
Like others - I have wanted to play an instrument well. I played drums on and off since I was 14, but I was never really good - other than learning how to read notes in high school and taking more lessons after I retired 17 years ago - I lost interest.
I was an NYPD Highway Patrolman until I was severely injured by a drunk driver - this also set aside the years I had in the USAF since I was in the Guard and subsequently the reserves.
I was sent to the pasture until 9/11 - where, and because of, I subsequently, developed cancer. Battling PTSD I need something to keep my head screwed on and go forward in a positive manner. As others - I am past that “Midlife Crisis” crap - unless I live to 106, I am over the hump of midlife
I am here like the rest to learn the bass. My father-in-law played bass in a few bands and knew I liked the deep, resonant end of things. He passed away not too long ago and left me a bass.
I played piano and some trombone as a kid; but, I haven’t touched an instrument in decades. I’m really self-conscious about playing in front of others. It doesn’t help the better half can pick up any instrument and master it fairly quickly. I hope I can develop the flexibility to play it well.
I am looking forward to this new and exciting journey at 46 years old!
Hello people. Thanks Josh for starting this. To be succinct, Old geezer, been playing since teens. Didn’t take it seriously till mid 30’s. Tried the sex drugs and rock 'n roll thing, nearly killed me a few times. Now I play Bass in a Dub Reggae band appropriately entitled Dub Thieves. I have a Warhol banana on one of my bass headstocks which is how I spotted Josh and ended up here. Its been a wild grand journey so far.
Hey all! Like many of you have mentioned I didn’t take up music until I was in my late 40’s. I started out on the mandolin and decided to take up bass as a second instrument. I taught myself to play mandolin mostly by reading books and watching YouTube videos of people like Bill Monroe and decided to take a more structured approach to the bass. Boy am I glad I did. This way is much easier. Thanks Josh! I am lucky enough to play on our worship team at church on Sunday mornings and have already transitioned over from the mandolin since bass fits much better with our mix.
Other than music I golf, enjoy photography (especially the old school film cameras), and I love running. My running highlight was last year when a ran a half marathon in Indianapolis where the middle part of the course was the Indy 500 motor speedway. Very cool.
Hello Everyone! I am new to this site and I just started the Beginner to Bad-Ass course. I don’t know if I am following the rules or not so I hope you all will forgive me but I just watched Beyonce @ Coachella. At 1 hour and 14 minutes in to the video when the marching band is on the stage with Beyonce, the bass player plays this solo where she is playing this real funky bass riff. YouTube has since taken the video down before I could watch it long enough to figure it out. If anyone has seen it or knows what I am talking about it would be great to get the tabs for that bass riff. Thank you very much. Josh I love what you have done with this site! That free Blues lesson drew me in to sign up. I was able to follow you and play it right away! So I thought “Hey these people may be on to something” (your marketing strategy worked, lol). So here I am enrolled the beginner to bad-ass course. I have had 1 set of lessons with an actual instructor about 2 years ago. He was ok but he kept throwing music theory at me and all the music theory jargon (mind you I didn’t know jack crap about music theory). It became intimidating and made me feel stupid because I didn’t get it. I could not figure out how what he was trying to teach me about music theory tied in to actually playing the bass. So I did not sign up for any more lessons. I did not totally put the bass down though. I would go to YouTube and get tips on how to play. I kept monkeying around with it until now I am able to listen to a bass line and if it’s not too complicated then I can figure out how to play it. I even learned how to play some cool bass riffs and I have made up my own bass lines. I will admit that the little I did learn about music theory helped me to be able to able to do that on my own. I find that the beginning of the B to B-A course is kind of easy for me but I am following along because doing so has solved a some of my fret hand and plucking hand issues. While I managed to teach myself a couple of things my technique is not so good so I don’t sound as good as I should. I am sill struggling to play clean.
I haven’t seen that video, but if you find a link post it here so I can take a listen!
That makes sense that the beginning feels easy for you since you’ve already been playing for a while, but that’s great that you’re running through it anyway to check on your technique etc. Plus you get to play music every lesson so hopefully it’s not too painful.
Hey everyone, as longs as I can remember I’ve always been very passionate about music, especially the bass. I wish I learned how to play bass when I was a lot younger but sadly I was too afraid to pick one up and learn it then. After listening to enough of my favorite bass players Chuck Rainey and Bean9Seventy aka “The Red Imperial”(and Playing lot of air bass guitar lol ;P). I’ve been inspiring to be a great bass player ever since, finally buying a bass guitar. I’ve been playing bass for 2 years now going on 3 in September. I’m 31 years old now.
Ever since I bought my bass I’ve just been watching “How-to” Videos and self-teaching myself. I also now play for my church and a R&B/Acoustic band.
I’ve been following Josh ever since I started playing and really enjoy his style of teaching. I was so happy to get started on the “B2B” course when I found out about it. I’m hoping this course will set a solid foundation for me and expose and help me correct any bad habits I established from being self-taught.
My goal is to eventually be able to play any style of music fluently with ease, play by ear, be creative with my bass lines and fully understand music theory.
Other things about me:
I love God, The Beach, Staying in Shape, Martial Arts, Traveling, Discovering and Trying out local diners, drive in’s and dives, Video Games, Camping, Shooting and Driving Off-Road.
By way of an introduction I’d first like to extend my thanks to our host Josh for his excellent series of instructional videos. He is one of a very few bass professionals out there who has seemingly mastered the knack of being both an inspirational player and teacher all at once! Sadly, so many otherwise competant musicians seem to find it necessary to break into irrelevant, distracting, off-subject and ego-polishing riffs at random intervals. Clearly Josh has nothing to prove!
I’m based in the UK, more specifically on a boat on the Llyn peninsula in North Wales. I arrived at the Bass after many decades (I’m 72) of attempting (and failing) keyboard instruments of various kinds only to conlude that while I’ve got some time left I ought to give another instrument a go. I’ve always thought the bass player to be ultra cool and having a good ear for harmony and melody thought it to be a good choice, particularly given my choice of dwelling (compact and no immediate neighbours to upset etc).
Being an engineer and not having huge amounts of cash to splash the obvious thing to do for me was to bulid an instrument which has become one of my 2 travelling companions. I call it ‘Homer 2’. ‘Homer 1’ is my rather elderly golden retriever. You can see both of them in the ‘Gear’ thread. Any resemblance of the ‘Homer 2’ headstock logo to other manufacturers is entirely deliberate.
My other interests include photography, cycling, salsa dancing and DIY.
Whilst being a total newbie to the bass I have other professional skills which I intend to bring the the party. This has begun with a very simple adaption to 'Homer 2’s body by embedding a headphone driver so that I can practice without the benefit of a normal amp on AC power. (It’s what’s causing that strange bluey glow in the pic). Being of an age and having cut my teeth on valve (tube) amps in the 60’s I’ve always maintained a professional and personal interest in audio ‘Hi Fi’ (not a term you’ll see around much these days) and have developed my design expertise right through discrete Transistor technolgy , IC technolgy to class D switching amps and beyond. Just as an aside, I am both amused and perplexed in equal measure that so many people are now parting with lots of money just so’s they can emulate the kind of amp distortion I (and others) worked so hard and for so long to get rid of. Go figure!
Those of you who are old enough (pre Broadband) may remember the warbling modems which were then necessary to connect your PC to your ISP. Well, that was me. Not the warbling of course but a designer of such communications technology which operated in the audio telephony band. This brought me in touch with many analogue (sorry analog) design techniques including filters, equalisers (EQs now) etc which I have now decided to consolidate into the 21st century by way of Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), now the favoured technology which forms the basis of many of the sophisticated pedal effects.
My plan now is to develop this technology to the point where it can actually be built in to the body of a Bass and communicate to the outside world by WiFi. This is quite ambitious and will warrant much time effort and expenditure. Perhaps there are others out there who might be interested in this subject and would be prepared to be involved in some way perhaps as advisers or beta testers. What say you all? The subject of a new thread perhaps?
Hey there, nice to meet you! Very interesting idea about building pre-amp/DSP etc. into a bass and sending signal out through WiFi. I’m interested to hear more!
Hail BassBuzz community! My name is Gio Benedetti. I’m a friend of Josh’s, and I’m looking forward to being an active and eager voice on these forums - championing the causes of metal, punk, comic books, puppets, and all things ridiculously bass-y. Oh - and also - chiming in with bass wisdom and tips when appropriate.
As I plan to be here a bunch, I thought I’d try my best to introduce myself:
I can be easily googled, and you’ll find (in this order): 1.) my website 2.) a cool solo piece recorded at the ONLY gig Josh and I ever booked and played together, (So many faces were melted / booties were shaken right off of bodies, that we had to sign an agreement that we would never combine our fearsome shreddy powers live again), 3.) - on down: all sorts of credentials, etc. and lots of information about an Italian entrepreneur living in Scotland who shares my name.
What the internet doesn’t know about me is that I love to write, I love to draw and I love to cook. And - above all - I love my family: my wife and two daughters. When I’m listening to music is is most often super chunky, heavy, riffy metal. I also host a radio show with my family on our local radio station all about creativity and imagination… and dragons. I really like dragons.
I think the rest of the intros will just bubble out as we all get cozy in the forums together. Thanks for meeting me, nice to meet you all, and happy playing.
